PUNISHMENT FOR HORSE-STEALING. 195 



Fort Mason, one hundred and twenty miles north of the town, 

 where the prairie begins. This was the great place for buying 

 ponies, many men owning hundreds of them, which ranged 

 over an immense extent of country, and sometimes took weeks 

 to find. As it would be very easy to steal any number of 

 these, it had been made a hanging offence, and any man caught 

 stealing a horse was lynched at once, the usual way being to 

 make one of the animals he had stolen the executioner. The 

 horse-thief was put on one of the ponies, with his hands tied 

 behind him, a rope was fastened round his neck and the other 

 end tied to the bough of a tree over his head, it being then 

 merely a question of time as to when the pony would move off 

 to feed and leave the man hanging. Since this became the 

 unwritten law of the land, horse-stealing has gone out of 

 fashion. We remained several weeks in San Antonio, getting 

 supplies, having our animals shod, and allowing them to 

 recruit before starting on our seven hundred miles journey to 

 Denver. 



We had here an opportunity of seeing how they managed to 

 shoe the wild ponies which were always being brought in. 

 This was done by pushing them into a strong frame, just wide 

 enough to hold them, where they had bands passed round them, 

 and were then lifted off their feet, rendering them quite 

 helpless. " Henry " was shod in this way, the country north 

 of the town being too rocky to pass through with unshod 

 horses. We saw here, too, some wild-horse breaking, the best 

 riders being negroes. Sometimes the bucking would go on for 

 half an hour or more, the rider bleeding at the nose and mouth 

 when it was over ; and we were told that very few men can 



break wild horses for more than two years, and they then are 



o2 



