St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1908-08-01
WILD HORSES IN TEXAS.
Goe With the Red Man, the Buffalo
and Free Grass.

The wild horse has almost as COM
pIetely disappeared in Texas as the
buffalo. 1t, too, stood in the way of
advancing civilization. The presence
of the animals in a community was
always a 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 it. But there are yet many men
| living who have seen it wild and can
| testify to it's excellence as an animal.
| There have been many stories told
| of wild horses that were hunted with
| the fleetest 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 witness to any practical
test of this kind, but l 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 a
| 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 a line that detected every now
and then out of straight line into
a needless change of course in the
pure wantonness Of strength. Finally
they bore down on us in a straight
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 a 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. I always
remarked on that beauty Of contour
which they showed. Now have seer
a good many horses under saddle
which were said to have been cap
tured from mustangs, and none oil
+ho1oo bod Ibic hooI1tv of form bui
were remarkable generally for angu
larity of form and lack of rounded
contour, and never understood this
until 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 r
| lived in Las Vegas, N. M; 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 q
little money in that manner. He car
ried with him wagon and two cows
and calves. l do not know how he
caught them, but he had about thirty
colts, the most detected, wretchet
looking specimens of the horsekin6
I think I ever saw. In order to con
troll them, he had tied each ANNA
with a hair rope running from the tai
to the fetlock joint of the fore-leg
This rope had worn great raw bloody
places on the inside of the thigh anC
around the fetlock. 1t was tied short
and the colts walked or trotted witt
most decided limp.
Now, all animals, as a rule, wher
taken into captivity from a wild
state to which they were born, LOSE
spirit and beauty. 1t takes seVera
generations born after captivity tt
bring them around to adaptation Of
acceptance to the new conditions. I'm
til that comes the animal is under {
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 Mexi
can submitted these colts, you can
not expect to have anything approach
J ing the constitution and beauty of thu
wild animal Something like this sor
of treatment was put upon every mus
tang captured in early days by tn
fact that his captor was rarely abl'
to keep him except by some sucl
treatment And hence almost in
variably followed degeneration In tn
animal OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES.
animals appearance.-Judge o. W
Williams, in Fort Stockton Pioneer.