The Pacing; Mustang* 



was not a little disappointed on the second day 

 when we came to the prairie on Antelope 

 Springs and saw no sign of the Pacer or his band. 

 But on the next day, as we crossed the AVa- 

 mosa Arroyo, and were rising to the rolling 

 prairie again, Jack Burns, who was riding on 

 ahead, suddenly dropped flat on the neck of his 

 horse, and swung back to me in the wagon, 

 saying : 



■ ' Get out your rifle, here's that stallion." 



I seized my rifle, and hurried forward to a 

 view over the prairie ridge. In the hollow be- 

 low was a band of horses, and there at one end 

 was the Great Black Mustang. He had heard 

 some sound of our approach, and was not un- 

 suspicious of danger. There he stood with 

 head and tail erect, and nostrils wide, an image 

 of horse perfection and beauty, as noble an 

 animal as ever ranged the plains, and the mere 

 notion of turning that magnificent creature into 

 a mass of carrion was horrible. In spite of 

 Jack's exhortation to 'shoot quick,' I delayed, 

 and threw open the breach, whereupon he, al- 

 ways hot and hasty, swore at my slowness, 

 growled, ' Gi' me that gun,' and as he seized 



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