The Tupelo journal., 1908-07-10
WILD HORSES IN TEXAS.
Goe With the Red Man, the Buffalo
and Free Grass,

The wild horse has almost as com.
pletely disappeared in Texas as the
buffalo. 1t, too, stood in the way Of
advancing civilization. The presence
or thu animals in community was
always menace to horse owners and
raisers, for it was much given to
tolling off tame horses. Hence ranch.
men made war on it and exterminat-
ed 1t. But there are yet many men
living who have seen it wild and can
testify to its excellence as an animal
There have been many stories told
OF wild horses that were hunted with
the fieetest and most enduring OF
tame horses, aided by all the resources
OF man; and that yet manifested
speed and endurance equal or greater
than that of the tame horses
am not a witness to any practical
test OF this kind but know nothing
of the animal kind that has present
ed to me more beautiful and grace
full appearance than the wild horse.
More than thirty years ago as our
party was slowly making it's way over
the high plains in Floyd County.
Texas, we saw one early morning
troop of wild horses coming towards
US on the gallop and more than two
miles away. They had scented us
and were coming to see what we
were. 1t was a treeless plain and
every sinuouS curve in that charge
was visible to us a. hey came on
in line that DETECTED every now
and then out of a straight line into
needless change of course in the
pure wantonness of strength. Finally
charge, with front of may be 100
horses just as a company of cavalry
might have done. At about $50 yards
distant they suddenly stopped with
that front one hundred deep. With
heads high in the air, nOStrilS dilated,
names and tails sweeping the ground,
they were objects of beauty. They
were mostly bays, with some browns
and duns and few grays and cream
colors. Their forms, as far as l could
Judge, presented models of equine
beauty. They were smaller, thought,
than an average horse. but the SYM
metry and beauty and speed lay in
those slender limbs and rounded
breasts and wide nostrils. l always
remarked on that beauty of contour
which they showed. Now I have seen
good many horses under saddle
which were said to have been cap.
tured from mustangs, and none OF
them had this beauty Of form, but
were remarkable generally for angu-
larity of form and lack of rounded
contour, and l never understood this
until l fell in with Mexican and his
captured bunch of mustangs in Lub-
book County. Teaxs, in the summer
of 1878. This man told me that -
lived in Las Vegas, N. NJ; that he
made business Of going out to these
plains every year and catching horses;
that he carried them back to New
Mexico and sold them and made
little money in that manner. He car
ried with him a wagon and two cows
and calves. l do not know how he
caught them, but he had about thirty
colts, the most detected, wretched
looking specimens Of the horsekind
| think | ever saw In order to con.
troll them, he had tied each animal
with hair rope running from the tail
to the fetlock joint of the fore-leg.
This rope had worn great raw bloody
places on the inside of the thigh and
around the fetlock. 1t was tied short
and the colts walked or trotted with
a most decided limp.
Now, all animals, as a rule, when
taken into captivity from wild
state to which they were born, lose
spirit and beauty. 1t takes several
genorat lions born after captivity to
bring them around to adaptation or
acceptance to the new conditions. I'm
til that comes the animal is under a
cloud as to it's appearance and spirit.
And if you add to these natural re-
suits from even good treatment, the
kind Of barbarism to which the Next
can submitted these colts, you can
not expect to have anything approach
ing the constitution and beauty of the
wild animal. Something like this sort
of treatment was put upon every mus
tang captured in early days by the
fact that his captor was rarely able
to keep him except by some such
treatment. And hence almost in
variably followed degeneration in the
animal MISREPRESENTATION
animals appearance-Judge o. w.
Williams, in Fort Stockton Pioneer.