Twine your hands in the long beard, and in the mane. How he shames the lion, for whom he could furnish coats half a dozen times over. What switches of hair those black fetlocks would make. Was there ever another so big a bison?
Wondering over this, we lie down on the prostrate bulk, and wait for the wagon.
CHAPTER XXI.
"CREASING" WILD HORSES—MUGGS DISAPPOINTED—A FEAT FOR FICTION—HORSE AND MONKEY—HOOF WISDOM FOR TURFMEN—PROSPECTIVE CLIMATIC CHANGES ON THE PLAINS—THE QUESTION OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION—WANTON SLAUGHTER OF BUFFALO—AMOUNT OF ROBES AND MEAT ANNUALLY WASTED—A STRANGE HABIT OF THE BISON—NUMEROUS BILLS—THE "SNEAK THIEF" OF THE PLAINS.
While we were at breakfast one morning, the guide ran in to say that the herd of wild horses which we had seen on Silver Creek, were feeding toward us, a mile away. I left the table to obtain a view of them, and by Abe's advice carried my rifle, as he suggested that we might "crease" one of them. This feat consists in hitting the upper edge of the bones of the neck with a bullet, the blow striking so high up that it will momentarily paralyze, without fracturing. We had read of it often in tales of Western daring, where the hero mounted the prostrate steed, and, upon its return to consciousness, escaped on its back from numberless difficulties and hosts of Indians.
A short distance out from camp, we turned and saw Muggs following us with a saddle and bridle on his arm. He had suffered grievous wrong at the heels of his mule, and was bent on possessing himself of one of our creased horses. After creeping, with almost infinite caution, within seventy-five yards, we succeeded in placing our bullets exactly where we intended, thereby knocking down two victims, who at once became insensible—and no wonder, for their bones were as effectually fractured as if they had been struck with a sledge-hammer. Muggs' faith in the theory of creasing, however, was unbounded. Up he ran and buckled on the saddle, and got one foot in the stirrup, ready to swing himself into the seat, when the animal rose.
After waiting about ten minutes, our Briton concluded that a dead horse was poor riding, and left us with a very emphatic statement that, in his opinion, capturing a mount with a rifle was "another blarsted Hamerican lie, you know!"
I afterward conversed with several plainsmen about the merits of "creasing," and found that their attempts had invariably ended in the same way as ours had done. The feat may have been possible with smooth-bore rifles, in the hands of those remarkable hunters of old, who were able to shoot away the breath of a pigeon, and hit the eye of a flying hawk; but with breech-loaders I unhesitatingly pronounce creasing an utter impossibility. The achievement sounds well in theory, but, like much else of popular Western lore is somewhat impracticable when fairly tested. I have an idea that the principal market value of "creased" horses in the future, as in the past, will be derived from furnishing creatures of romance with fearful rides. For this purpose, a cracked skeleton would be as apt as a sound one, to carry the rider into many of the scenes with which these tales are wont to harrow our souls.