“BROOMSTICK.” 133 
of beef, were ever relished with more gusto than was that 
meal. 
After the viands had disappeared, over the consoling, 
soothing pipe, our course for the day was discussed, and, 
as the rain had ceased and clouds lifted, giving every pros- 
pect of fine weather, it was decided that we should remain 
another night where we were, and in the mean time each 
start in different directions to seek for a supply of game, 
to prevent our going supperless to rest, and resuming our 
journey on the morrow with empty stomachs. 
I had a horse. From his wonderful formation and ‘in- 
tense ugliness, I dubbed him “ Broomstick ;” he was truly 
a doleful beast, to look at; no amount of food seemed to do 
him any good; he always looked in the last stage of con- 
sumption, although his capacity of stowage of forage was 
immense; nor did he ever lose a chance to get a cow-kick 
at the unwary, or make his teeth meet in the flesh of the 
too confiding. Broomstick, from having lately had an eas- 
ier time than my other mount, was selected for the day’s 
work, and with expressions of grief that would break the 
heart of the most obdurate, he submitted to be saddled; I 
returning every few minutes to take an extra‘pull upon the 
girths, for the villain would expan himself on such occa- 
sions like a pouter-pigeon, so that when you imagined you 
had got safely seated, and ready to start, by a succession 
of the most mulish and awkward buck-jumps, the saddle 
would get forward beyond where his withers ought to have 
been, and naught but wonderful skill in the laws of equita- 
tion or fortune would prevent the rider from kissing moth- 
er earth, Now Broomstick could go, if you knew how to 
take it out of him, and that was accomplished by com- 
mmencing with a high hand from the start, and giving him 
“the brumagems” every pace or two, and twice as often if 
you felt his back getting up (which he used to roach after 
