Dun horses
THE DUN HORSE. It was in the Yellowstone Park that I paid ten dollars for a thirteen hand pony called Buck, a bright Dun with the endurance cross and leg bands. Below the black knees and hocks he wore white stockings, and had black mane, tail and points. He taught me the real protective colour for short grass. His upper and lower body lines were the curves of prairie ridges, while the limbs were so cross-coloured that the upright lines became invisible, save when he moved, at about two hundred yards. It was lucky that he always came at my call, because so far as my poor eyesight went, he was lost to me every evening so soon as I sent him off to graze. His wall eye and game knee were acquired from meeting Christians, but an odd trick of carrying the lower jaw sideways while he was thinking, an unusual sweetness of character, and most uncommon pluck, may have been primitive traits. He trotted with my pack a thousand miles, until in Utah I gave him to a cowboy rather than take him on into the desert ahead, where he might die of thirst. I did not know in those days that he was a desert horse who knew a deal more about finding water than ever I shall learn.
Wild species dying
The horse became extinct in the Americas, the Quagga in South Africa, the wild Bay in Northern Africa. The numbers of the wild asses and of the zebras are shrinking rapidly. The wild Dun, or Tarpan, whose range was the whole steppe of Russia and North Asia, is now represented in three small districts of Mongolia by the Prejevalski herds. So far, then, as wild horses are concerned, the species is dying out.
Among tame horses, to judge from what one sees in the larger stables, there must be at least one hundred Bays, Browns and Chestnuts to every real Dun. All breeders select from the Bay type as distinguished from the Dun, whose only special value is in endurance. In the run-wild or feral herds, however, the Duns have a fair chance, and form a large proportion of the stock. They are not only hardy but also fertile. If man became extinct, the steppes and prairies would breed Duns, and gradually kill out the other types.
Dun and Bay
From the fierce dry heat of the Gobi Desert to the utmost rigors of Siberian cold, the Dun will thrive wherever there is grass. His coat is warm and cool for any climate, greasy enough to shed rain, and proof against every weather except wet driving snow or a strong gale. Through the longest winters he keeps alive by grubbing through the snow to get at grass. The droughts of summer may so increase the journey between food and water that he gets very little time for rest, but somehow he manages to pull through, the last of all horses to yield to difficulties. Lacking the speed and beauty of the Bay, he lives where the Bay will die. In danger or difficulty the Bay is a fool in a panic, while the Dun keeps cool, reasons, and uses common sense with a strong, hearty valour. One would select the Bay for pleasure, but the Dun for serious work under the saddle, for road endurance, for long and rapid marches, and all that makes mounted troops of value in campaigns.
Just as the working man may be rendered irritable and even vicious by unfair treatment in our social life, the working horse is made ill-tempered and dangerous to handle by bad horse-mastership. So the Dun has a terrible reputation, and in his defence I am a sort of Devil's advocate. He is the typical range horse whose manners and customs will be the theme of the next chapter.
PART VI. CLOUDLAND.
Cloudland