THE PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE. 225 



amount of food seemed to do him any good ; he always 

 appeared in the last stage of consumption, although 

 his capacity of stowage of forage was immense : nor 

 did he ever lose a chance to get a cow kick at the 

 unwary, or make his teeth meet in the flesh of the 

 too confiding. Broomstick, from having lately had a 

 very easy time, was selected for the day's work, and 

 with expressions of grief that would break the heart 

 of the most obdurate, he submitted to be saddled up, I 

 returning every few minutes to take an extra pull 

 upon the girths, for the villain would expand himself 

 like a bull frog that had fallen into the hands of 

 unfeeling schoolboys, so that when you imagined you 

 had got safely seated and ready to start, by a succession 

 of the most mulish and awkward back- jumps, the 

 saddle would get forward beyond where his withers 

 ought to have been, and nought but wonderful skill 

 or fortune in the laws of equitation would prevent 

 the rider from kissing mother-earth. Now Broom- 

 stick could go if you knew how to take it out of 

 him, and that was accomplished by commencing with 

 a high hand from the start, and giving him " the 

 brumagems " every pace or two, and twice as often if 

 you felt his back getting up (which he used to raise 

 after the manner of a half- starved sow), or at any 

 attempt to get his head down. 



Q 



