390 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 27, 1913. 
not quite right. What it was he did not know. 
Suddenly a little hunch of sage caught his eye. 
He had been there many times, but had never 
noted it before. He looked at it hard. Cer¬ 
tainly it was too small to bother about. Finally 
he started forward, then stopped, then on again, 
until suddenly the air carried the danger signal. 
The writer had no time to spare; barely enough 
to get the focus and press the bulb. At last, and 
after many days, the artifice of the white man 
had succeeded. 
It took a lot of time and trouble, but it was 
worth all it cost. Always there will remain the 
inspiring sight of the splendid wild horses as 
they sped across the sand to safety. With heads 
high in the air, necks outstretched, and manes 
and tails streaming in the wind, they looked as 
they were—the Spirit of the Open. 
In the northeastern part of Utah, where the 
mountains border Wyoming, southward along 
Green River for a distance of some hundreds of 
miles, there are wide sweeps of plain and plateau 
with practically no vegetation. Sage brush and 
greasewood, sand and big stones Sre the domi¬ 
nant note. In the river valleys, however, there 
is many a growth of cotton woods—some of 
them splendid trees—and here and there areas 
of grass of vivid green. Where the river cuts 
through the mountains there are canons with 
steep sides, sometimes thousands of feet in 
height, and with such profusion of color effect 
as to rival even the wonderful Yellowstone 
River. 
From its source, in Northern Wyoming, Green 
River runs southward until its waters merge 
with the Grand and finally wash the Grand 
Canon of Colorado. The river border is broken 
by hills and cliffs, with here and there a white 
strip of plain. Stillness and desolation are 
supreme. Now and again a coyote or rabbit 
is seen. Occasionally a little bunch of antelope 
caper over the prairie. Further south, and in 
the Book Cliffs, there are still a few wild sheep. 
Little of the land is settled, and much of it 
never will be. It is too arid. Irrigation facili¬ 
ties are at a minimum. Nature, however, atones 
by wonderful sky and color effects. The deeper 
tones prevail. While the shadings run from livid 
blue to deepest gold, the atmosphere is singularly 
clear, and the eastern eye is continually deceived 
as to distance. Objects a long way off seem 
near at hand. 
In this wild and desolate region the Lite 
Indians make their home. It is only within a 
few years that their vast reservation has been 
divided into separate parcels. A sub-agency at 
the junction of the Du Chesne and the Green 
River is named Ouray in honor of their noted 
chieftain. Chipeta Wells, a stopping point on 
the stage line, serves to hand down the name of 
his squaw to history. The scenes of the popular 
drama and book entitled “The Squaw Man,” are 
laid at a cattle ranch in this section,. and the 
principal characters and incidents are said to 
have been taken from real life. 
In earlier days this entire region was a 
favorite habitat for wild horses, and even now 
there are many. Major J. W. Powell mentioned 
seeing numbers of them in the course of his 
expeditions down the Green River in 1869-70. 
The Indians catch them by building long wings 
of fences so as to form a chute at the entrance 
of a box canon or one which closes at the fur¬ 
ther end. A line of mounted men work a band 
gradually along, and when near the trap, sud¬ 
denly yell, shoot in the air, wave their ropes 
and stampede the wild horses into it. They are 
then lassoed and removed to corrals. Few of 
them are plump or in really good condition. As 
a rule, the struggle for existence has been too 
tough. Frequently they are so thin that their 
ribs stick out, and many of them are undersized 
and skinny. Occasionally there is one of good 
appearance, and solidly built, and at rare inter¬ 
vals a horse, splendid in every way, is found. 
Nearly every locality has traditions of some wild 
horse wonder. In most cases, however, time 
and romance have done much to color the origi¬ 
nal, where there really was one. They usually 
water at dusk or after dark, and pick up a pre¬ 
carious existence on such food as they can find 
among the rocks. Unless disturbed, they do not 
cover a large amount of country in their roving. 
A band usually confines itself to a section of 
a few miles either way. When startled or 
alarmed they are tireless travelers and good for 
indefinite distances. The ones pictured made 
their home in and about LTteland Hill, near 
Green River, and can nearly always be found 
in its vicinity. They are not favorites with the 
ranchmen, as they often lure the domestic horses 
away from home. The rifle of the frontiers¬ 
man comes to his shoulder easily, and a bullet 
frequently zips toward the disturbers, usually 
not with much success. The wild ones are keen 
of sight and scent, and it is a good deal of an 
undertaking to get near them. Stories are told 
of riding down and roping them by the use of 
a number of men with relays ot fresh horses. 
It is even alleged that on one occasion Hank 
Stewart, a man of much endurance, and a wild 
horse catcher by profession, is said to have per¬ 
formed his feat unaided. He rode a very power¬ 
ful white pony which he had captured wild and 
then tamed. 
Wild horses, after domestication, are excel¬ 
lent under the saddle, although at times a bit 
capricious and wont to indulge in bucking. They 
are also good for light driving work, and a few 
of the best are even used for polo. Buyers from 
Kansas City, Denver and other central points 
from time to time visit Ouray and other places 
where they are likely to find captives for sale. 
A buyer may remain at one place for a month 
or two until he has purchased from different 
Indians a band of seventy-five or one hundred. 
He will then hire several of them to help drive 
the band over the desert a hundred miles or 
more to Price, which is a railroad shipping point. 
Four or five days are required to make the trip, 
as they cannot be driven rapidly. At night a 
guard is stationed about the horses, and the re¬ 
mainder of the men sleep on the ground in 
readiness for instant action. From Price, the 
horses are shipped all over the country. 
It is an occasion of great interest when a 
buyer and his wild assistants start on the drive 
from Ouray. Day is just breaking, and with -as 
little noise as possible the wild horses are driven 
out of the corral and formed into a compact 
bunch. About them at intervals of eight or ten 
feet apart are the mounted Indians. In front is 
the buyer and one of his men to act as leaders. 
Absolute stillness prevails until the band is 
quieted. Then slowly and cautiously, without 
word or gesture, the skillful Indians gradually 
press them toward the leaders, and the entire 
outfit moves off across the plain. The maneuver 
is not always successful. On one occasion a 
large band came tearing back within an hour 
after leaving. Into the plaza they came on the 
dead run, followed by the buyer and his wildly 
excited Indian's. In attempting to stay the stam¬ 
pede, one of the Indians had caught a thumb 
in his rope and torn it off. The trouble began 
when the buyer dropped a small tin tobacco box 
on a rock at the Du Chesne River crossing. This 
was sufficient to frighten one or two of the 
nearest horses, and the rest immediately joined 
the rush. After a day in the corral they quieted 
down, and the next morning a fresh start was 
made successfully. 
Wild horses originated principally from 
domestic waifs and strays, with now and then 
a strain of blood from the horses brought over 
by the early Spanish explorers. They form a 
picturesque feature of the wild country, and it 
is to he hoped they will long survive to give 
suggestion of the days when there was a frontier. 
Wildfowl Expedition Successful. 
The expedition to Northern Manitoba con¬ 
ducted by Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist 
of Connecticut, in co-operation with the United 
States Government, to continue investigations in 
the propagation of wildfowl, has returned suc¬ 
cessful. Since the latter part of May the party 
have been in camp on the shore of Lake Winni- 
pegosis, a wilderness of muskeg and poplar 
forest, abounding in moose, deer, wildfowl, 
grouse and many other sorts of game and fish. 
Under permit from the Canadian Government, 
about 200 young wild ducks of ten species, which 
were mostly hatched in incubators and raised 
by Mr. Job, were brought out, and most of them 
safely landed in Connecticut. The species spec¬ 
ially sought was the canvasback, of which a con¬ 
siderable number were raised, the other kinds 
obtained being the redhead, lesser scaup or 
broadbill, goldeneye or whistler, pintail, mallard, 
gadwall, shoveler or spoonbill, green-winged and 
blue-winged teal, and also the American coot or 
mudhen. The hatch averaged 92 per cent., ex¬ 
actly the same as on the expedition of last year. 
A great amount of valuable data and hundreds 
of interesting and novel photographs were se¬ 
cured, amid exciting and dangerous adventures. 
The expedition also comprised the party of A. C. 
Bent, of the Smithsonian Institution, Washing¬ 
ton, who is preparing the Government work on 
“Life Histories of North American Birds.’’ F. S. 
Hersey, of Taunton, Mass., assisted in the latter 
work, and George Curtiss Job, of the senior 
class in Yale University, in the wildfowl research. 
Cannot Do Without It. 
Gettysburg, Pa., Sept. 6.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Inclosed find certified check to cover 
five years’ subscription. I cannot do without 
Forest and Stream. I came to Gettysburg in 
1896 and began to take the paper from our news¬ 
dealer and have been a reader ever since. I 
would just as soon do without my daily paper 
as without Forest and Stream. Here’s hoping 
that it will live and prosper many times forty 
years and be as eagerly read by the coming 
sportsmen as it is to-day by my family. 
F. Mark. Bream. 
