170 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
carriage make an excellent team for long journeys. 
In the early days of California, the fast stage-coaches, 
famous for tearing down mountain roads and skirting 
the edges of a precipice, were horsed chiefly, if not en- 
tirely, by broncos. But the endurance of this animal 
as a roadster has been exaggerated. The truth is that 
broncos are ridden and driven great distances in a day, 
not so much because they can accomplish the task 
with impunity, as because they are cheap, and their 
owners are cruel. If a bronco is ruined by a long 
drive, it is easy to replace him. 
Broncos are commonly intelligent, but they are also 
apt to be vicious. In fact, the breaking which they 
undergo, and which has been practised upon many 
generations of their ancestors, could hardly fail to 
leave them otherwise than vicious. “Buffalo Bill” 
has made the buck-jumping of a bronco familiar to 
the people of two continents. Nor is it easy to make 
them go safely in harness. A neighbor of mine once 
hitched to a light road-cart a pony that had been rid- 
den for some years. He took many precautions in 
the way of straps and ropes, so that kicking was ren- 
dered impossible. Finally, when all was ready, he 
mounted the cart and drove quietly out of the yard. 
I watched him as far down the road as I could see, 
and no old horse could have gone more steadily or 
better than this bronco. But, as it soon appeared, 
he was only biding his opportunity. When he came 
to a bridge over a river, which he had often crossed 
before, the pony without the least warning, jumped 
the rail, taking man and cart along with him, and 
dropped the whole establishment in the flood. It was 
in the spring, and ice was running, but with some 
