In the nineties Lieutenant Peschkov, a Cossack officer, rode a Dun pony from Vladivostock to Petrograd. This at any decent gait is a world record for a road ride, on a route with hotels at every stage. But legend makes the gait thirty-eight miles a day for six thousand miles, and on that I have my doubts. Working across country I found that my best horse did one thousand three hundred and seventy miles at twenty-one miles a day; and the next best one thousand and forty at the same pace; but on the whole trip, made with four successive {203} mounts, the three thousand six hundred miles took two hundred days. This works out at the very poor average of eighteen miles a day But for delays in buying horses the average would have been twenty-one miles, and I doubt if any horse outside of fairy tales can do much more on a six thousand mile journey. Apart from the vagueness and doubtfulness of the stories, the standard which they set up for comparison seems to be very low as compared with the annals of range horsemanship. The following records were made for the most part with half or three-quarter bred range raised horses, and all with weight-distributing saddles. [Sidenote: One day rides] ONE DAY RIDES. A friend of mine, an Australian stockman, with a weight-distributing saddle, and leading a pack animal, crossed the state of Victoria from the Murray to Melbourne, one hundred and forty-three miles by the route taken, covered in twenty-six hours. A constable of the Royal North-West Mounted Police of Canada with a forty-two pound stock-saddle on a buckskin gelding, rode from Regina to Wood Mountain Post, one hundred and thirty-two miles by sunlight, and the horse bucked him off at the finish. {204} On enquiry I found that the trail between Forts Macleod and Calgary, Alberta, one hundred and eight miles, had been ridden in a day by most of the Mounted Police and cowboys who happened to go that way. [Sidenote: Records on the range] SIX-DAY RIDES. Kit Carson carried military despatches from Omaha to Los Angeles and back (circa 1841), a lone ride through hostile tribes of four thousand four hundred miles. When he was resting at Los Angeles he joined a party of Mexican gentlemen each taking one saddle horse. The six men rode along the California coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco, six hundred miles in six days. Only two of the party changed horses. Among the Robbers' Roost, and affiliated gangs of Rocky Mountain outlaws, I found that it was their custom to plant little bunches of ponies here and there in pasture. When they happened to be in a hurry they would travel from pasture to pasture, and at each of these take a fresh mount. Six hundred miles in six days was not unusual they told me, and, from what the sheriffs said who tried to catch them, I think that the robbers spoke in moderation. They were much the most truthful men I have met on the stock range. [Sidenote: Long marches]