3 1 



has apparently no idea whatever of saving 

 his mount, whatever the distance he has to 

 travel. According to Colonel Dodge, who 

 has enjoyed many opportunities of informing 

 himself on Indian usages, more especially 

 as an enemy, he will gallop his pony till it 

 drops from sheer exhaustion. 



As showing what a good pony can do 

 in the hands of a man who knows how to 

 make the most of him, Colonel Dodge states 

 that he once tried to buy an animal which 

 pleased his eye, offering forty dollars for it ; 

 whereupon the owner replied that the price 

 was six hundred dollars. Repeating the 

 incident to someone who knew the pony, he 

 was informed that the owner had not been 

 actuated by any boastful spirit ; that he had 

 good reason for attaching a very high value 

 to it. The man, it appeared, had been 

 employed to carry the mail bags between 

 Chehuahua and El Paso, nearly 300 miles 

 .apart, during a period of six months, when 

 the roads were closed for ordinary travel 

 by marauding bands of Apache Indians on 

 the watch for white men. 



He had to make the perilous journey 

 once a week, and he performed it on the 

 pony, riding all night for three successive 

 nights, and hiding by day. The Indians, 



