n, how were we to get to it without
giving them the alarm? They were playing directly in front of the
house, and we could not pass out of the door without showing ourselves.
This would at once set them off in a wild gallop, and we should never
see more of them. We knew they would not allow us to approach them--for
we had seen several bands of them while crossing the prairies, and these
would not allow our hunters to get within less than a mile of them.
This is a curious fact--that the horse, which you would suppose to be
the natural companion of man--once he has escaped from captivity, and
goes wild, becomes more shy of man than any other animal, and more
difficult to be approached. He seems to have an idea of what is wanted
with him, and is determined not to return to slavery. I have never seen
a drove of wild horses, but the thought occurred to me, that there was
some old `runaway' among them, who told the rest how he had been used,
and cautioned them to keep clear of us. Certain it is, that the wild
horse is the wildest of all animals.

"How, then, were we to get out, and circumvent the drove? That was soon
decided. Telling Cudjo to take his axe and follow me, I climbed out at
the back window of our cabin; and keeping the house between us and the
horses, we crept along past our store-house and stable, until we got
into the woods in the rear. We skirted through the timber, and soon
reached the point where the road runs out of the valley. Here Cudjo set
lustily to work with his axe; and in half an hour we had felled a tree
across the track, completely blocking it up. We took care to make it
secure, by adding several rails, in such a way that no horse without
wings could have leaped over it. This done, we gave ourselves no
farther concern about being seen by the mustangs; and, shouldering our
implements, we marched leisurely back to the house. Of course, the
moment the wild horses saw us, they galloped off into the woods; but we
did not care for that, as we could easily find them again. And find
them we did. Pompo was saddled and bridled; a lazo was made out of
raw-hide ropes; and in less than three days the whole _caballada_ of
wild horses--eleven in all--was shut up in our park.

"Now, my friends, I fear I have quite tired you with our adventures. I
might relate many more, and perhaps, at some future time, may do so. I
might tell you how we caught and tamed the wild sheep and the
antelopes;--how we ca