Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-10-10
ONLY A MAD STALLION,
BUT HE HAD BLOOD IN HIS EYE AND
MADE THINGS WARM.


I have had several disagreeable encoun.
tiers with vicious horses, but only once was
i SO unfortunate as to fall in with one pos.
sessed by homicidal mania. My escape
was so narrow, and the experience left 50
deep an impression upon my mind, that !
have felt ever since an instructive distrust
for this most noble of domestic animals.
One autumn, when l was about 10, I was
taking a tramp through the eastern town
ships OF Quebec, preparatory to resuming
work at college. l reached the little village
of Maybury Il day at noon and dropped
into the village inn for luncheon. The
village was in a state of excitement over a
tragedy which had taken place that very
morning, and which was speedily detailed
to me by every one with whom l came in
contact. A boy living on a farm near the
village had been killed in the most horri-
BILE manner by a fine stallion that had gone
suddenly mad. A fierce anger stirred in
my veins as l listened to the story, and l
asked the inn keeper, who was my inform
ant, what they had done to the brute.
"Well," answered Boniface. "this after
noon there's a crowd goin' out to ketch
him an tie him up. If he's too bad fur
that-an' if l know anything about horses
he's just gone mad, stark mad-why,
they'll nave to shoot him off hand to save
their own necks."
Il wonder if Il run any risk of meeting
him?" queried rather anxiously. had
no weapon but my heavy walking stick,
and | had almost a sentimental regard for
the integrity of my neck.
(Which way be you bound2" inquired
Boniface.
For Blissville," l answered.
"Oh," said he, you're all right then.
The horses are feedin' out yonder to the
no'theast, and Blissville lays south"
AN UNPLEASANT AARyvNG.
1t was with few II: Is sEsattssasdssss hat l now
resumed my journey.
l was soon beyond tlr ss-Civaoed fields,
past the last of the fences. l had climbed
one of those rocky terraces and made 200
yards across the breezy down when be-
hind a low knoll l caught sight of a group
of horses quietly pasturing, and I remem.
bered with aqualm the mornings tragedy.
Could this, | asked myself, be the herd
containing that mad stallionl
halted and was about to retrace my
steps unobtrusively, in the hope that I had
escaped their notice. But it was too late.
Two or three of the animals raised their
heads and looked at me. One in the group
snorted with a peculiar half whinny, at the
sound of which my heart sunk.
Then caught sight of one in the center,
which seemed to be jumping up in the air
off all four feet at once. The next minute
this creature, a great black animal, ap-
peared outside the group, plunging and
biting at his flank. Then, with a short,
dreadful sound. he darted coward me, open
mouthed.
Up to this point I had stood my ground,
cycling the brute resolutely, with an ap,
pearance of fearlessness that l was very
far from feeling. But now l saw that my
only hope, and that a desperate one, lay in
flight. | was accounted at college a first
rate Splinter, and now l ran my best. The
200 yards that lay between me and the ter
race l had just left must have been GOV.
cred in not much more than twenty sec
onds. But as | reached the brow of the
slope the mad brute was close on my heels.
had no time to check myself, and even
less notion to do so. In fact I fell, and
rolled headlong down, dropping, bruised
and ~bewildered, into a crevice between two
powders The next instant | saw the
black mass of my pursuer dashing over me
in a splendid heap. Before he could turn
and seize me I had rolled further into the
~crevice, and found that one of the rocks
o%verhung so as to form a little narrow
cave, into which I could squeeze myself so
far as to be quite beyond the animals
reach.
Never before or since nave l discovered
SO unexpected and providential a refuge.
The raving stallion came bounding and
leaping up to the very door of my burrow,
but | felt safe. He would roll back his
lips, lay his ears fiat to his head, spring
straight into the air and shrek through
his wide red ~nostrils his fury and his chal-
lenge. The latter I did not think it incum-
bent upon me to accept. I waived it in dis.
dainful silence.
For a time the brute kept up his bound
ings and those strange, proud jerkings Of
his head, but at last he actually tried to
stretch his neck into my burrow and reach
me with his frightful naked teeth.
1t must have been for nearly an hour
that l watched the mad creatures antics
from my den.
was beginning to cast about somewhat
%anxiously for a way of escape from this
imprisonment when I saw the pasturing
herd suddenly toss up their heads and then
go scurrying away across the down. My
adversary saw this, too, and turned his at
tention away from me. I peered forth
cautiously, and to my profound relief l OBJ
served a party Of men, several carrying
ropes and halters and others armed with
rifles, approaching the terrace foot. One
man walked a little ahead of the others
and held out a peck measure in which he
shook something, which I presume to have
been oats.
H RESCUE PARTY.
The stallion eyed them somberly for an
instant, and then his name rose like a crest
and his head went back with a shrill cry.
In the selfsame way as he had greeted my
appearance he bounced into the air twice
or thrice. and then he dashed upon the
party.
The man with the oats fell back with
wonderful alacrity, and the fellows that
carried halters seemed bent upon effacing
themselves in the humblest posi-.
BILE. One tall. gray shirted woodsman
stepped to the front, raised his rife and
drew a bead upon the approaching fury,
while two or three others held their shots
in reserve. There was a moment of breath.
less suspense. Then the fine, thin note of
the woodlands rifle rung out, and the stall.
ion sprung aside with a shrek, and stun
bled forward upon his knees.
Almost instantly, however, he recovered
himself and rushed upon his opponents
with undiminished farncitv 7 hold NV