The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-19

and corn patches. But the people live
 off the money they make from the oys-
 ters and clans and the fish that teem in
 the waters about the island The po-
 nies are owned chiefly by the people of
 Chincotsague.
 The fun connected with the penning began shortly after dawn. A dozen
 men and boys, mounted on their ponies,
 started out to corral the various punches. The young ponies appeared | to be as wild as the mustangs which used to roam our western plains. But
 the old brood mares, many of them
 twenty years of age, or more, are quite
 gentle by comparison, though they are hard to corner.
 When the riderh have gotten togeth-
 CT a dozen or more ponies, old and
 young, the work grows steadily easier. The men and boys drive the accumula- ted bunch up with drove not'yet driv- | en, and this constant work of 'benevo-
 lent assimilation" finally results in
 bringing all the ponies to the corral gate. It is not an easy task at all to gel the animals within the enclosure; but the inclination of the pony to follow the leaders is worked upon with success. 1 Several of the tame animals are turned into the corral; one or two of the po- nies, smart young fellows who know 1t
 all, venture in; others follow when they | see that no harm has come to those who have shown more temerlty, and finally | the gate is closed upon the entire drove. | Then comes the work of branding the
 little colts and cutting out the ponies which it is desired to sell. A fire of branches and knots in which to heat | the branding irons was burning at the
 corral gate. the smoke helping to keep
 off the mosquitoes, which were keeping man and beast busy. %
 1 I cannot quite understand yet why it was that somebody was not hurt by i those ponies, for the little fellows used their heels in truly pugilistic fashion. | With a moose affixed to the end of a pole, man would approach the drove | carefully, and after considerable man
 oeuvring drop it over the head of the animal desired. Then he would let the
 pole fall and seize the rope, which had
 been loosely wrapped around it. As the
 moose would begin tostighten the pony I:would commence rearing and plunging, and it would require several men to
 hold him. The pony rarely ceased to ersist until cheked down. The slip moose would then be changed for one of different knot, in the making of which l watermen are experts. When the pony would be gotten to it's feet and the men would start to draw it from the corral, the animals struggles would become greatest. <
 In nearly every case it was gotten out only by main force and to the accom-
 paniment of loud words, to which the
 women serving oysters and ice cream at
 stands in the beach a few feet away ap-
 peared to be turning deaf ears For
 really forcible and unequivocal English,
 give me a Chincoteaguer trying to get
 pony out of the corral at a penning.
 ! The struggling would not end when
 the animal was finally out. It would try in vain to escape from the brawny
 men who held it, and game two-year- old always gave it's captors a few min utes' warm work A beautiful chestnut | sorrel Ally did not cease to try to get away for fifteen minutes after the mer who dragged her out had taken severa : turns with the rope around a large pine near the corral gate. She would lear and reaur, striking out with her feet ;, and whinny-like squealing.t in a way . that sounded rather uncanny. Severa times she would become so entangled II i, the rope that she would fall. at the I'm ninent risk of breaking her neck.
 II The colt was owned by Captain Bil i Bunting Of Chincoteague, who was tht : Heading spirit in the work of the day
 He acted as the auctioneer. He woult
 not allow the beautiful Ally to be sold thinking the highest bid of sixty-odc
 dollars was not as much as she wal
 worth. s.# .J..s
 A beautiful pair of what appeared t. e be yearlings, almost perfect matches
 sold for seventy four dollars. Two o , three of the same age sold for abou
 thirty dollars apiece. One two-year-olt
 brought sixty dollars. ' :, The hardest, and apparently the mos 2 dangerous, part of the days work cam ; when the ponies were brought ava.
 from the island. The animals wer ' coaxed and dragged across the. beacl :, and aboard scow, which had beel brought over for the purpose of convey T ing the ponies to Chincoteague. Ther ' was a high railing at the sides. of tn scow but, of course, none at the enc It was generally hard work to get al ? the ponies aboard, and occasionall some of them were so obstreperou e when aboard that they had to be tie6 U But they were all landed on the beacl e at Chinconteague and nobody was hurt e Incidentally may say the same thin Q of our own return. The weather wa e calmer and we had a different skipper y yI--Walter Edward Harris in the Rich mond Times-Dispatch. S - ---.----------------4-.--- : -;