Hippos

I

IN the rear of my homestead cabin, a quarter of a mile to the west, rises a solitary butte to the height of a thousand feet. Having all exposures, which are variously favored at various seasons, rising a little nearer to the scanty mists and clouds than the level land around it, and being for perhaps additional reasons peculiarly adapted to the growth of bunch grass, it has offered, ever since the arrival of domestic stock, a favorite haunt at all seasons. Around its lower slopes, hoary junipers offer superior shelter from storms or from a too generous summer sun (it is a saying of the country that no benighted traveler ever failed to find dry ground beneath a juniper) and there is always a lee side to the butte in any gale.

This morning, when I opened my door at five-thirty, the sun had just illuminated the fringe of junipers on the summit of the butte, and standing on the very highest point, fully exposed, a snow-white horse gleamed like a statue against the indefinite dull blue of the western sky. It occurred to me to wonder, as often before, how early in the antiquity of our own race this spectacle began to affect the imagination and to become inwoven with mythology.

Pegasus alighting upon Helicon, Greyfell browsing in the sky-pastures of Wotan, chariots and horses descending from the clouds — the beauty and ideal qualities of the horse have entitled him to be associated with man’s most ethereal imaginings. A beautiful horse is altogether admirable. He stands for no evil qualities whatever. He represents strength, swiftness, fire of spirit, extreme sensibility and keenness of sense, joy of life, and, to his sorrow, wonderful docility and patience in his relation to ourselves. If he fights, it is in extremity and in self-defense, and he is entirely justified. Add to his noble qualities beauty, and there is nothing to be desired. ‘And if,’ as the Arab says, ‘ he be white, then thank the gods.’ The white horse is a favorite of all time, and either because of this favoritism, or because the whiteness lends itself in a peculiar degree to expressiveness of eye, the white horse has a peculiarly speaking and appealing expression. I have never handled or observed a white horse that had not this appeal and gentleness in its eyes.

II

This evening, as I sit quietly reading, Max Welton, the collie, pricks up his ears, rises from his place beside me, and goes out. A moment later I become conscious of a faint vibration, a rhythmical beating rapidly increasing in volume, an approaching thunder, a storm of hoofs, and my cabin is surrounded. My seven ponies stand about expectant. The older ones, whose introduction to man’s ways has left upon them a permanent timidity, force themselves upon my attention by nothing more than a gentle whinny. It is the young horses born and bred here that take the initiative.

Babe, my white marble saddler, who learned the trick of the door knob in infancy, comes to the back door. Alas, she has demolished the door knob, and has repeatedly broken the hospitable latchstring. Now, as the door is buttoned on the inside, she merely bumps upon it with her nose, patiently and persistently, knowing that my resistance is short-lived. While she is thus engaged, Gnat, the dapple-gray five-year-old, assails the front of the house. Alas again, he has battered down so many steps with those impatient hoofs of his that I have discarded steps and adopted a balcony instead of a porch. He reaches across the wovenwire defense and seizes anything within reach. Once, in my absence, it was my rag bag. The day was windy. I returned to find all of the neighboring juniper trees, all of the sage and Purshia bushes in the vicinity, adorned with the tatters of Joseph’s coat. If indiscretion has left a sack of feed within reach, Gnat has it over the railing and shakes out the contents for the delectation of the company. If I have left the back door open, he hauls the covers off my cot and gives them a proper shaking before he strews them upon the floor. Gnat would make intelligent use of hands if he had them.

What they are asking for, one and all, is that I shall come out with a basin of grain and treat each to a mouthful or two, little as they need it. It is thirst, however, that has prompted their visit. If springs are low, I must take them out, the distance of a mile. Sometimes I ride one of them, prancing in the midst of his companions, and, at the end of the mile, dashing importantly ahead to open the gate for the others. Sometimes I walk, and they dance and gallop about me, to and fro, with never a thought of escape or desire to see the great world, which the older ones recall as far less desirable than their present quiet haven.

Here, thirty miles from town and railway, well off the highways, is a little backwater, undominated by the spirit of the age. Within a 640-acre area, including the butte, no jangling telephone bells, no static improvisations, no shriek of motors rivals the cheerful mocking of magpies, the musical chorus of ‘juniper birds,’ the soft hushing of junipers, and the distant purr of the pines on the mountain.

Here, upon an annual growth of bunch grass sufficient to keep them the year round if snows do not get too deep, my seven ponies pass the seasons exactly as their progenitors passed them for four hundred years, and as a prehistoric race of horses passed them, populating the continent from Alaska to Patagonia. To-day, the roar of motors dominates that same extent of country, and even here, on the edge of the populated regions, my ponies excite the amused comment of practical men, since they consume what might just as well be converted into juicy beefsteak or fat-dripping mutton chops.

Here, all unconscious of their inadequacy, my ponies hold sway over what they believe to be their undisputed territory, tolerating the cows, the presence of which they accept as in the natural order of things. Cows keep down the Purshia brush (one can imagine their point of view), which is of no use to horses, and thrive upon weeds and useless bright-colored flowers, which might otherwise encroach upon the useful grass. Probably they exist for such purposes. Anyway, they are easily driven away from any disputed area, and from the water when they seek it at the wrong time. Horns make no show against hoofs and teeth. It is difficult to see just why. Doubtless it is the dominance of the spirit that wields the latter.

Wholly contented within this little area that they call their own, the ponies return to it by hook or by crook when accidentally excluded, or when borrowed and turned out in other pastures, working through numerous wire fences with patient persistence till they emerge with joyous whinnyings and excited prancings within the old familiar place.

Fly, a white mustang of superior strain, with her daughter Babe and son Gnat, born on the place, form the nucleus of the company. To all animals with whom I am acquainted, the place in which young have been born and raised becomes home, if conditions have proved favorable to this fundamental achievement. Moreover, the caretaker who has proved a satisfactory guardian of the new generation becomes the one to whom they look for protection and whose decisions they do not question. How often we hear it said by those of our own race, ‘The children were born there; it seems like home to me,’or, ‘Such and such persons cared for my children; I cannot forget them.’ We seldom stop to reflect how essentially primitive are many of our feelings, or how much we have in common with other species. Strange that our sympathies are not more expansive than they are.

Rab, also white, a perfect cow pony, was added to the group in his maturity and became Fly’s shadow and obedient follower, the gentle and loved friend and playmate of the colts. Edna, a bay and of domestic stock, is Fly’s meek and obedient team mate. Over butte and rim rock, and through roaring and iceblocked fords, the two have pulled my rattling ‘hack,’ piled with crates of white Leghorns or domestic furnishings and supplies, or calves, or stove wood. Staunch and patient under natural conditions, they run away consistently at the approach of an automobile. They sense the hostility of the age.

Two other members were self-invited into our circle — a beautiful little black mare, strayed and neglected by her owners, and an ‘Indian pony,’ a tough little roanish-bay, wind-broken, spavined, wire-cut, all but downed by the hardships of her lot. She was turned out to die, and strayed into this quiet harbor, where she forgets the mercilessness of that being who claims to be made in the image of God.

Fly is the undisputed boss and leader of the group. Without her, the others are lost, disconsolate, timid, and restless. When a neighbor borrows her, they follow her to the farthest peak of the enclosure, whinnying and anxiously watching her to the vanishing point. If the neighbor turns her out in his ow n pasture, she will, although ‘wire-shy,’ negotiate the intervening fences, and, on some glad morning, excited gallopings and neighings will tell me that Fly has reached our fence and is exchanging kisses across it while she waits for me to let her in.

There is a very strong and lasting affection between related horses, and often between those that have worked or run together for any length of time. Parting is a sad thing with them and we little think what we arc doing when we separate an old team or a happy family. I remember reading that when horses are gathered for war there arc always some that will not eat, and die of no discoverable cause. This is laid to simple homesickness and mourning for their own.

As among all herd animals, order of precedence is perfectly established. In my group, Fly comes first, then the colts, then Rab, then Edna, then the two strays, the little hard-used mare being the last. When they are fed, each receiving a pile of hay, it is perfectly understood who gets the first, and who must wait till the very last for her turn.

III

Even in this secure and semi-domestic state, these native ponies retain or revert to the instinct of all wild creatures of wandering habits to stay in the open, where a look around is always possible. Even in dead of winter, when receiving a daily feed, they often prefer their junipers to a good shed, winding down the butte, through the snowdrifts, at dawn, a graceful, lovely company, and returning before dark to their natural shelter.

As early as February, usually, winter breaks up and the new growth begins to push up into the hard bunch grass, serving the place of butter on stale bread; moreover, like a little wine with a monotonous diet, inducing certain manifestations inseparable from spring — shrill whinnyings, playful prancings, visitings across the fence with neighboring horses (social ventures giving rise to hideous screams and precarious attempts at combat through the wire), renewals also of youthful antics under the saddle. At this season the ponies cover the whole acreage in search of the uncropped tufts of green. A little later the interloper, ‘ cheat grass, ’ comes up on old fields like a thick growth of moss, and fills a large place while young and tender.

Before midsummer, if the season is good, bunch grass stands almost kneehigh, rich with seed, which is the native grain. This puts a rich gloss on the coat and layers of fat over all of the outstanding angles of the winter time.

At this season the ponies are most coy, loving the most retired localities, especially the summit of the butte, fancying (and not without foundation) that they are thus most free from demands upon their strength for domestic purposes, needing nothing from humankind except a bit of salt, which they can secure on moonlight nights while folks are asleep. They give the wouldbe captor a chase, albeit always surrendering in the end, showing a superstitious conviction of the inevitability of their mild enslavement, which their pursuer, realizing his inferiority in strength and speed, recognizes with ever-renewed surprise. At this season they are most beautiful, in perfect flesh and silky summer coat, with dancing muscles and arching necks.

In the fall, when the seed is all scattered from the bunch grass and the grass itself is hard from drought, and water perhaps becomes insufficient, then they begin to steal meekly about the house each day, whinnying appealingly for a treat of grain, coming regularly to be taken out to a neighboring pond and scampering back again with a nervous fear of being shut out or cut off from one another’s companionship. When the cold fall rains and gales begin, they huddle under their shelters on the lee side of the butte, coming out into the first sunshine for a good drying and toasting, and for a thorough rolling and shampooing in the moist soil.

Winter is a hard, hard time at best for the uncared-for, and, although the younger ones will live through an ordinary season quite without care, an owner must be hard of heart or powerless to help his horses if he takes no notice when snow lies deep and blizzards assail, and the killing cold holds on from night to night and week to week, using up all of the stored fuel of the summer, exposing ribs and bare hip bones, hollowing the appealing eyes, causing heads to droop lower and lower as, hunted by hunger and cold, they walk and walk their ceaseless round while hope remains. It has been the universal fate of the Western horse to be turned out, when his usefulness is at an end, to die the cruel death of starvation in the dead of winter. It is the instinct to spare his own feelings, callous though they must be, that induces the owner to tolerate this atrocity rather than make use of the merciful bullet before the season of suffering sets in.

Can the psychologist explain the protective action of the human brain that makes it possible for the highest order of being to lie contentedly in his warm bed or enjoy to the full his bountiful meals while these gaunt shadows, these former creatures of his hand and engines of his activities, stalk the land in the howling storms and drop to a lingering death in the mounting snowdrifts? It must be, as someone has said, that we have developed a cerebral compartment where we stow away t hose pitiful experiences of which we choose not to think, especially those that relate to the ‘mere animal’ whom we choose to exploit. More obedient than Pandora, our sympathies refrain from opening the door, lest we be haunted by the inhabitants.

IV

The wise ones tell me that the double continent we Americans naïvely call our own was the incubator (was it the only one?) of the genus Equus. From north to south, from cast to west, he ranged over the prairies and through the woodlands, developing, during the period of his evolution, from ‘little Eohippus, no bigger than a fox,’ with his four toes and the remnant of a fifth, to the form that we choose to call the ‘true horse’ (simply because it happens to correspond with our moment of time and to have fitted our purposes so admirably). In Oregon, before the earth cracked open almost from pole to pole and covered this immediate region with several hundred thousand cubic miles of lava, the little toed horses disported themselves very numerously. After the great cataclysm subsided and soil had accumulated and forest sprung up, they bobbed serenely up again, having added some fifty per cent to their size and shed a toe.

The genus Equus branched off, during this considerable period of an indefinite number of millions of years, into a number of species or varieties, all of which, including the flower, became extinct here, for reasons unknown. Did the true horse migrate across that historic Alaskan strait, meeting our own kind coming hither, and establish himself in Asia, where at present, on the high plains of Tibet, there is the only wild horse in existence?

In Africa, whether indigenous or implanted, the genus existed very early and still includes two other species, the zebra and the ass. Very early too, since he has one less vertebra than all other horses, the Arabian began his separate existence, probably originating in Africa.

From African and possibly, too, from Arabian sources, having circumambulated and circumnavigated the globe, the true horse came into his own again, on the American continent. Straying and abandoned by the would-be conquerors of golden cities, he recognized the grassy plains as his native territory and forthwith became the mustang, whose history has been intimately interwoven with ours for four hundred years. The mustangs were prevailingly cream and mouse-colored, the latter having a broad dark stripe all the way down the spine and faint stripes around the upper parts of the legs. Only recently I rode beside one of these striped, mouse-colored horses, still peculiarly valued for their outstanding virtues. It is a far-away ancestor indeed who has bequeathed these stripes to them and to their cousins the zebras.

The books say that men of the stone age had already associated the horse with their own fortunes and that he was probably first used to draw small twowheeled carts, being used as a mount only later when man began to make predatory excursions. The writer would venture another guess. She sees an anthropoidal youth with a fire in his eyes that his muscular equipment is inadequate to satisfy. She can see him crouching in the branches above the watering place, watching and longing day after day, till, the temptation having become overpowering, he drops upon some glossy back and clings with prehistoric claws while he knows the first wild gallop on the plains, without which his race will never again be content till engines on earth and in air surpass and supersede this living wonder.

Nevertheless, it was a sad day for this freedom-loving animal when he involuntarily joined his fortunes with ours. Not all the centuries of our association, not all of our vaunted appreciation of his noble qualities, have developed in us any true kindness toward him. His fate among us is still such that all of his true lovers rejoice at his replacement in great and increasing measure by insensible engines, though this may mean almost his extermination. Cannon fodder in every war, miserable slave in the city streets, worked to death on the farm, ridden to death on the plains, turned out to starve each winter season, ruthlessly tortured for entertainment at the rodeo — it is with scant pride that we can bid him farewell.

Horses in their prime have been the recipients of affection and the source of pride in all ages. Yet, even in these latter days, not one in a thousand of us has attained to the acceptance of responsibility for the old and worn-out horse. His fate is ignored by those who rejoiced in his youth and beauty, and it is pitiful indeed. In The Hand ofEthelberta read Thomas Hardy’s description of old horses bought for the feeding of hounds. This picture is represented now in hundreds of cases in our own land, where old horses are made use of on thriving fox farms or are bought by trappers. Turned into bare enclosures, it matters little for the purposes of the purchaser whether they die of starvation or the bullet. Have the humane societies died a natural death ? Are they altogether unsupported by the sentiment of our rushing, pleasureloving population?

Here in the West, where the horse has reverted to the wild state and exists in great numbers, his depreciation in value has presented a large problem. In one or two states it has been permitted to hunt and shoot horses like deer — a sport for ‘red-blooded young men,’ as a recent magazine suggests. In some places the capture of them alive has involved unspeakable cruelty to the captured and to the horses used in the enterprise, about four out of five of those taken being killed in the process, and about three or four saddle horses out of ten being ruined.

The commercial use of horseflesh has aroused considerable opposition among those who do not realize the alternative. Very lately, a little south of the home of the writer, a herd of five hundred horses was driven across the state of Oregon, from east to west, loaded on cattle cars at Bend, and shipped to a factory in Portland. Those who saw the horses reported them in fine condition and spirits while on the drive. Arrived at the stockyards, the process is much the same for them as for cattle. Driven up a runway, each horse meets the bullet, and his reduction to commercial material becomes a matter of minutes — barreled meat for Scandinavia, Holland, and Belgium, chicken feed, fertilizer, hats, leather, glue; there is no waste.

The methods employed in the round-up seem to have been merciful and skillful. A herd of tame horses was used as a decoy and as leaders. The wild horses were gradually worked into a long chute that sloped to strongly built corrals. Once well started on the drive, they gave but little trouble. It would seem that there could be no more appropriate work for a humane society or for a civilized government than to see this successful method put in practice universally.

V

What would the horse have become if we had not taken his evolution in charge? What may he yet become in case he outlives us? Possibly he will not outlive us. We already have to our credit the glory of having exterminated some of the most interesting and highly organized of creatures. We may yet exterminate ‘our friend, the horse.'

To some of us older ones, as we watch the blithe youth of to-day handling with unconscious dexterity their roaring motor cars, there comes a wonder that they feel no lack in that they have never stroked a velvet nose, or laid cheek against it, listening to the whispering whinny that speaks of tender affection, or felt the wild, free spirit of a horse in breathless race on the unfenced prairie.

For the writer, the aspect of a scrap of soiled paper, rummaged from somewhere in a rough ranch house, two hundred miles from the railroad, is burned forever into memory. On this scrap of paper was scrawled a bill of sale of ‘one strawberry-roan, two-year-old filly, brand thus (□) on right shoulder.’ Below the bill of sale, in a familiar hand, was written a transference of ‘the above-described property.’ by ‘the party of the second part,’ to his eleven-year-old daughter, ‘ for value received in love and affection, to be her own private and personal property.’ This document fulfilled the dearest hope of my youth. The subject of it became and remained, down to old age, my dearest possession.

When I look up at dawn to a white statue on my hilltop, I pray that no evil fate may intervene, but that, in memory of our age-long but unworthy friendship with this high-minded creature, Fly and her little company may live out their lives upon this solitary butte, haunting the south side in the winter season and the north side in summer, tasting the wine of spring in the first green blades and the strength of maturity in the ripened seed, hiding beneath juniper canopies from the driving storms, and seeking the first rays of morning on the pinnacle of the hill, gleaming like Pegasus on the top of Helicon.