130 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



controlled, almost human seems the plainsman's 

 horse ! 



I share all the tenderfoot's admiration for the 

 cowboy and his " pony." Both of them are neces- 

 sary in bringing a herd of four thousand cattle 

 through from P Ranch to Winnemucca ; and of 

 both is required a degree of daring and endur- 

 ance, as well as a knowledge of the wild animal 

 mind, that lifts their hard work into the heroic, 

 and makes of every drive a sagebrush epic — so 

 wonderful is the working together of man and 

 horse, the centaur come back ! So free and effect- 

 ive the body directed by the human intelligence 

 that fills and rules it like a soul. 



From P Ranch to Winnemucca is a seventeen- 

 day drive through a desert of rim rock and grease- 

 wood and sage, that, under the most favorable of 

 conditions, is beset with difficulty, but which in 

 the dry season, and with a herd even approach- 

 ing four thousand, becomes an unbroken hazard. 

 More than anything else on such a drive is feared 

 the wild herd-spirit, the quick, black temper of 

 the cattle* that, by one sign or another, ever 

 threatens to break the spell of the riders' power 

 and sweep the maddened or terrorized beasts to 



