Jan. 3, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
5 
from point to point; they possessed the knowledge of 
the country, which enabled them to scatter like a flock 
of birdSj when too closely pursued, and they had for 
many years the buffalo, which furnished them an un- 
failing food supply. These things made it possible 
for them to resist the whites until the railroads, fore- 
runners of civilization, pierced their old-time hunting 
grounds in many directions. 
There have been from time to time in the Forest 
AND Stream, in years gone by, accounts of the wild 
horses of the hunting grounds of the West. We re- 
print two of them, one relating to fdaho, the other to 
Kansas and Colorado: 
Death of the ''Brown Stud." 
South of Boise City, Idaho, there is a great tract 
of lava country bounded by the Snake River, which 
is only fit for pasturage. This vast expanse is seventy- 
five miles one way and from twenty to thirty the other 
way. No living streams or springs intervene, and in 
summer heat it is impossible even for stock to live in 
some parts of it. For ten or twelve years this desert 
has been the home of a number of wild horses, roving 
in bands of different sizes from five or six to twenty 
or thirty. Each band is led by a stallion, and he guards 
them like the most watchful sentinel. Snuffing the 
danger, away he gallops to some elevation, where in a 
moment he spies the intruder, and back he gallops to 
his band to lead them in an opposite direction. Many 
horses each year were lost, and only a short time 
elapses before the tame are all wild alike. This year 
these bands have been broken up and most of them 
captured in a great corral. This corral has wings 
spreading out to catch the animals as they were chased 
down by their untiring pursuers. 
To the Dannskin brothers, of Boise City, belongs the 
credit of doing this. It involved great expense and 
took an iron will, endurance and good plans to accom- 
plish. Among all these horses there was one noted 
for his surprising swiftness and nobleness of bearing. 
A hundred dollars had been offered for his capture, 
and when the different bands, numbering altogether 
125, had been run down and captured, it was thought 
that by having twenty horses or more for relays sta- 
tioned at points where the chase could be plainly seen, 
the noble animal w^ould have to give up. Accordingly, 
on the 26th of May, a party started out from a dry 
camp twelve miles from any good water, to find and 
chase down the "brown stud,' as he was called. And 
no one ever supposed that his blood would redden the 
lariat's noose that night. He was sighted with liis band 
near Dorsey Butte, and, after a most exciting run of 
about sevnty miles in four hours and a half mostly over 
a lava country, rough and broken with fissures and 
naked masses, with high sage brush everywhere reach- 
ing to the knees, he was captured. Nine of the best 
saddle horses took him by relays, one of these, a cele- 
brated horse called Portland, himself of great power 
and activity. This horse alone gave the stud a breath- 
less chase of twenty miles on one circle. When tired, 
panting, but bright and noble to the last, the brown 
stud reached one of his old watering holes, pausing 
as if for some last farewell, he staggered and dropped 
struggling mightily against death. The terrible con- 
vulsions of the noble horse brought pity to the hearts 
of his captors. Everyone brought water in their hats 
to the horse and tried every remedy in vain. He had 
run his last race. Captured with him was a fine, fast, 
iron-gray gelding, which always ran with the stud and 
seemed his inseparable companion. As a usual thing, 
the stallion will not allow a gelding in the band. This 
was an exception. At night the iron gray was brought 
to camp, but he never rallied; toward night the look of 
death came over him, and in the morning he, too, was 
dead. The color of the stud was dark brown. He was 
six years old and weighed 1,000 pounds. 
BolSK CiTV, rdaho. James M. HAMILTON. 
Huntirg TH "Wild Horses. 
There is a strip of country between the Kansas Pa- 
cific and the Atchison, Topeka asid Santa Fe railroads, 
having Cimarron and Grinnell, in Kansas, and River 
Bend and Pueblo, in Colorado, as its corners, that is 
sparsely settled. Broad, treeless prairies, small streams 
at long intervals, a few small rain-water lakes, filled 
by local rainstorms that flood one section and fill 
every hole so Full that the water stands all winter, while 
a few miles away deeper hollows are bone dry. It is 
one of the last strongholds of the mustang in Atnerica. 
They range all over it in bands of from two to one 
hundred, generally from five to twenty-five in a band. 
They diflfer in color further west; in western Kansas 
they are mostly roan, on the Colorado line dark brown, 
and further on pinto or spotted black and white. There 
is one band of thirty-two head now on White Woman 
Creek, Kan., all roans, called the Dry Ridge Band, 
because they always strike straight west on a dry 
ridge when pursued; and another band of twenty-eight 
that are all black with white faces, called the Head- 
light Band, that range in the same vicinity. Tame stal- 
lions occasionally escape from emigrants or stock men 
and take a band of mares from the wild stallion and 
are not captured. In this manner the stock improves. 
It is a common thing to find tame branded ponies that 
formerly belonged to cattle men or Indians among 
them, and I have seen mules with scars on their shoul- 
ders from the collar that ran as fast and seemed as 
wild as their mustang companions. A band generally 
consists of one or two stallions, about ten mares and 
ten or twelve colts and yearlings. Of course, one of the 
stallions is "boss," and the other has to keep out of the 
way, but he stays around and will cut the bunch in two 
if he gets a chance, run them off and set up an estab- 
lishment of his own. There are thousands of these 
mustangs, and catching them is a regular business dur- 
ing the summer. 
It requires two or three men, two spans of good 
tough ponies broken to harness, well shod and fat; 
about six fast saddle horses, a light, strong, sprmg 
wagon, a twenty-gallon keg for water, lots of oats and 
a light camp outfit. Then find a bunch of horses that 
suits you and put the buggy after them with two men, 
the water keg, and a little" feed in it. The band will 
run off and travel seventy-five miles the first day. 
Manage to keep in sight of them, follow all night if it 
"is moonlight; by the next day at noon you will be 
back where the horses started from. Man No. 3 has 
made camp near water, and when he sees you coming 
is ready with the fresh team. Drive down to camp and 
slap in the fresh team, leave your most tired man to 
keep camp, and at them again another round of fifty 
to one hundred miles, and you come near camp again 
in about twenty-four hours with the mustangs badly 
tired. Change teams, put one man on horseback and 
make another round. It won't generally be more than 
twenty-five miles, for the horseman can turn the bunch 
a little. The next day with two saddle horses and no 
buggy, you can turn the band as you please, and every- 
body go to bed at night if it is dark, after that keep 
at them. In from seven days to twenty-one days you 
will tire them completely down, they are accustomed 
to the sight of the man on horseback and are not 
much afraid of him, and he can turn them where he 
pleases and get within one hundred yards of the wild- 
est. If you have no corral you have to snare the best 
ones. Let the colts and the dead lame ones stop and 
round them up; they will be only too glad to stand, 
for you have been whipping them along for the last 
two days. The well ones will run off a little way, but 
when you get between them and the cripples they 
will try to get back, and you can shack round and round 
the cripples in a little trot, and the wild ones will make 
four miles to your one, and half a day will tire them 
down. Then lay ropes on the ground close to the 
cripples and drive the others over them. When they 
get used to them make nooses and catch them by the 
feet and hobble and side line them. To hobble is to 
tie both fore feet together, so that a horse can only 
hobble. To side line is to tie one fore and one hind 
foot together with about tliree feet space. The cripples 
need not be touched. 
Now go home with your horses and you haven't 
secured much after all, for they are worn out and sel- 
dom recuperate. It is hard to break them gentle, and 
if they ever get away and find a band of mustangs you 
must have all your fun over again, if you want 
to catch them. There were about twenty outfits after 
mustangs last summer with varying success. Wild 
Horse Johnson, with his three sons, of Aubrey, Kan- 
sas, caught about 150 and got from $15 to $20 apiece 
for them. 
Fat colts are shot and eateri by some people that 
follow them, and one of the wild horse hunters ship- 
ped six hindquarters of old stud meat to Kansas City 
for buffalo, and some people beside horse hunters' fam- 
ilies know how wild horse meat tastes by this time. 
I have lain and watched them play for hours when 
I was out antelope hunting. I had a band of eight run 
all around me at thirty yards three months ago, as 
W. P. Dixon, of LiveriTiore, Pa., and I lay in a buffalo 
wallow watching theiri, but when they got our wind 
they ran clean out of sight in a bee line. 
W. J. D. 
CrMARROM, Kansas. 
That many horselike animals exist wild in parts of 
Asia to-day is well known. Most of these, however, 
are more nearly akin to the ass than to the horse. 
One of the most recently discovered of these, found 
in the sand deserts of central Asia, is an animal named 
Equus przewalskii. It is regarded by eminent author- 
ity as the only wild species of horse which is closely 
related to our domesticated Equus caballus. For a long 
time_ this Przewalski's horse was known from a single 
specimen only, but more recently others have been ob- 
tained, and quite lately collectors sent out by Carl 
Hagenbeck, the well-known animal dealer, secured a 
considerable number, about 40, we believe. Of these, 
a pair have been purchased by the New York Zoologi- 
cal Society, and have just reached America. 'I'hey are 
not yet on exhibition. Our illustration is from a 
photograph of two of the ITagenbeck herd. 
It has been suggested that this horse, or its close 're- 
lation, was the species first domesticated by man, but, 
however this may be, this horse is the nearest known 
living relative to the domestic horse. 
A Winter Stroll. 
Providence, R. I., Dec. 14.— To-day I took one of the 
electric lines running out of the city and rode to the 
terminus, which is in the quaint old village of Paw- 
tuxet, named from the river that here empties into 
the salt water. 
Crossing the bridge, I pause for a moment and take 
in the winter scene. Up river there is an unbroken 
sheet of ice covered deep in snow and coming almost 
to the cap log of the dam, leaving a narrow strip of 
black water to pour itself over and swirl and eddy 
among the rocks be]ow^ In the cove is a large fleet 
of yachts laid up for the winter, they are of all sizes, 
from the long, narrow steamer Llewellyn, down to the 
one-handler knockabout, all held fast in a sheet of 
snow-covered ice, regardless of size and of bigness of 
owners' purse. 
The northwest wind is searching, and I move on, 
thinking of that pleasant morning in August when I 
stood on that spot and caught white and yellow perch, 
sunfish and small bluefish, or skipjacks, in an eddy 
beside one of the big rocks. Up over the hill we go 
and find the walking harder as the snow is traveled 
less, but take the middle of the road and walk in the 
path made by the horses. 
- After nearly a mile of this, I turn off the road and 
pass through the bar way and am in the old home 
field with a small hill to climb and no path; up I go, 
every step knee-deep, but the distance is short and the' 
air clear and bracing. Reaching the crest, there is a 
fine view, the blue waters of the bay extending for 
miles with hardly more than a ripple on its surface. 
There are no vessels in sight, not even a coal barge, 
once a despised craft but now almost worshipped in 
these days of coal famine. 
Down the hill to the house is made almost on the 
run, but I notice the gray tufts of golden rod and 
asters standing just above the snow, still beautiful and 
holding food for the j uncos and tree sparrows, of which 
there are a few here. 
I wallow through a drift up to my middle and gain 
the house, and the trip is ended. I find them fairly 
snowed in, and I abandon my trip to the old Brown, 
place to hunt for winter birds, and shovel snow in- 
stead, and am derided by a solitary crow as he flies 
by. After dark we have a lunch of warm mince pie 
and doughnuts, such as a mother only can make, and 
then my brother and I start back for town. We had a 
full moon to light the way, and the road being broken 
out more, we found the going much easier. Having 
good luck in catching a car, we were soon bowling 
along toward our families, and soon ended a pleasant 
afternoon. 
On cold winter evenings it is good to look 
over our old note books, and while most of the entries ^ 
are commonplace enough, there are some that are 
worth experiencing again. We were spending the 
summer season down by the salt water, and one Sun- 
day morning, in early June, I took my two children, a 
boy of five and little girl of three, for a short walk 
along the beach road, when, just in front of us I saw 
a spotted sandpiper in apparent distress fluttering with 
outstretched wings and keeping a few feet in the lead 
of us. We stepped off to one side a short distance and 
waited. Soon the mother came back, and running 
along in the middle of the road, began to call, and we 
could see .small animated lumps come from hiding and 
go to her. 
Keeping my eye on one, we walked back to the road, 
and as the old bird saw us she trailed her wings and 
tail along the ground, trying to draw us aw^a^' from her 
babies, at the same time uttering a note that caused 
them to run and hide. The one I was watching crawled 
under a spear or two of beach grass and clung close 
to the sand, which he resembled so much in color, that 
had I not kept my eye constantly upon it, it would 
have remained hidden. I picked it up and held it 
gently in my hands, while the old bird would rush up' 
within a few feet and then trail away as though in-" 
jured, all the while calling to her chickens, and the 
one in my hand softly answered. 
He seemed to be perfectly contented, snuggling down 
and partly closing his eyes, as though the warmth of 
my hand felt good to him. After letting the children 
touch it with the tips of their fingers, we put it back 
in the sand, and walked away a short distance. The 
mother came at once, and using a rolling call like unto 
the note of the hylas in April, soon had her babie.'; 
around her, and I took mine and walked over to the 
south shore to see the white-capped rollers come 
tumbling in. S- S. B. 
