35 8 Recreations of a Sportsman 



all the venom of a bull-whip, almost stunning me 

 with the pain at times and driving the patient 

 horse frantic. 



From this we reached the live thick grease- 

 wood, now on the side of a canon where the 

 horse, demoralized, rolled over, falling with a 

 crash, leaving me in the bush. The temperature 

 must have been 110, and at every move a cloud 

 of copper-colored dust rose, a combination 

 which was maddening. I broke away the brush, 

 got the horse upon his feet, and crawled on my 

 knees for perhaps fifty feet to find an open- 

 ing; but it was all the same, and there was but 

 one thing to do. If I attempted to lead the 

 horse he invariably fell on me; I could not 

 force him down from behind, so I mounted, and 

 we ploughed, butted, and rammed our way down. 

 Time and again the horse reared and rolled 

 back in the awful maze; at every fall I lifted 

 myself into the saddle, my feet on it, holding 

 onto the big pommel, and as he went down 

 jumped into the bush or slid out of the way of 

 his hoofs. 



It did not require much of this for the horse 

 to become wildly excited, and I would sit in the 

 saddle and talk to him for five or ten minutes, 

 both of us almost suffocated, before beginning 

 again. The broncho finally brought me to a 

 clearing, where, after resting, I found a trail to 

 the valley below. This was an accidental and 



