10 



RECREATION. 



became of him. In fact, I don't want to 

 hear, for I have no doubt the bronco killed 

 him." 



Last and least of the pack horses was 

 little Nitchie, another pestiferous nuisance. 

 He is even smaller than Darkey, and is a 

 general all around fake. When there was 

 any work to do he always pretended to be 

 lame in his right fore leg ; but when we 

 would strike camp, and turn the bunch out, 

 he was as frisky as any of them, and never 

 limped from that time until packing time 

 came again. 



I don't know where they found his name, 

 but he was probably called after Nitchie 

 Novgorod, a city in Russia, or Siberia, or 

 Rhode Island, I have forgotten which. 



Nitchie always made more protests 

 against being packed than any other horse 

 in the gang. When we put up the first 

 bundle, no matter if it did not weigh more 

 than 15 pounds, he would sway to the 

 other side, and groan, and stagger, and 

 make faces, as if it were breaking his back 

 When the opposite pack was put up, he 

 would lean against the fellow on this side 

 and put up similar bluffs. When the top 

 pack went on, he would pretend this was 

 indeed the last straw, the one that was 

 really going to kill him, and we could 

 scarcely keep him from lying down. 



He never carried more than 125 pounds 

 any time during the summer ; but one 

 would think from the desperate pretenses 

 he made when being loaded, that we were 

 putting 400 pounds on him. 



When we came to cinching the load, 

 Nitchie would spread himself all over the 

 camp, grunt and fall about as if he were 

 being cut in 2, though we were always care- 

 ful not to cinch him so tightly as the other 

 horses. 



When we got on the trail Nitchie seemed 

 to forget all about having anything to carry, 

 and was the first to drop out of the ranks 

 and graze. He had an appetite like that of 

 an ostrich. No matter if he had been in 

 grass knee high all the afternoon and 

 night, he never seemed to get enough, and 

 10 minutes out of camp he could not pass 

 a tempting bite without making a dive 

 for it. We showed him a good deal of 

 mercy on account of his being the runt of 

 the outfit, and on account of his being, or 

 pretending to be, lame. He was so persist- 

 ent in his grazing habit that about once 

 every half hour it became necessary to wake 

 him up and set him going. He would even 

 go 30 or 40 feet from the trail to get into 

 a good bunch of grass. At such times I 

 would spur my horse and run up on him 

 before he knew I was coming, and I would 

 land a hot one on his rump with the whip, 

 following it with 2 or 3 more before he 

 could get out of reach. When he would 

 get back into the train he would stop and 



look back at me as much as to say, "How 

 the devil did you ever get up there without 

 letting me know it?" 



Nitchie was by all odds the clown of the 

 bunch, and afforded us more fun than all 

 the other horses combined. 



The saddle horses have their own private 

 opinions and tastes, and their own ways of 



NELLIE. 



doing things, as well as the pack horses. 



Foxy, otherwise called the Red Fox, be- 

 cause of his wearing the color of that ani- 

 mal, was Tom's saddle horse. He was the 

 dude of the outfit, the handsomest pony 

 of the lot, with the possible exception of 

 Darkey. These 2 would have tied for first 

 place in a beauty show. Foxy was fat, 

 sleek and his red coat glistened in the sun 

 light like a newly painted automobile. 



Wright's saddle horse bears the homely, 

 commonplace name of Nellie. She is a 

 little buckskin, and is so woefully awk- 

 ward, yet so anxious to be -good, that she 

 enlisted the sympathy of the entire party. 

 'She was always stumbling or staggering, or 

 getting into trouble of some kind. Her spe- 

 cialty was going on the other side of every 

 tree she came to. Wright liked to walk 

 and lead his horse, and Nellie would leave 

 a good trail any time to go on the other 

 side of a tree from that on which Wright 

 had gone. Then Wright would say things. 

 Meantime he would have to back up and 

 pull the mare around on his side, or else 

 go on her side of the tree. I never knew 

 a horse that could do so many things in a 

 given time to provoke uncomplimentary re- 

 marks on the part of a master as Nellie 

 could. She didn't mean it. She was sim- 

 ply built that way, and could not help it. 



Last and largest is Baldy ; true, faithful, 

 kind, untiring old Baldy. That was what 

 his owners called him, because he has a 

 clean face ; but he is deserving of a better 

 name, and after a month of intimate ac- 

 quaintance with him I christened him Old 

 Surefoot. He carried me about 300 miles 



