Weeks went by and still the branded stallion remained free and unhurt,
for no cow horse in all the West could keep him in sight half an hour.
Black Eagle had been the outlaw king of the ranges for nearly two years
when one day, as he was standing at lookout while the band cropped the
rich mesa grass behind him, he saw entering the cleft end of a distant
arroyo a lone cowboy mounted on a dun little pony. With quick
intelligence the stallion noted that this arroyo wound about until its
mouth gave upon the side of the mesa not a hundred yards from where he
stood.
Promptly did Black Eagle act. Calling his band he led it at a sharp pace
to a sheltered hollow on the mesa's back slope. There he left it and
hurried away to take up his former position. He had not waited long
before the cowboy, riding stealthily, reappeared at the arroyo's mouth.
Instantly the race was on. Tossing his fine head in the air and
switching haughtily his splendid tail, Black Eagle laid his course in a
direction which took him away from his sheltered band. Pounding along
behind came the cowboy, urging to utmost endeavor the tough little
mustang which he rode.
Had this been simply a race it would have lasted but a short time. But
it was more than a race. It was a conflict of strategists. Black Eagle
wished to do more than merely out-distance his enemy. He meant to lead
him far away and then, under cover of night, return to his band.
Also the cowboy had a purpose. Well knowing that he could neither
overtake nor tire the black stallion, he intended to ride him down by
circling. In circling, the pursuer rides toward the pursued from an
angle, gradually forcing his quarry into a circular course whose
diameter narrows with every turn.
This, however, was a trick Black Eagle had long ago learned to block.
Sure of his superior speed he galloped away in a line straight as an
arrow's flight, paying no heed at all to the manner in which he was
followed. Before midnight he had rejoined his band, while far off on the
prairie was a lone cowboy moodily frying bacon over a sage-brush fire.
But this pursuer was no faint heart. Late the next day he was sighted
creeping cunningly up to windward. Again there was a race, not so long
this time, for the day was far spent, but with the same result.
When for the third time there came into view this same lone cowboy,
Black Eagle was thoroughly aroused to the fact that this persistent
rider meant mischief. Having once more led the cowboy a long and
fruitless chase the great black gathered up his band and started south.
Not until noon of the next day did he halt, and then only because many
of the mares were in bad shape. For a week the band was moved on. During
intervals of rest a sharp lookout was kept. Watering places, where an
enemy might lurk, were approached only after the most careful scouting.
Despite all caution, however, the cowboy finally appeared on the
horizon. Unwilling to endanger the rest of the band, and perhaps wishing
a free hand in coping with this evident Nemesis, Black Eagle cantered
boldly out to meet him. Just beyond gun range the stallion turned
sharply at right angles and sped off over the prairie.
There followed a curious chase. Day after day the great black led his
pursuer on, stopping now and then to graze or take water, never allowing
him to cross the danger line, but never leaving him wholly out of sight.
It was a course of many windings which Black Eagle took, now swinging
far to the west to avoid a ranch, now circling east along a water-course,
again doubling back around the base of a mesa, but in the main going
steadily northward. Up past the brown Maricopas they worked, across the
turgid Gila, skirting Lone Butte desert; up, up and on until in the
distance glistened the bald peaks of Silver range.
Never before did a horse play such a dangerous game, and surely none
ever showed such finesse. Deliberately trailing behind him an enemy bent
on taking either his life or freedom, not for a moment did Black Eagle
show more than imperative caution. At the close of each day when, by a
few miles of judicious galloping, he had fully winded the cowboy's
mount, the sagacious black would circle to the rear of his pursuer and
often, in the gloom of early night, walk recklessly near to the camp of
his enemy just for the sake of sniffing curiously. But each morning, as
the cowboy cooked his scant breakfast, he would see, standing a few
hundred rods away, Black Eagle, patiently waiting for the chase to be
resumed.
Day after day was the hunted black called upon to foil a new ruse.
Sometimes it was a game of hide and seek among the buttes, and again it
was an early morning sally by the cowboy.
Once during a mid-day stop the dun mustang was turned out to graze.
Black Eagle followed suit. A half mile to windward he could see the cow
pony, and beside it, evidently sitting with his back toward his quarry,
the cowboy. For a half hour, perhaps, all was peace and serenity. Then,
as a cougar springing from his lair, there blazed out of the bushes on
the bank of a dry water-course to leeward a rifle shot.
Black Eagle felt a shock that stretched him on the grass. There arrived
a stinging at the top of his right shoulder and a numbing sensation all
along his backbone. Madly he struggled to get on his feet, but he could
do no more than raise his fore quarters on his knees. As he did so he
saw running toward him from the bushes, coatless and hatless, his
relentless pursuer. Black Eagle had been tricked. The figure by the
distant mustang then, was only a dummy. He had been shot from ambush.
Human strategy had won.
With one last desperate effort, which sent the red blood spurting from
the bullet hole in his shoulder, Black Eagle heaved himself up until he
sat on his haunches, braced by his fore-feet set wide apart.
Then, just as the cowboy brought his rifle into position for the
finishing shot, the stallion threw up his handsome head, his big eyes
blazing like two stars, and looked defiantly at his enemy.
Slowly, steadily the cowboy took aim at the sleek black breast behind
which beat the brave heart of the wild thoroughbred. With finger
touching the trigger he glanced over the sights and looked into those
big, bold eyes. For a full minute man and horse faced each other thus.
Then the cowboy, in an uncertain, hesitating manner, lowered his rifle.
Calmly Black Eagle waited. But the expected shot never came. Instead,
the cowboy walked cautiously toward the wounded stallion.
No move did Black Eagle make, no fear did he show. With a splendid
indifference worthy of a martyr he sat there, paying no more heed to his
approaching enemy than to the red stream which trickled down his
shoulder. He was helpless and knew it, but his noble courage was
unshaken. Even when the man came close enough to examine the wound and
pat the shining neck that for three years had known neither touch of
hand nor bridle-rein, the great stallion did no more than follow with
curious, steady gaze.
It is an odd fact that a feral horse, although while free even wilder
and fiercer than those native to the prairies, when once returned to
captivity resumes almost instantly the traits and habits of domesticity.
So it was with Black Eagle. With no more fuss than he would have made
when he was a colt in paddock he allowed the cowboy to wash and dress
his wounded shoulder and to lead him about by the halter.
By a little stream that rounded the base of a big butte, Lefty--for it
was he--made camp, and every day for a week he applied to Black Eagle's
shoulder a fresh poultice of pounded cactus leaves. In that time the big
stallion and the silent man buried distrust and hate and enmity. No
longer were they captive and captor. They came nearer to being congenial
comrades than anything else, for in the calm solitudes of the vast
plains such sentiments may thrive.
So, when the wound was fully healed, the black permitted himself to be
bridled and saddled. With the cow pony following as best it might they
rode toward Santa Fé.
With Black Eagle's return to the cramped quarters of peopled places
there came experiences entirely new to him. Every morning he was
saddled by Lefty and ridden around a fence-enclosed course. At first he
was allowed to set his own gait, but gradually he was urged to show his
speed. This was puzzling but not a little to his liking. Also he enjoyed
the oats twice a day and the careful grooming after each canter. He
became accustomed to stall life and to the scent and voices of men about
him, although as yet he trusted none but Lefty. Ever kind and
considerate he had found Lefty. There were times, of course, when Black
Eagle longed to be again on the prairie at the head of his old band, but
the joy of circling the track almost made up for the loss of those wild
free dashes.
One day when Lefty took him out Black Eagle found many other horses on
the track, while around the enclosure he saw gathered row on row of men
and women. A band was playing and flags were snapping in the breeze.
There was a thrill of expectation in the air. Black Eagle felt it, and
as he pranced proudly down the track there was lifted a murmur of
applause and appreciation which made his nerves tingle strangely.
Just how it all came about the big stallion did not fully understand at
the time. He heard a bell ring sharply, heard also the shouts of men,
and suddenly found himself flying down the course in company with a
dozen other horses and riders. They had finished half the circle before
Black Eagle fully realized that a gaunt, long-barrelled bay was not only
leading him but gaining with every leap. Tossing his black mane in the
wind, opening his bright nostrils and pointing his thin, close set ears
forward he swung into the long prairie stride which he was wont to use
when leading his wild band. A half dozen leaps brought him abreast the
gaunt bay, and then, feeling Lefty's knees pressing his shoulders and
hearing Lefty's voice whispering words of encouragement in his ears,
Black Eagle dashed ahead to rush down through the lane of frantically
shouting spectators, winner by a half dozen lengths.
That was the beginning of Black Eagle's racing career. How it
progressed, how he won races and captured purses in a seemingly endless
string of victories unmarred by a single defeat, that is part of the
turf records of the South and West.
There had to be an end, of course. Owners of carefully bred running
horses took no great pleasure, you may imagine, in seeing so many rich
prizes captured by a half-wild branded stallion of no known pedigree,
and ridden by a silent, square-jawed cowboy. So they sent East for a
"ringer." He came from Chicago in a box-car with two grooms and he was
entered as an unknown, although in the betting ring the odds posted were
one to five on the stranger. Yet it was a grand race. This alleged
unknown, with a suppressed record of victories at Sheepshead, Bennings,
and The Fort, did no more than shove his long nose under the wire a bare
half head in front of Black Eagle's foam-flecked muzzle.
It was sufficient. The once wild stallion knew when he was beaten. He
had done his best and he had lost. His high pride had been humbled, his
fierce spirit broken. No more did the course hold for him any pleasure,
no more could he be thrilled by the cries of spectators or urged into
his old time stride by Lefty's whispered appeals. Never again did Black
Eagle win a race.
His end, however, was not wholly inglorious. Much against his will the
cowboy who had so relentlessly followed Black Eagle half way across the
big territory of Arizona to lay him low with a rifle bullet, who had
spared his life at the last moment and who had ridden him to victory in
so many glorious races--this silent, square-jawed man had given him a
final caress and then, saying a husky good-by, had turned him over to
the owner of a great stud-farm and gone away with a thick roll of
bank-notes in his pocket and a guilty feeling in his breast.
Thus it happens that to-day throughout the Southwest there are many
black-pointed fleet-footed horses in whose veins runs the blood of a
noble horse. Some of them you will find in well-guarded paddocks, while
some still roam the prairies in wild bands which are the menace of
stockmen and the vexation of cowboys. As for their sire, he is no more.
This is the story of Black Eagle. Although some of the minor details
may be open to dispute, the main points you may hear recited by any
cattleman or horse-breeder west of Omaha. For Black Eagle really lived
and, as perhaps you will agree, lived not in vain.
BONFIRE
BROKEN FOR THE HOUSE OF JERRY
I
Down in Maine or up in Vermont, anywhere, in fact, save on a fancy
stud-farm, his color would have passed for sorrel. Being a high-bred
hackney, and the pick of the Sir Bardolph three-year-olds, he was put
down as a strawberry roan. Also he was the pride of Lochlynne.
"'Osses, women, and the weather, sir, ain't to be depended on; but,
barrin' haccidents, that 'ere Bonfire'll fetch us a ribbon if any does,
sir." Hawkins, the stud-groom, made this prophecy, not in haste or out
of hand, but as one who has a reputation to maintain and who speaks by
the card.
So the word was passed among the under-grooms and stable-boys that
Bonfire was the best of the Sir Bardolph get, and that he was going to
the Garden for the honor and profit of the farm.
Well, Bonfire had come to the Garden. He had been there two days. It was
within a few hours of the time when the hackneys were to take the
ring--and look at him! His eyes were dull, his head was down, his
nostrils wept, his legs trembled.
About his stall was gathered a little group of discouraged men and boys
who spoke in low tones and gazed gloomily through the murky atmosphere
at the blanket-swathed, hooded figure that seemed about to collapse on
the straw.
"'E ain't got no more life in 'im than a sick cat," said one. "The
Bellair folks will beat us 'oller; every one o' their blooming hentries
is as fit as fiddles."
"Ain't we worked on 'im for four mortal hours?" demanded another. "Wot
more can we do?"
"Send for old 'Awkins an' tell 'im, that's all."
A shudder seemed to shake the group in the stall. It was clear that Mr.
Hawkins would be displeased, and that his displeasure was something to
be dreaded. Bonfire, too, was seen to shudder, but it was not from fear
of Hawkins's wrath. Little did Bonfire care just then for grooms, head
or ordinary. He shuddered because of certain aches that dwelt within
him.
In his stomach was a queer feeling which he did not at all understand.
In his head was a dizziness which made him wish that the stall would not
move about so. Streaks of pain shot along his backbone and slid down
his legs. Hot and cold flashes swept over his body. For Bonfire had a
bad case of car-sickness--a malady differing from sea-sickness largely
in name only--also a well-developed cold complicated by nervous
indigestion.
Tuned to the key, he had left the home stables. Then they had led him
into that box on wheels and the trouble had begun. Men shouted, bells
clanged, whistles shrieked. Bonfire felt the box start with a jerk, and,
thumping, rumbling, jolting, swaying, move somewhere off into the night.
In an agony of apprehension--neck stretched, eyes staring, ears pointed,
nostrils quivering, legs stiffened, Bonfire waited for the end. But of
end there seemed to be none. Shock after shock Bonfire withstood, and
still found himself waiting. What it all meant he could not guess. There
were the other horses that had been taken with him into the box, some
placidly munching hay, others looking curiously about. There were the
familiar grooms who talked soothingly in his ear and patted his neck in
vain. The terror of the thing, this being whirled noisily away in a box,
had struck deep into Bonfire's brain, and he could not get it out. So he
stood for many hours, neither eating nor sleeping, listening to the
noises, feeling the motion, and trembling as one with ague.
Of course it was absurd for Bonfire to go to pieces in that fashion. You
can ship a Missouri Modoc around the world and he will finish almost as
sound as he started. But Bonfire had blood and breeding and a pedigree
which went back to Lady Alice of Burn Brae, Yorkshire.
His coltdom had been a sort of hothouse existence; for Lochlynne, you
know, is the toy of a Pennsylvania coal baron, who breeds hackneys, not
for profit, but for the joy there is in it; just as other men grow
orchids and build cup defenders. At the Lochlynne stables they turn on
the steam heat in November. On rainy days you are exercised in a
glass-roofed tanbark ring, and hour after hour you are handled over
deep straw to improve your action. You breathe outdoor air only in
high-fenced grass paddocks around which you are driven in surcingle rig
by a Cockney groom imported with the pigskin saddles and British
condition powders. From the day your name is written in the stud-book
until you leave, you have balanced feed, all-wool blankets,
fly-nettings, and coddling that never ceases. Yet this is the method
that rounds you into perfect hackney form.
All this had been done for Bonfire and with apparent success, but a few
hours of railroad travel had left him with a set of nerves as tensely
strung as those of a high-school girl on graduation-day. That is why a
draught of cold air had chilled him to the bone; that is why, after
reaching the Garden, he had gone as limp as a cut rose at a ball.
II
Hawkins, who had jumped into his clothes and hurried to the scene from a
nearby hotel, behaved disappointingly. He cursed no one, he did not even
kick a stable boy. He just peeled to his undershirt and went to work. He
stripped blankets and hood from the wretched Bonfire, grabbed a bunch of
straw in either hand and began to rub. It was no chamois polishing. It
was a raking, scraping, rib-bending rub, applied with all the force in
Hawkins's sinewy arms. It sent the sluggish blood pounding through
every artery of Bonfire's congested system and it made the perspiration
ooze from the red face of Hawkins.
At the end of forty minutes' work Bonfire half believed he had been
skinned alive. But he had stopped trembling and he held up his head.
Next he saw Hawkins shaking something in a thick, long-necked bottle.
Suddenly two grooms held Bonfire's jaws apart while Hawkins poured a
liquid down his throat. It was fiery stuff that seemed to burn its way,
and its immediate effect was to revive Bonfire's appetite.
Hour after hour Hawkins worked and watched the son of Sir Bardolph, and
when the get-ready bell sounded he remarked:
"Now, blarst you, we'll see if you're goin' to go to heverlastin' smash
in the ring. Tommy, dig out a pair o' them burrs."
Not until he reached the tanbark did Bonfire understand what burrs
were. Then, as a rein was pulled, he felt a hundred sharp points
pricking the sensitive skin around his mouth. With a bound he leaped
into the ring.
It was a very pretty sight presented to the horse experts lining the
rail and to persons in boxes and tier seats. They saw a blockily built
strawberry roan, his chiselled neck arched in a perfect crest, his rigid
thigh muscles rippling under a shiny coat as he swung his hocks, his
slim forelegs sweeping up and out, and every curve of his rounded body,
from the tip of his absurd whisk-broom tail to the white snip on the end
of his tossing nose, expressing that exuberance of spirits, that jaunty
abandon of motion which is the very apex of hackney style. Behind him a
short-legged groom bounced through the air at the end of the reins,
keeping his feet only by means of most amazing strides.
It was a woman in one of the promenade boxes, a young woman wearing a
stunning gown and a preposterous picture-hat, who started the applause.
Her hand-clapping was echoed all around the rail, was taken up in the
boxes and finally woke a rattling chorus from the crowded tiers above.
The three judges, men with whips and long-tailed coats, looked earnestly
at the strawberry roan.
Bonfire heard, too, but vaguely. There was a ringing in his ears.
Flashes of light half blinded his eyes. The concoction from the
long-necked bottle was doing its work. Also the jaw-stinging burrs kept
his mind busy. On he danced in a mad effort to escape the pain, and only
by careful manoeuvring could the grooms get him to stand still long
enough for the judges to use the tape.
And when it was all over, after the judges had grouped and regrouped
the entries, compared figures and whispered in the ring centre; out of
sheer defiance to the preference of the spectators they gave the blue to
a chestnut filly with black points--at which the tier seats hissed
mightily--and tied a red ribbon to Bonfire's bridle. Thereupon the
strawberry roan, who had looked fit for a girthsling three hours before,
tossed his head and pranced daintily out of the arena amid a ringing
round of applause.
Hardly had Bonfire's docked tail disappeared before the woman in the
stunning gown turned eagerly to a man beside her and asked, "Can't I
have him, Jerry? He'll be such a perfect cross-mate for Topsy. Please,
now."
To be sure Jerry grumbled some, but inside of a quarter of an hour he
had found Hawkins and paid the price; a price worthy of Sir Bardolph and
quite in keeping with Lochlynne reckonings.
"'E's been car sick an' show sick," said Hawkins warningly, "an' it'll
be a good two weeks afore 'e's in proper condition, sir; but you'll find
'im as neat a bit of 'oss flesh as you hever owned, sir."
Nor was Hawkins wrong. When the burrs were taken off and the effect of
the doses from the long-necked bottle had died out, Bonfire looked
anything but a ribbon-getter. Luckily Mr. Jerry had a coachman who knew
his business. Dan was his name, County Antrim his birthplace. He fed
Bonfire hot mixtures, he rubbed, he nursed, until he had coaxed the cold
out and had quieted the jangled nerves. Then, one crisp December
morning, Bonfire, once more in the pink of condition, was hooked up with
Topsy to the pole of a shining, rubber-tired brougham and taken around
to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Jerry.
"Oh, isn't he a beauty, Dan!" squealed Mrs. Jerry delightedly, as
Bonfire danced up to the curb. "Isn't he?"
Dan, trained to silence, touched his hat. Mrs. Jerry patted Bonfire's
rounded quarter, tried to rub his impatient nose and squandered on him a
bewildering variety of superlatives. Then she was handed to her seat,
the footman swung up beside Dan, the reins were slackened and away they
whirled toward the Park, stepping as if they were going over hurdles.
III
For three years Bonfire had been in leather and he had found the life
far different from the dull routine of coddling that he had known at the
Lochlynne Farm. There was little monotony about it, for the Jerrys were
no stay-at-homes. Of his oak-finished stable, with its sanded floors
and plaited straw stall-mats, Bonfire saw almost as little as did Mrs.
Jerry of her white and gold rooms on the Avenue.
In the morning it would be a trip down town, where Topsy and Bonfire
would wait before the big stores, watching the traffic and people, until
Mrs. Jerry reappeared. After luncheon they generally took her through
the Park or up and down the Avenue to teas and receptions. In the
evening they were often harnessed again to take Mr. and Mrs. Jerry to
dinner, theatre, or ball. Late at night they might be turned out to
fetch them home.
What long, cold waits they had, standing in line sometimes for hours,
stamping their hoofs and shivering under heavy blankets; for a stylish
hackney, you know, must be kept closely clipped, no matter what the
weather. Why, even Dan, muffled in his big coat and bear-skin
shoulder-cape, was half frozen. But Dan could leave the footman on the
box and go to warm himself in the glittering corner saloons, and when he
came back it would be the footman's turn. For Topsy and Bonfire there
was no such relief. Chilled, tired, and hungry, they must stamp and wait
until at last, far down the street, could be heard the shouting of the
strong-lunged carriage-caller. When Dan got his number they were quite
ready for the homeward dash.
Seeing them come down the street, heads tossing, pole-chains jingling,
the crest and monogram of the house of Jerry glistening on quarter cloth
and rosette, their polished hoofs seeming barely to touch the asphalt,
you might have thought their lot one to be envied. But Bonfire and Topsy
knew better.