A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car | Page 2

the slope. Over fallen
steeds and heaps of the dead she leaped with a motion as airy as that of
the flying fox when, fresh and unjaded, he leads away from the hounds,
whose sudden cry has broken him off from hunting mice amid the bogs
of the meadow. So this riderless horse came vaulting along. Now from
my earliest boyhood I have had what horsemen call a 'weakness' for
horses. Only give me a colt of wild, irregular temper and fierce blood to
tame, and I am perfectly happy. Never did lash of mine, singing with
cruel sound through the air, fall on such a colt's soft hide. Never did
yell or kick send his hot blood from heart to head deluging his sensitive
brain with fiery currents, driving him into frenzy or blinding him with
fear; but touches, soft and gentle as a woman's caressing words, and
oats given from the open palm, and unfailing kindness, were the means
I used to 'subjugate' him. Sweet subjugation, both to him who subdues
and to him who yields! The wild, unmannerly, and unmanageable colt,
the fear of horsemen the country round, finding in you not an enemy,
but a friend, receiving his daily food from you, and all those little
'nothings' which go as far with a horse as a woman, to win and retain
affection, grows to look upon you as his protector and friend, and
testifies in countless ways his fondness for you. So when I saw this
horse, with action so free and motion so graceful, amid that storm of
bullets, my heart involuntarily went out to her, and my feelings rose
higher and higher at every leap she took from amid the whirlwind of
fire and lead. And as she plunged at last over a little hillock out of

range and came careering toward me as only a riderless horse might
come, her head flung wildly from side to side, her nostrils widely
spread, her flank and shoulders flecked with foam, her eye dilating, I
forgot my wound and all the wild roar of battle, and, lifting myself
involuntarily to a sitting posture as she swept grandly by, gave her a
ringing cheer.
"Perhaps in the sound of a human voice of happy mood amid the awful
din she recognized a resemblance to the voice of him whose blood
moistened her shoulders and was even yet dripping from saddle and
housings. Be that as it may, no sooner had my voice sounded than she
flung her head with a proud upward movement into the air, swerved
sharply to the left, neighed as she might to a master at morning from
her stall, and came trotting directly up to where I lay, and, pausing,
looked down upon me as it were in compassion. I spoke again, and
stretched out my hand caressingly. She pricked her ears, took a step
forward and lowered her nose until it came in contact with my palm.
Never did I fondle anything more tenderly, never did I see an animal
which seemed to so court and appreciate human tenderness as that
beautiful mare. I say 'beautiful.' No other word might describe her.
Never will her image fade from my memory while memory lasts.
"In weight she might have turned, when well conditioned, nine hundred
and fifty pounds. In color she was a dark chestnut, with a velvety depth
and soft look about the hair indescribably rich and elegant. Many a
time have I heard ladies dispute the shade and hue of her plush-like
coat as they ran their white, jeweled fingers through her silken hair. Her
body was round in the barrel and perfectly symmetrical. She was wide
in the haunches, without projection of the hipbones, upon which the
shorter ribs seemed to lap. High in the withers as she was, the line of
her back and neck perfectly curved, while her deep, oblique shoulders
and long, thick forearm, ridgy with swelling sinews, suggested the
perfection of stride and power. Her knees across the pan were wide, the
cannon-bone below them short and thin; the pasterns long and sloping;
her hoofs round, dark, shiny, and well set on. Her mane was a shade
darker than her coat, fine and thin, as a thoroughbred's always is whose
blood is without taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply pointed,

delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, and as tremulous as
the leaves of an aspen. Her neck rose from the withers to the head in
perfect curvature, hard, devoid of fat, and well cut up under the chops.
Her nostrils were full, very full, and thin almost as parchment. The eyes,
from which tears might fall or fire flash, were well brought out, soft as
a gazelle's, almost human in their intelligence, while over the