There was not a white spot upon him, except where a flake of foam from his indignant nostril had caught upon his flank. A thorough-bred horse, with the perfect tail and silky mane of a noble race. His coat glistened, as if the best groom in England had just given him the final touches of his toilette for a canter in Rotten Row. But it seems a sin to compare such a free rover of the prairie with any less favored brother, who needs a groom, and has felt a currycomb.
Hard after the riderless horses came José, the vaquero, on a fast mustang. As he rode, he whirled his lasso with easy turn of the wrist.
The black, trotting still, and halting still to curvet and caracole, turned back his head contemptuously at his pursuer. “Mexicans may chase their own ponies and break their spirit by brutality; but an American horse is no more to be touched by a Mexican than an American man. Bah! make your cast! Don’t trifle with your lasso! I challenge you. Jerk away, Señor Greaser! I give you as fair a chance as you could wish.”
So the black seemed to say, with his provoking backward glance and his whinny of disdain.
José took the hint. He dug cruel spurs into his horse. The mustang leaped forward. The black gave a tearing bound and quickened his pace, but still waited the will of his pursuer.
They were just upon us, chased and chaser, thundering down the slope, when the vaquero, checking his wrist at the turn, flung his lasso straight as an arrow for the black’s head.
I could hear the hide rope sing through the summer air, for a moment breezeless.
Will he be taken! Will horse or man be victor!
The loop of the lasso opened like a hoop. It hung poised for one instant a few feet before the horse’s head, vibrating m the air, keeping its circle perfect, waiting for the vaquero’s pull to tighten about that proud neck and those swelling shoulders.
Hurrah!
Through it went the black.
With one brave bound he dashed through the open loop. He touched only to spurn its vain assault with his hindmost hoof.
“Hurrah!” I cried.
“Hurrah! ’t is,” shouted Gerrian.
José dragged in his spurned lasso.
The black, with elated head, and tail waving like a banner, sprang forward, closed in with the caballada; they parted for his passage, he took his leadership, and presently was lost with his suite over the swells of the prairie.
“Mucho malicho!” cried Gerrian to José, not knowing that his Californian Spanish was interpreting Hamlet. “He ought to hev druv ’em straight to corral. But I don’t feel so sharp set on lettin’ you hev that black after that shine. Reg’lar circus, only thar never was no sich seen in no circus! You’ll never ride him, allowin’ he’s cotched, no more ’n you’ll ride a alligator.”
Meantime, loping on, we had come in sight of the corral. There, to our great surprise, the whole band of horses had voluntarily entered. They were putting their heads together as the manner of social horses is, and going through kissing manœuvres in little knots, which presently were broken up by the heels of some ill-mannered or jealous brother. They were very probably discussing the black’s act of horsemanship, as men after the ballet discuss the first entrechat of the danseuse.
We rode up and fastened our horses. The black was within the corral, pawing the ground, neighing, and whinnying. His companions kept at a respectful distance.
“Don’t send in José!” said I to Gerrian. “Only let him keep off the horses, so that I shall not be kicked, and I will try my hand at the black alone.”
“I’ll hev ’em all turned out except that black devil, and then you ken go in and take your own resk with him. Akkee José!” continued the ranchero, “fwarer toethose! Day her hel diablo!”
José drove the herd out of the staked enclosure. The black showed no special disposition to follow. He trotted about at his ease, snuffing at the stakes and bars.
I entered alone. Presently he began to repeat the scene of our first meeting on the prairie. It was not many minutes before we were good friends. He would bear my caresses and my arm about his neck, and that was all for an hour. At last, after a good hour’s work, I persuaded him to accept a halter. Then by gentle seductions I induced him to start and accompany me homeward.
Gerrian and the Mexican looked on in great wonderment.
“Praps that is the best way,” said the modern patriarch, “ef a man has got patience. Looker here, stranger, ain’t you a terrible fellow among women?”
I confessed my want of experience.
“Well, you will be when your time comes. I allowed from seeing you handle that thar hoss, that you had got your hand in on women—they is the wust devils to tame I ever seed.”
I had made my arrangements to start about the first of September, with the Sacramento mail-riders, a brace of jolly dogs, brave fellows, who, with their scalps as well secured as might be, ran the gauntlet every alternate month to Salt Lake. That was long before the days of coaches. No pony express was dreamed of. A trip across the plains, without escort or caravan, had still some elements of heroism, if it have not to-day.
Meantime one of my ardent partners from San Francisco arrived to take my place at the mine.
“I don’t think that quartz looks quite so goldy as it did at a distance,” said he.
“Well,” said old Gerrian, who had come over to take possession of his share of our bargain; “it is whiter ’n it’s yaller. It does look about as bad off fur slugs as the cellar of an Indiana bank. But I b’leeve in luck, and luck is olluz comin’ at me with its head down and both eyes shet. I’m goan to shove bullocks down this here hole, or the price of bullocks, until I make it pay.”
And it is a fact, that by the aid of Gerrian’ s capital, and improved modern machinery, after a long struggle, the Fulano mine has begun to yield a sober, quiet profit.
My wooing of the black occupied all my leisure during my last few days. Every day, a circle of Pikes collected to see my management. I hope they took lessons in the law of kindness. The horse was well known throughout the country, and my bargain with Gerrian was noised abroad.
The black would tolerate no one but me. With me he established as close a brotherhood as can be between man and beast. He gave me to understand, by playful protest, that it was only by his good pleasure that I was permitted on his back, and that he endured saddle and bridle; as to spur or whip, they were not thought of by either. He did not obey, but consented. I exercised no control. We were of one mind. We became a Centaur. I loved that horse as I have loved nothing else yet, except the other personages with whom and for whom he acted in this history.
I named him Don Fulano.
I had put my mine into him. He represented to me the whole visible, tangible result of two long, workaday years, dragged out in that dreary spot among the Pikes, with nothing in view except barren hill-sides ravaged by mines, and the unbeautiful shanties of miners as rough as the landscape.
Don Fulano, a horse that would not sell, was my profit for the sternest and roughest work of my life! I looked at him, and looked at the mine, that pile of pretty pebbles, that pile of bogus ore, and I did not regret my bargain. I never have regretted it. “My kingdom for a horse,”—so much of a kingdom as I had, I had given.
But was that all I had gained—an unsalable horse for two years’ work? All—unless, perhaps, I conclude to calculate the incalculable; unless