The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-02-09
MAJORS RECORD.
A California Mustangs Wild Race
Through Cold and Rain.

The other day a hern county rancner
telegraphed to the best horse doctor in
San Francisco:
"Take the next train, come out to my
farm, and do what you can for my mus
tang"
The doctor went, found an old saddle
horse, long past usefulness, in fact
dying, and returned. wondering what
made the rancher so anxious about the
animal.
Others wondered, too, until the story
was one day told to a few friends who
were visiting at the old ranch house near
the foothills. There is perhaps nothing
in the affair which marks it as different
from many occurrences on the frontier,
where homes are far apart, and where
life itself may sometimes depend upon a
saddle horses speed and bottom. But,
told as the rancher told it at his own ia
bic, it was a story that long chung to the
memory.
1T was more than thirty years ago."
he said. 81 was IS years old, and had
been away from home attending school.
When 1 came back to the ranch in Kern,
neal the foothills, my mother came cry
ing to the door to meet me.
my little sister was very i'll. She
was only 8 years old, my pet and de-
light, and my mother was a widow. An
elder sister was in Tuolumne teaching
school; my brother, who managed the
ranch, had gone to Stanislaus to buy
sheep, and mother and baby were alone.
It was eight miles to the nearest village
and stage station, from which place l
had walked, reaching the house at dark.
| went in and found little Mary uncon-
scious; my mother could not tell what
was the matter. Iran down to the past
ure and called my colt, Major, the best
horse l ever owned. He came at once,
and l saddled him and rode off at a
gallop.
sit was early winter, and rain had
made the road heavy; cloudy all day. a
drizzle began before I had been FIVE min
utes in the saddle. l had neither whip
nor spur. Now and then / spoke to
Major, and he knew there was work be
fore him. Two miles we went without
a pause, the road dead level and so
slippery that 1 could feel Major slide
like a log on a frosted sidewalk; bat he
managed to keep TO his feet and resume
his wild pace. He took the bit in his
teeth and ran, snorting with excitement;
for a year he had not been ridden, and
his muscles were steel, his lungs like a
steam engine. Ilet him walk for a few
moments, then let him have his head
again and again, until he swept into the
village in a tearing gallop.
"sNot here was the answer, as I ham
mered at the poctor's door. Gone ten
miles into the foothills to the old Be-
mont place
"That was east in a direct line, and
three miles south was another village
where perhaps a doctor could be found.
If not it was but a few minutes lost,
for another road could be taken to Be
mont's.
"Again the wildpace under the clouded
sky and cold rain, thoughts of my lonely
mother and little sister urging me to yet
greater haste. The road was hard, with
a thin coating of mud that spattered me
from head to foot, and the wind blew
sharply in my face. Ihvedoyer in mem
DRY every scene of lives, every word
said to my sister, every act done in the
past-her arms about my neck in thanks
for some simple gift; long days behind
the pillow, with her toddlng feet in the
furrow; a child asleep in the summer
grass, a bunch of wild peoples in her
chubby hand, the calico sunbonnet tossed
back from the curly head. Then l re-
membered that when Invent away moth
er wrote me that every day little Mary
asked: Won't brother Tom come home
tonight want to see brother Tom
sWell, 1 reached the village and found
that the doctor, who lived there, was
sick himself. Nothing to do but to start
for Remont's. Again the gallop, no
longer on level roads, but through roll
ing hills and under a darkness that was
Egyptian. We were descending into a
hollow between high hills. The road
wa narrow, dark, slippery, and the soft
sound of falling rain drowned the noise
Of wheels. Through a break in the east
ern clouds the stars shone out above the
bill crest. Suddenly. instantly. without