Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and GuideBurdett, Charles
History
Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and Guide
Burdett, Charles
Carson Kit, 1809-1868; Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)
"The next day, in the afternoon, the party set out on their return, and
the two horses rode by Col. Fremont from San Luis Obispo, being a
present to him from Don Jesus, he (Don Jesus) desired to make an
experiment of what one of them could do. They were brothers, one a grass
younger than the other, both of the same color, (cinnamon,) and hence
called _el cañalo_, or _los cañalos_, (the cinnamon or the cinnamons.)
The elder was to be taken for the trial; and the journey commenced upon
him at leaving Monterey, the afternoon well advanced. Thirty miles under
the saddle done that evening, and the party stopped for the night. In
the morning, the elder cañalo was again under the saddle for Col.
Fremont, and for ninety miles he carried him without a change, and
without apparent fatigue. It was still thirty miles to San Luis Obispo,
where the night was to be passed, and Don Jesus insisted that cañalo
could do it, and so said the horse by his looks and action. But Col.
Fremont would not put him to the trial, and, shifting the saddle to the
younger brother, the elder was turned loose to run the remaining thirty
miles without a rider. He did so, immediately taking the lead and
keeping it all the way, and entering San Luis in a sweeping gallop,
nostrils distended, snuffing the air, and neighing with exultation at
his return to his native pastures; his younger brother all the time at
the head of the horses under the saddle, bearing on his bit, and held in
by his rider. The whole eight horses made their one hundred and twenty
miles each that day, (after thirty the evening before,) the elder
cinnamon making ninety of his under the saddle that day, besides thirty
under the saddle the evening before; nor was there the least doubt that
he would have done the whole distance in the same time if he had
continued under the saddle.
"After a hospitable detention of another half a day at San Luis Obispo,
the party set out for Los Angelos, on the same nine horses which they
had rode from that place, and made the ride back in about the same time
they had made it up, namely, at the rate of 125 miles a day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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