AN INDIAN HORSE RACE. , ;; 



a figure in the affair. If I had not never forget and am glad I accepted 



been there the Indians would have Or-au-pah eu's invitation. But such 



done the shooting. I merely helped scenes will never again be enacted, 



them out and saved them a few car- and the only shooting we do now Ls 



tridges. I had an experience I shall in theory— in the Officers' Lyceum. 



AN INDIAN HORSE RACE. 



Maj. F. M. Bernard. 



It happened at the Agency when refusal. Howling Bull then appeared 



Troop O was over there, escorting and used his eloquence at first with- 



from the fort a delegation from the out avail ; but later, when he hint< d 



Society for the Amelioration of the that he might be able to recover the 



Condition, and the Protection from stolen steed, the Captain relented. 



Imposition, of the Plains Indians. He knew of this Indian's expertness 



The Agency butcher, Beckett, told in the science of horse-transference 



Farrier Lipbrown, of Troop O, that and that he could probably make 



Howling Bull, a young chief, was good his hint. 



anxious to match his American The excitement over the race was 

 horse, Tegante (popularly believed great. Both horses were well known, 

 to be a part of the spoils of last and, it was thought, evenly matched. 

 year's raid on the horse ranches near Lipbrown and Beckett had exclusive 

 the railroad), against the Troop's information, acquired in dark and 

 running horse, Ossian, and proposed devious ways unknown to the Indian. 

 making a race. The farrier doubted They had a certainty, plunged hero- 

 if it could be done, because, during ically, taking everything the whites 

 the march over, a party of Crow In- at the Agency could be induced to 

 dians that camped near the Troop put on Tegante. The Indians were 

 one night had run off several horses, moneyless, but they freely staked 

 including the captain's own, one of ponies, furs, etc., against the luxuries 

 the fastest in that part of the west, of the trader's store. Howling Hull. 

 This had naturally enraged him a fine specimen of his race, had been 

 against all Indians and their doings, educated at a Jesuit college near 

 Beckett persisted ; showed how such St. Louis, and had returned to his 

 an opportunity for getting the best people as a leaven ot civilization. 

 of the guileless red man might never But the leaven did not work. ( >nce 

 occur again; that it was too good a back in a lodge with a blanket on 

 chance of doing him to be lost. his head he was a savage again in 

 Howling Bull was Beckett's broth- spite of 20 years of teaching. A 

 er-in-law, so he could get all the in- knowing savage, however, his school- 

 side information about the other ing was not entirely thrown away. It 

 horse; and with this, added to the helped to make him a man of note- 

 other advantages he possessed, it in his tribe, and gave him a knowl- 

 would be odd if the race didn't go edge of the manners, habits, and cus- 

 our way. In fact, he put the matter toms of the white man which his 

 so forcibly and favorably that Lip- brothers did not possess. He learned 

 brown agreed to speak to the First one lesson in the St. Pom's school he 

 Sergeant about it. The First Ser- did not forget. That was the value 

 geant, when he proposed the match of money, and he always had a tidy 

 to the Captain, met with a profane sum stowed away somewhere. I his 



