86 THE HORSE COMRADE 



usual list of beauties. Some fourteen years 

 after my friend had sold out and left that 

 country, accident brought me to Fire Valley, 

 British Columbia, and dire need of a new pack 

 animal constrained me to buy the horse. Per- 

 haps for political reasons, or to evade the 

 police, by this time old Kruger had changed his 

 name to Spot. Frightened of him at first, my 

 partner and I discovered his great talents as a 

 pack-horse. Besides that, he was brave, loyal, 

 and gentle, and above all things humorous. A 

 rough passage of mountains brought us to 

 settlement, where men would laugh at Spot, 

 but horses never dared. One had only to say 

 '* Sick 'em ! " as to a dog, and Spot would 

 round up all the horses in sight and chase them. 

 His face was that of a fiend save for a glint of 

 fun in the one eye he had for business. For 

 about fourteen hundred miles he spread terror 

 before him, stampeding bunches of loose horses 

 but always coming back with a grin, as though 

 he said, " Now, ain't I the very Devil ? " 



In the North-west Mounted PoHce, a de- 

 tachment of us used to ride down bareback 

 with led horses to water at the ford of Battle 

 River. Close by was a wire cable for the 

 ferry. On one occasion, my horse as he left 

 the water turned under the cable to scrape me 



