INDIAN TRAINING 17 



not nine. His riding is not an art, it is nature. The cow- 

 boy has a task to tax the stoutest when he rides into a 

 stampeded herd of cattle ; but the cowboy has saddle and 

 bridle-arm, the Indian had neither. 



The Indian has never developed a system of training 

 his ponies. Each man taught his own to suit himself, and 

 except under imitation of some chief who had exceptional 

 success in training his ponies, or a certain trick perhaps 

 shown by father to son and thus perpetuated, there was 

 none but individual knack in his horsemanship. The 

 plains pony was quickly taught after a rough-and-ready 

 fashion, more by cruelty than kindness ; in a manner, in 

 fact, as different from the system of the Arab as the fine 

 shape of the horse of the desert as we see him in pictures 

 differs from the rugged outline of the bronco as we see 

 him in reality. All horses are more intelligent than man 

 supposes; those most with men, or on w r hich man most 

 depends, most readily respond to training; and the Ind- 

 ian and his pony were every day and all day comrades. 

 Before the Indian could trade for or steal a bit, he always 

 used the jaw-rope or nothing. With the rope in the left 

 hand, he bore against the neck to turn to one side, and 

 gave a pull to turn to the other; or else he shifted his 

 pony's croup by a more or less vigorous kick with either 

 heel. When both his hands were busy, he relied entirely 

 upon his legs and the pony's knowledge of the business 

 in hand ; but as every Indian digs his heels into the horse's 

 flanks and lashes him with the quirt at every stride, it is 

 hard to see how the pony caught on to his meaning. The 

 more credit to the quadruped. 



This method of the Indian is nothing new. You find 

 the same thing among all tribes on whose territory the 

 horse is indigenous. Historically we know that the Nu- 

 midians, several centuries before the Christian era, had 



