Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — Catching Wild Horses. [ARTICLE]

Catching Wild Horses.

In several places of the West wild horses still abound, and men pick up a living by catching the animals and selling them to teamsters or cattle outfits. Their mode of operation is very simple. When a bunch of horses is sighted one of the party of horse hunters, of whom four or five always go together, starts out after them, and keeps close enough to them to kee,p them constantly moving. The horses see him and dash off at full speed, but seldom continue in a straight line, as they usually make g;eat turns or circles, and the hunter, by riding at angles, don’t cover a tenth of the distance. At the end of two or three hours the first driver, as he is calied, is relieved by another, and this is kept up hour after hour, the wild hoises always having a fresh and tireless pursuer on their trail. As the drives are made during the full of the moon, the hunted horses have no rest during night or day. and at the end of forty-eight or fifty hours they are so completely played out that their capture b y the rope is a very easy matter, although in many Instances when the herd begins to tire out it is driven toward a coral, already prepared, and forced into it.