Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/141

130 130 HOW HORSES WERE PICKETED. worried about was tbat your horse should be rested and ready for the next day's ride? Say, Cap., do you think the present generation of tenderfeet have the slightest conception of what was resorted to for the purpose of maMng sure of our horse early next morning? Don't you believe it would be a good idea to put into print some of the numerous ways by which you toied to keep him from going back home or making for the herd? Surely it wiU become a lost art. Well; here goes! Some men carried a rope from forty to one hundred feet long which was tied to the saddle; it was attached to a picket-piii, sometimes of iron, but usually of wood; the pin was driven into the ground. Some horses did -feest by having the rope around their necks but some WOTild j.;3t so foxy that they learned to either break the rope or pull the pin, so the next thing was to tie the rop3 around their near front foot at the fetlock; thus picketed they would hurt their leg or fetlock if they jerked too hard; but there were nags that would succeed in pulling the pin when thus lariated. An- other method was to hobble them — ^that means to tie both fore feet together so they could not walk, trot or . run; but it was laughable to see some horses dodging this person who was trying to catch them on the range. At times some fool (?) horses would take a streak and show how smart they were. They would rise up on their hind legs and spring forward at so rapid a pace that it would require another horse to ran them down, but when a pony got to doing this, then man's Injun would have to come in play. Then » piece <rf rope wMi a bkxsk of wood attached thereto