244

Globe June 28

THE COWBOY RACE.

The great prairies of the west have
developed two wonderful entities, the
cowboy and the broncho. The first is
but the outgrowth of environments.
He is the creature of circumstances,
inured to the hard life of the plains,
sometimes "drunk, but still a gentleman,"
rough and ready, brave and gallant,
in a word the best and worst
types of our civilization combined in
one person.

But his running mate, the broncho,
is an evolution, one that CHARLES
DARWIN would fall to his knees and
worship were he alive and down at the
Wild West show to-day. He is a cross
between an "American" or well bred
horse and the wild "Indian" ponies
of the plain. Their endurance, or
"bottom," as their cowboy owners express
it, is simply phenomenal. No
other animal of the genus equus which
has ever yet been developed could
stand the work of those great roundups,
and especially of those fearful
"drives" which frequently last for
twenty-four hours, when the cattle are
stampeding before the force of a blinding
blizzard

The race just ended so successfully has
proved beyond doubt that the endurance
of the broncho is almost without
limit. To cover a distance of 1;040
miles in thirteen days and sixteen
hours is an unparalleled feat. And
then to cap the climax by making the
last 150 miles in twenty-four hours,
and to come in fresh and without a wet
hair upon them is simply marvelous.

When the manager of Tattersall's
was asked recently why a Sunday entertainment
was not given, he replied:
"Our horses must have rest," "But
the Wild West show is given seven
days in one week," urged the interlocutor.
"Yes," replied the Tattersall
man with a sigh as he made a high-fa-luten
military salute to the office
boy, who chanced just then to pass by,
"but, don't yer know, they've only got
bronchos down there, and they can
stand anything."

Col. CODY was right when he said
that the eyes of the world were upon
this race, and that it would create a
great demand for American horses for
cavalry and other heavy service in foreign
nations. The big Norman, the
shaggy-shanked Clydesdales, nor the
far famed Arabian steed can compete
with the broncho in point of endurance,
and when backed by a cowboy, the
combination is absolutely invincible.