208 BEAUTY OF THE MUSTANG. 
Mountains; the hunter, on the Arkansas, or 
in the midst of the Plains; while others have 
him pacing at the rate of half a mile a minute 
on the borders of Texas. It is hardly a mat- 
ter of surprise, then, that a creature of such 
an ubiquitary existence should never have 
been caught. 
The wild horses are generally well formed, 
with trim and clean limbs; still their elegance 
has been much exaggerated by travellers, be- 
cause they have seen them at large, abandon- 
ed to their wild and natural gaiety. Then, it 
is true, they appear superb indeed; but when 
caught and tamed, they generally dwindle 
down to ordinary ponies. Large droves are 
very frequently seen upon the Prairies, some- 
times of hundreds together, gambolling and 
curvetting within a short distance of the cara- 
vans. It is sometimes difficult to keep them 
from dashing among the loose stock of the 
traveller, which would be exceedingly dan- 
gerous; for, once together, they are hard to 
separate again, particularly if the number of 
mustangs is much the greatest. It is a sin- 
gular fact, that the gentlest wagon-horse (even 
though quite fagged with travel), once among 
a drove of mustangs, will often acquire in a 
few hours all the intractable wildness of his 
untamed companions. 
The mustang is sometimes taken by the 
cruel expedient of ‘creasing,’ which consists 
in shooting him through the upper crease of the 
neck, above the cervical vertebra ; when, the 
ball I cutting a principal nerve, he falls as sud- 
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