For all-around riding and horsemanship, I
think the West Point graduate is somewhat ahead of any of them. Taken as
a class, however, and compared with other classes as numerous, and not
with a few exceptional individuals, the cowboy, like the Rocky Mountain
stage-driver, has no superiors anywhere for his own work; and they are
fine fellows, these iron-nerved reinsmen and rough-riders.
When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Europe they made a practice in
England, France, Germany, and Italy of offering to break and ride, in
their own fashion, any horse given them. They were frequently given
spoiled animals from the cavalry services in the different countries
through which they passed, animals with which the trained horse-breakers
of the European armies could do nothing; and yet in almost all cases the
cowpunchers and bronco-busters with Buffalo Bill mastered these beasts
as readily as they did their own western horses. At their own work of
mastering and riding rough horses they could not be matched by their
more civilized rivals; but I have great doubts whether they in turn
would not have been beaten if they had essayed kinds of horsemanship
utterly alien to their past experience, such as riding mettled
thoroughbreds in a steeple-chase, or the like.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232