316 FORTY-FOUR YEARS OP 



kicking, my front underwent a complete raking. I bore 

 it until I could endure it no longer, and was glad to let 

 him up again ; wlien we took another dance, and after 

 two or three rounds I threw him again, and tried to tie 

 him ; but when I would relax my hold he would rise and 

 lead me another dance. At last, becoming as mad as he 

 was, and the fight becoming desperate, I got him down, 

 and was determined to tie him at all hazards. 



He continued to kick until he had so raked my front, 

 that I felt as if covered with a blister plaster; after which 

 he drew himself up, and with the points of his hinder 

 hoofs caught my pants, and tore them from the seam of 

 the waistband, taking one-half of my pants clear off to 

 the ankle, leaving me half-naked, on a cold day and in the 

 midst of snow. 



Maddened at such an insult, I ran into him with despe- 

 ration, and threw him down in the deep snow. By this 

 time I was so worried and heated, that I felt no inconve- 

 nience from the snow and the cold ; for I was smoking 

 like a coal-pit. On my part, the fight had not been car- 

 ried on with much vigor and determination, until I lost 

 my pants ; but after that happened, I became furious, and 

 determined to conquer him, if it took me until the moon 

 rose ; and I did not thereafter suffer him to rise to his feet 

 until the fight ceased. When he found that he could not 

 rise, his whole aim was to get the rope off his neck, which 

 by hard labor I had tied round it. 



He would get his hind feet in the rope, and drag at it 

 until he choked himself; and when I pulled them out, in 

 a moment he would be in the same fix again. So it con- 

 tinued until he caught the points of his hoofs in a wrinkle 

 of the loose hanging skin of his neck, and tore just half 

 of it from his shoulder, as far up as the rope could go 

 toward his ears. This looked so bad, that I loosened the 

 -ope, pulled the skin dov ii again, and lot him rise to hia 



