A fresh repinning, an ignoring of hairpins this time, re-girthing of saddles, some proud patting of the horses' quiving flanks, passing of the hand over the full veins of their necks, praise of the beautiful distended, blood-red nostrils, and on we started for another race. If spur or whip had been used in speeding our horses, it would have spoiled the sport for me, as the effort and strain looks so cruelly like work; but the animals were as impatient for a run as we were to start them. It must be a rare moment of pleasure to all horse-lovers, to watch an animal flying over the ground, without an incentive save the love of motion born in the beast. When we came to certain smooth stretches on the road, where we were accustomed to give the horses the rein, they grew excited and impatient, and teased for the run if we chanced to be earnestly talking and forgot to take it. How fortunate is one who can ride a mythological Pegasus as well as a veritable horse! There is nothing left for the less gifted but to use others' words for our own enthusiasm:
"Now we're off, like the winds, to the plains whence they came;
And the rapture of motion is thrilling my frame!
On, on, speeds my courser, scarce printing the sod,
Scarce crushing a daisy to mark where we trod;
On, on, like a deer when the hounds' early bay
Awakes the wild echoes, away and away!
Still faster, still farther, he leaps at my cheer,
Till the rush of the startled air whirs in my ear!"
Buchanan Read not only made General Sheridan's splendid black horse immortal, but his grateful owner kept that faithful beast, when it was disabled, in a paddock at Leavenworth, and then, when age and old wounds ended his life, he perpetuated his memory by having the taxidermist set him up in the Military Museum at Governor's Island, that the boys of this day, to whom the war is only history, may remember what a splendid part a horse took in those days, when soldiers were not the only heroes. I thank a poet for having written thus for us to whom the horse is almost human:
"I tell thee, stranger, that unto me
The plunge of a fiery steed
Is a noble thought—to the brave and free
It is music, and breath, and majesty—
'Tis the life of a noble deed;
And the heart and the mind are in spirit allied
In the charm of a morning's glorious ride."
A SUSPENDED EQUESTRIENNE.
There was a long, smooth stretch of land beyond Fort Riley, where we used to speed our horses, and it even now seems one of the fair spots of earth, it is so marked by happy hours. In reality it was a level plain without a tree, and the dried buffalo-grass had then scarcely a tinge of green. This neutral-tinted, monotonous surface continued for many unvarying miles. We could do as we chose after we had passed out of sight of the garrison, and our orderly, if he happened to have a decent horse that could overtake us, kept drawing the muscles of his face into a soldierly expression, trying not to be so undignified as to laugh at the gamesomeness, the frolic, of his commanding officer. What a relief for the poor fellow, in his uneventful life, to get a look at these pranks! I can see him now, trying to keep his head away and look unconscious, but his eyes turned in their sockets in spite of him and caught it all. Those eyes were wild with terror one day, when our horses were going full tilt, and the General with one powerful arm, lifted me out of my saddle and held me poised in the air for a moment. Our horses were so evenly matched in speed they were neck and neck, keeping close to each other, seemingly regardless of anything except the delight at the speed with which they left the country behind them. In the brief moment that I found myself suspended between heaven and earth, I thought, with lightning rapidity, that I must cling to my bridle and keep control of my flying horse, and trust to good fortune whether I alighted on his ear or his tail. The moment I was thus held aloft was an hour in uncertainty, but nothing happened, and it taught me to prepare for sudden raids of the commanding officer after that. I read of this feat in some novel, but was incredulous until it was successfully practiced on me. The Custer men were given to what their Maryland father called "toting" us around. I've seen them pick up their mother and carry her over the house as if she weighed fifty instead of one hundred and fifty pounds. There was no chance for dignified anger with them. No matter how indignant I might be, or how loftily I might answer back, or try one of those eloquent silences to which we women sometimes resort in moments of wrath, I was snatched up by either my husband or Tom, and had a chance to commune with the ceiling in my airy flight up and down stairs and through the rooms.
One of our rides marked a day with me, for it was the occasion of a very successful exchange of horses. My husband used laughingly to refer to the transaction as unfortunate for him; but as it was at his suggestion, I clung with pertinacity to the bargain. My horse, Custis Lee, being a pacer, my husband felt in the fascination of that smooth, swift gait I might be so wedded to it I could never endure anything else; so he suggested, while we were far out on our evening ride, that we change saddles and try each other's horse. I objected, for though I could ride a spirited horse when I had come to know him, I dreaded the early stages of acquaintance. Besides, Phil was a high-strung colt, and it was a venturesome experiment to try him with a long riding-skirt, loaded with shot, knocking about his legs. At that time the safe fashion of short habits was not in vogue, and the high winds of Kansas left no alternative to loading our skirts. We kept opening the hem and inserting the little shot-bags as long as we lived there. Fortunately for me, I was persuaded into trying the colt. As soon as he broke into a long swinging trot, I was so enchanted and so hilarious with the motion, that I mentally resolved never to yield the honor temporarily conferred upon me. It was the beginning of an eternal vigilance for my husband. The animal was so high-strung, so quick, notwithstanding he was so large, that he sprang from one side of the road to the other on all fours, without the slightest warning. After I had checked him and recovered my breath, we looked about for a cause for this fright, and found only the dark earth where slight moisture had remained from a shower. In order to get the smoothest trotting out of him, I rode with a snaffle, and I never knew the General's eyes to be off him for more than an instant. The officers protested, and implored my husband to change back and give me the pacer. But his pride was up, and he enjoyed seeing the animal quivering with delight at doing his best under a light weight, and he had genuine love for the brute that, though so hard to manage in his hands, responded to my lightest touch or to my voice.
As time advanced and our regiment gained better and better horseflesh, it was a favorite scheme to pit Phil against new-comers. We all started out, a gay cavalcade of noisy, happy people, and the stranger was given the post of honor next to the wife of the commanding officer. Of course he thought nothing of this, as he had been at the right of the hostess at dinner. The other officers saw him take his place as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but in reality it was a deep-laid plot. Phil started off with so little effort that our visitor thought nothing of keeping pace for a while, and then he began to use his spurs. As my colt took longer and longer strides, there was triumph in the faces of the officers, and a gleam of delight in the General's eye. Then came the perplexity in my guest's face at a trotter outdoing the most splendid specimen of a loping horse, as he thought. A little glance from my husband, which incited me to give a sign and a low word or two that only Phil and I understood, and off we flew, leaving the mystified man urging his nag in vain. It was not quite my idea of hospitality so to introduce a new-comer to our horses' speed; but then he was not a transient guest, and the sooner he knew all our "tricks and our manners" the better, while it was beyond my power of self-denial to miss seeing the proud triumph in my husband's eyes as he rode up and patted the colt and received the little return of affection from the knowing beast. Phil went on improving in gait and swiftness as he grew in years, and I once had the courage, afterward, to speed him on the Government race-track at Fort Leavenworth, though to this day I cannot understand how I got up to concert pitch; and I could never be induced to try such an experiment again. I suppose I often made as good time, trotting beside my husband's horse, but to go alone was something I was never permitted to do on a roadway. The General and brother Tom connived to get this bit of temporary courage out of me by an offhand conversation, as we rode toward the track, regarding what Phil might be made to do under the best circumstances, which I knew meant the snaffle-rein, a light weight, and my hand, which the General had trained to be steady. I tried to beg off and suggest either one of them for the trial; but the curb which they were obliged to use, as Phil was no easy brute to manage with them, made him break his gait, and a hundred and seventy pounds on his back was another obstacle to speed. It ended in my being teased into the experiment, and though I called out, after the first half-mile, that I could not breathe any longer, the air rushed into my lungs so rapidly, they implored and urged by gesture and enthusiastic praise, until I made the mile they had believed Phil equal to in three minutes.