The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-01-17
WESTERN WILD HORSES.

W6olznH WILD dOhoEc.
Hunting wild horses is great
sport - exclaimed the man who
walked into the council committee
room, writes lover of the weird, and
asked for Alderman John Conlon.
He threw down a gun and a horse S
tail.
"I'm Eastman = Otto Eastman,
from Salina, Kan. I've come to visit
John-he's my third cousin"
But what's that you said about
horses?" asked Mr.. Allen, looking
at the horsetail in amazement.
"Ah, yes-horses-I've been out
at Pinto, Utah, hunting wild horses !;
my, but it's exciting-beats buffalo
shooting"
''But you don't shoot them, do
you ?" asked the dumbfounded COM
mittee clerk.
''Bet yer life these are sure
enough wild horses. Attack you,
bite, kick and fight like tigers. Long,
woolly hair, great yellow teeth and
stronger than any two domesticated
beasts in America except elephants.
"You see, it's this way was with
lot of irrigation experts looking
over the country with view to es-
tablishing a system of reservoirs not
far from the Santa Clara river when
the natives got up a crowd to wipe
out wild horses. The beasts, some
Of them, never saw man, and those
that have are wild as mountain lions.
They eat flesh, too, in winter, when
grass is scarce, and the sheep are
their best prey. For long time the
ranchmen thought gray wolves were
killing their sheep, but the carcasses
were never left almost whole by the
wolves; vol e; The horses ei,5t drink the blood
tain lions i'll that sectional least not
enough to make any trouble and un-
til six months ago it was not known
that wild horses were killing the
sheep.
"Then the men declared war on
the beasts. 1t isn't often one can get
glimpse of the horses they have a
keen scent and run up wind like the
deer. In spyglass range is as close
as any one often gets.
"But this isn't telling about the
hunting. The folks organized sort
of vigilence committee to wipe out
the critters and invited us to go along.
There were twenty in the party, and
all we'll mounted. The night before
we started there was two inches of
snow on the ground, and Cal Hay
den, the ranchman we were stopping
with, wanted to watch for horses. l
stayed out with him until midnight,
when we heard snort at the gate of
the corral, which we had left open.
I'm the moonlight we saw small
mustang, with name and tail drag
ging the ground. He trotted into
the corral among the frightened
sheep, threw up his head, snuffed
and reared up in the air. When he
came down with both fore paws like
a stamp mill, one of the Ramboulet
ewes was under him. With vicious
snort he grasped the eve with his
jaw over the back of her neck, and
her bleat of anguish impressed on
Hayden and me terrible pain.
Bang went Hayden's rifle; the
mustang reared again and ran out of
the corral. Keeling over the table
land for about 200 yards, he fell and
died.
Next morning we inspected the
carcass more closely and found it a
genuine curiosity. The mustang was
nut brown, with hair two inches
long, kinked and crumpled by burrs
and cacti; his hoofs were wide and
cracked by running over rocks. Judg-
ing by his teeth, he was about fifteen
years old they were yellow and
lined black as if to crack, and very
dull.
"Well, that day we rode eighteen
miles before we caught a glimpse of
the first bunch Of horses, although
we saw hoof tracks in plenty on the
sandy parts of the soil.
Away in the northwest, toward
the mouth of the Santa Clara, we
saw about forty or fifty mustangs gall
Looping away like the wind. They
had seen us before we got sight of
them and were going up wind.
"The only thing for US to do was
to mill on 'em. We split, circled
around, travelled about nine miles,
and met again, finally getting down
wind of them, so we could get closer.
We were within 100 yards before the
horses discovered us, but five of the
party who were in the lead got shots
at the bunch. One horse fell dead
as door nail and three others were
brought down, so we could dispatch
them in short order.
1.-TWO of the dead mustangs had
bits of wool between their teeth.
One of them had a clot of blood on
his hip, but we never could figure out
where it came from, as there were no
marks, unless he slipped down on a
dead sheep.
"Well, we fonnd horses-wild ones
twice more and had much thrilling
excitement. We tried to trail bunch
we had just started, but Our mounts
were getting little tagged, and as
we hadn't yet got another glimpse of