PULLING ON ONE REIN. 95 



cued from drowning with great difficulty. Both men were 

 still in the city, confined from the effects of their injuries, 

 when I went there. It was well understood that no man 

 could drive this horse ; and no man in that country could be 

 induced to try the experiment again, for love or money, so 

 bad was the reputation of the horse. I brought this horse 

 under such complete subjection in an hour, that I did every 

 thing with him that could be done in the open street, to show 

 his perfect docility ; allowing him to trot off up the street, 

 ten rods away, and make him stop instantly at command. 

 Gen. Forrest, Gen. Rucker, Capt. Forrest, and others com- 

 bined to break me down. They believed I had given the 

 horse medicine, or something else. The horse was put 

 under lock and key for a week, when I was commanded to 

 drive him : I did so, with perfect success, proving the horse 

 perfectly safe. The success of the trial was so great as to 

 win for me the voluntary indorsement of the gentlemen 

 named, including other leading citizens, who became mem- 

 bers of my class in that city. In Garrettsville, O., was 

 owned a nine-year-old horse by a livery man, named J. R. 

 Gates, that would run away in harness any way they could 

 fix him, and was wholly unmanageable. After one lesson, 

 of not more than thirty to forty minutes' time, he could be 

 driven, perfectly gentle, and after standing two weeks without 

 doing any thing more with him (for upon trial I found him 

 safe), he was driven to wagon by me down the main street 

 of that village, controlling the horse by word, while ten rods 

 behind. He was sold as a family driving-horse to a gentle- 

 man in Pittsburg, Penn., and has remained perfectly gentle. 

 Wild Pete, the Smawley horse of Petroleum Centre, Penn., 

 referred to on page 14, was another remarkable case. 

 This horse was actually wild and desperate. It was an utter 

 impossibility to drive him, or hold him in harness. This 

 horse was generally known, and all laughed at the idea of 

 breaking or driving him. I made the public declaration 

 that I would drive him, perfectly gentle, in an hour ; and I 

 made the statement good by not only doing it, but broke 

 him in the time so thoroughly that he has been used as a 

 family driving-horse since, and he has proved absolutely safe. 

 When in Toledo, O., I broke a five-year-old colt, owned by 

 J. P. Collins, proprietor of the track there, in one lesson of 



