METAPHYSICS OF BEAR HUNTING. 353 



attention to the guide's reiterated "No! no! por Dios!" 

 when he suddenly threw out his heels in such devilish earnest 

 that they clattered together just above my forehead, and 

 reminded me that "prudence was the better part," &c., so 

 far as he was concerned, yet awhile. I turned off with a 

 feeling of high indignation at this ungrateful reception of 

 my kindly intentions, and consigned him over to the tender 

 mercies of the Mexican, with the petulant and unnecessary 

 injunction, to " kill him, or ride that devil out of him !" I 

 have some times since thought that the horse must have 

 understood this cruel speech, and to have bided his time to 

 avenge himself right royally and he did it, too, as you will 

 presently see ! 



Our westward march was now resumed. We soon recovered 

 that careless buoyancy which had somewhat been checked by 

 the unpromising "first night." The scenery was glorious, 

 the air deliciously fresh and bracing, the Doctor and his 

 pony irresistibly comic ; and the grouse was soon startled, 

 whirring up from its grassy couch by the joyous bursts of 

 tameless merriment. That same Doctor, and his better part, 

 on four legs, were enough to have kept an army in a roar. I 

 say better part, for the pony was as self-opinionated as he 

 was cross-grained, and scarcely an hour passed that he and 

 his rider had not some misunderstanding to settle, in the 

 final adjustment of which " bobtail" ' generally managed to 

 get the best of it. On the slightest matter of offence being 

 given, the irrascible little wretch would stop and bite at the 

 Doctor's short legs ; when he, of course, jerking them back 

 suddenly to avoid snaps, his armed heels would prick the 

 pony's flank, who would spring forward with several quick 

 successive leaps, which would sadly discommode his rider's 

 equilibrium, and, not unfrequently, would keep them up with 

 such rapidity, that the tight, round personalities of the 

 Doctor, after a flying ascension over his head, would plump 

 into the grass ; but as that happened to be very thick, and 



23 



