Where flies are bad, it is kindly to bank a fire with damp herbage which makes a smoke in which the horses can shelter. It is in forest and fly country that one has greatest need of a few feeds of oats in the pack, or even slung to the saddles.
If a horse is sweating and exhausted, I rub him down with whiskey or any other form of alcohol, because its rapid evaporation cools and refreshes him. A little alcohol rubbed on the part heated by the saddle enables one to feed grain even in short halts.
For cold and exhaustion I give sugar, if possible in the water. The carbon is fuel which enters the blood, and so becomes exposed to oxygen in the lungs, where its burning produces the heat which warms the body.
In hot weather, oatmeal and sugar in water make a refreshing drink useful to horses as to working humans.
If a horse is leg-weary and stiff, a rub down or massage with liniment slacks the strung tendons.
Sores
SORES. I never unsaddle without making a careful search for water blisters or any sign of chafing. These found in time can be marked with axle grease, which registers a black spot on the sweat pad or the blanket. The blanket can then be folded in such a way as to relieve the pressure, or a bit of sacking shaped into a ring to enclose the threatened spot beneath or between the foldings of the blanket. The same kind of padding can be made under the girth for the relief of girth galls.
Despite the utmost care, horses in soft condition or when underfed, or wearing harness which has hardened or warped after long spells of wet, are liable to sores. I have cured most terrible cases by a daily practice of riding the patient to sweating heat, then suddenly unsaddling, and lashing on cold salt water. The various copper ointments known as gall cures are worth their weight in gold so long as one works the horse, but have the defect of forming a hard scab which breaks away before the wound is ready. One abscess caused by a warped saddle tree defeated me altogether and put the animal out of action for four months. As to sores in the starvation of the northern forest, the story would be too terrible to tell.
Cracked heels