330 INDIANS. 



The rider was a stalwart buck of one hundred and 

 seventy pounds, looking big and strong enough to carry 

 the poor beast on his shoulders. He was armed with 

 a huge club, with which, after the word was given, he 

 belaboured the miserable animal from start to finish. 

 To the astonishment of all the whites, the Indian won 

 by a neck. 



Another race was proposed by the officers, and, after 

 much ' dickering,' accepted by the Indians, against the 

 next best horse of the garrison. The bets were doubled ; 

 and in less than an hour the second race was won by the 

 same pony, with the same apparent exertion and with 

 exactly the same result. 



The officers, thoroughly disgusted, proposed a third 

 race, and brought to the ground a magnificent Kentucky 

 mare, of the true Lexington blood, and known to beat 

 the best of the others at least forty yards in 400. The 

 Indians accepted the race, and not only doubled bets as 

 before, but piled up everything they could raise, 

 seemingly almost crazed with the excitement of their 

 previous success. The riders mounted ; the word was 

 given. Throwing away his club, the Indian rider gave 

 a whoop, at which the sheep-like pory pricked up his 

 ears, and went away like the wind, almost two feet to 

 the mare's one. The last fifty yards of the course was run 

 by the pony with the rider sitting face to his tail, making 

 hideous grimaces, and beckoning to the rider of the mare 

 to come on. 



It afterwards transpired that the old sheep was a 

 trick and straight race pony, celebrated among all the 

 tribes of the south, and that Mu-la-que-top had only just 

 returned from a visit to the Kickapoos, in the Indian 

 nation, whom he had easily cleaned out of 600 ponies. 



In practising with bow and arrow, the Indian has a 

 short loop of raw hide attached to the pommel of the 

 saddle, which he passes over his head and under his arm 

 when he wishes to throw himself on the side of his horse. 



