Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/38

8 very busy man and my mother was in very delicate health. I was a pupil, or supposed to be one, at Professor Magruder's Academy, the best school in Baton Rouge; but I only attended when it suited my convenience, such as rainy days, or when some interesting game was going on at the school, or when Charloe was not going after the wild horses. Since those days I have hunted the wily fox with the "Pytchley" in England, and with Alfred and Burnett Rhett and Frank Trenholm and Colonel Tom Taylor in South Carolina, but in my opinion fox-hunting is tame sport in comparison with the chase after wild horses.

Under Charloe's tuition I learned to throw the lasso, and was an easy chance he always allowed me to throw first; but I had no fear of the result, for if I missed I knew that I would hear the swish of Charloe's rope which with if it deadly accuracy would land its loop over the head of the poor terrified beast which had never before felt the power of man. I remember vividly once, when we had turned a herd of horses from a swamp for which they were headed, how they dashed into a canebrake, the cane poles being from ten to fifteen feet high and almost as close together as the fingers on one's hand. The wild horses smashed their way through and we followed closely at their heels holding the nooses of our lassos in one hand and our reins in the other while our heads were busily engaged in dodging the muscadine vines which hung in festoons from the great trees which grew among the canes. Suddenly we came crashing into an old clearing. Charloe was just ahead of me and this was his opportunity. Instantly his lasso commenced to describe graceful circles over his head, and having selected his victim the loop shot out of his hand and straight as an arrow sailed away. The loop expanded and like a hawk ready to strike, it hovered for an instant over the frightened animal's head. It was impossible for the poor creature to dodge it, and it settled around his neck.