298 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



day. We had neither haj nor oats to give them ; 

 there was nothing but the dry grass of the prairie, 

 and no time to eat but the cold frosty night. We 

 seldom travelled less than fifty miles a day, stopping 

 one hour at mid-day, and going on again until dark. 

 ' My horse was a wonderful animal ; day by day 

 I feared that his game little limbs were growing 

 wear}^, and that he must soon give out. But not a 

 bit of it ; his black coat roughened, his flanks grew 

 thinner, but he still went gamely on. When I dis- 

 mounted to save him, and let his companions go on 

 before, he never rested till I mounted again, and 

 then he trotted briskly on until he regained them. 

 At the camping-place my first care was to remove 

 saddle, saddle-cloth, and bridle, and hobble him with 

 a bit of soft buffalo leather twisted round his fore- 

 legs, and then poor Blackie hobbled away in the 

 darkness to seek his provender. After a time we 

 drove all the horses down to some lake, where 

 Daniel (a half-breed servant) would cut little drink- 

 ing holes in the ever-thickening ice. Then up would 

 bubble the water and down went the heads of the 

 thirsty horses at the too often bitter springs, for half 

 the lakes and pools between the Assiniboine and 

 South Saskatchewan are harsh with salts and alkali. 

 Sometimes night would come down upon us whilst 

 still in the midst of a great treeless plain, without 

 shelter, water, or grass. Then we pushed on in inky 

 darkness, and Blackie stepped out briskly, as if he 



