THE RIDDEN HORSE. Many a time have I seen the pony herd drift out to pasture, or trail down of an evening to the water hole; but I do not remember a herder going afoot. For boys to ride on herd was only natural, and I have no doubt that ponies were both ridden and packed from very early times. We may find guidance here from Red Indian practice. The Blackfoot nation were a woodland people, and, as first known to the white men, lived on the head waters of the North Saskatchewan at the southern edge of the Great Northern Forest. In the earliest years of the nineteenth century some Kootenays crossed the Rocky Mountains from the west, and arrived in the Blackfoot hunting grounds with the first ponies ever seen there. They made a good sale to the Blackfeet, which started a steady trade. Moreover, the Blackfeet made no bones about taming and riding these feral {108} ponies, and holding them on herd. For better hunting and convenience in herding, they moved about three hundred miles to the southward out on the open prairies, but well within sight of the Rocky Mountains, which made a stronghold in the event of disaster, a hunting-ground in seasons of scarcity. They took to bison hunting for a livelihood. The daily bathing, winter and summer, in a very brisk climate, the sweat baths which preceded all religious rites, the freedom from vermin, the chastity of the women, the valour of the men, the purity and spirituality of their life, their wonderful psychic development, and hypnotic medical practice distinguished the Blackfeet even among the glorious tribes of that region. In grace and endurance as horsemen they have not been equalled in our time. Young warriors were trained in the ordeal of fasting and prayer in solitude until they had contact with the unseen; next in the ordeal by torture; and last in the ordeal of war. A warrior assembled a party of young men, and after they had been purified and blessed, they took the war path, mounted, or more often afoot into the territory of some neighbouring tribe, such as the Gros Ventre, Absaroka, Sioux or Crees. Their mission was to enter {109} the hostile camp at night, loose and drive off the war horses tied at the lodge doors, or stampede the tribal herd, and drive straight for home. These little excursions, practised by all the tribes, led to occasional unpleasantness between them, and engagements were fought when one side could lure the other into an ambush, cut off a hunting or war party of the enemy, or surprise a hostile camp. Fighting mounted with lance or bow and arrows, the Blackfeet developed forty thousand cavalry within twenty-five years from the day they first saw a pony. Shock action was unusual, and the tactics were generally those of cavalry in reconnaissance. A raw-hide string round the pony's lower jaw, and a robe tied on the back with a surcingle completed the equipment; but the warrior, whose costume was a breech clout, would usually be