His fields have no fence save the mountain and sky;
His drink the snow-capped Cordilleras supply;
’Mid the grandeur of nature sole monarch is he,
And his gallant heart swells with the pride of the free.
The legend of the White Steed of the Prairies has almost died out. One can pick it up now only from the older generation, from those who have recollections of the open country when Texas was held together by rawhide and dominated by horsemen. When one of these early Texans was asked if he had heard of the Pacing White Stallion, he replied: “Yes, I have heard of him from the Canadian to the Llano.” But one finds little variation in these stories. There is no room for the White Steed of the Prairies in a country where horses are no longer wild and free. He is now all but a forgotten memory of a past unreality.[4]
[1] George Wilkins Kendall gave this account in his Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, New York, 1844, pp. 89–90. Prior to this Kendall had written some sketches for the New Orleans Picayune, one of which was about the Pacing White Stallion. It was this account that he incorporated in the book. Doubtless many of the later written accounts are based upon Kendall’s. [↑]
[2] The reason some of the mustangs were alone was due to the fact that the stallion leader had driven the younger and weaker horses from the herd. Since these horses were young, they would naturally often have good form. The color is hard to account for. Many of the mustangs were vari-colored, but it is doubtful if there was ever a solid white horse. [↑]
[3] The poem appeared in The Democratic Review, XII, 367f., accompanied by a condensation of Kendall’s story taken from the Picayune. [↑]
[4] Destined to be preserved for generations yet in his offspring in Emerson Hough’s North of 36. Zane Grey has also introduced him into fiction, in The Last of the Plainsmen.—Editor. [↑]