A Horse's Tale

of peace, war, danger, and many others. I am able to track a trail as well as any Indian, and I can track him straighter than he can, if I like. It is a talent that comes easy to me, because I picked it out of a book when I was young, and I haven't forgotten it. I don't know anybody that can do a better all-round scout than I can. I have heard people say there is no horse on this continent that can outrun, outjump, outwit, or keep up with me. I don't like to boast, but they are right. I have never seen a horse that is more educated than I am, and I have never seen one that could beat me in anything I do – out of a neck-and-neck race. I am not boasting, it is just truth. I won't mention any names, but the fast trotting stallions of this continent aren't in it – they aren't even within gunshot. When I am bored, or lonesome, nothing interests me so much as to ride fast and scare people. It is my very best fun. When there is nothing raging around me, I think little of doing seventy miles an hour myself. That is my only real amusement, for the teachers and the Missourians are my admiration and my envy. They can do just about everything better than I can do it, but they don't give their minds to it, and they don't make it their business to trot along at even ten miles an hour. They don't make it their business to fight buffalo and wild animals – that is, when there is a chance. They know how to build houses with hard wood that will stand a good deal of weather for a long time, but this is no use to me, for I don't eat houses. They can build bridges over rivers that can carry anybody and anything that wishes to stay on the bridge, but this is nothing to me, for I don't eat bridges. They can snatch people out of fire and leap from three-story windows with them, when the stairs are burning; but I am not interested in such performances as that, because I don't eat people, even when I'm hungry, and I don't want to start a fire myself. But when it comes to killing buffalo, antelope, and such things, I am better than all the men and all the dogs in the world put together. I have stood off a whole army of wolves and endured their biting and tearing – over two hundred at one time – and horses are always afraid of wolves, but I am not, and I don't know why. My masters get shot in the saddle, and I look around at the men that are shooting them, and I say to myself, ''What nonsense they are up to now! Why do they want to kill my master, the quietest gentlest-natured man that we ever knew?'' Then I go and take his horse gently by the sleeve, and lead him away somewhere and make him lie down, and take care of him, and do what can be done for him. Of course he cannot speak to me in the horse's way, but there is no trouble about that; I can read signs and know what he wants and what's the matter with him. It will cure him, too, though I do not know how that is done, yet. There are some things that cannot be learned in books; they must be personally experienced. The man died, and the horse did what he could for him, wandered among the Indians, got his revenge, and then went searching for more. He was killed again at another hunting party, but his death was avenged as well, and the horse is now riding through the country, rescuing people and seeking revenge.