Hartigan's love of sport was rooted deep in his nature and Fate gave it a long fling. It took no cruel or destructive form, nor did it possess him as a hate; but certain things held him in passionate allegiance, so deep and so reckless that when their fever was upon him nothing else seemed worth a thought. And the chiefest of these was his love of horses. A noble thing in itself, a necessary vent, perhaps, for the untamed spirit's love of untrammelled motion but it was inwrought with dangers. Most men in the West in Hartigan's day--as now--were by nature horse-lovers; but never, so far as Cedar Mountain knew, had there been a man so horse-crazy as the Rev. James Hartigan. Already, he was known as the "Horse Preacher." It was seldom that an animal received so much personal care as Blazing Star; it was seldom that a steed so worthy could be found; and the results were for all to behold. The gaunt colt of the immigrant became the runner of Cedar Mountain, and the victory won at Fort Ryan was the first of many ever growing in importance. You can tell much of a man's relation to his horse when he goes to bring him from pasture. If he tricks and drives him into a corner, and then by sudden violence puts on the bridle, you know that he has no love, no desire for anything but service; in return he will get poor service at best, and no love at all. If he puts a lump of sugar in his pocket and goes to the fence, calling his horse by name, and the horse comes joyously as to meet a friend, and with mobile, velvet lips picks the sugar clean from the offering palm and goes willingly to saddle and bit, then you know that the man is a horse man, probably a horseman; by the bond of love he holds his steed, and will get from him twice the service and for thrice as long as any could extort with spur and whip. "Whoa, Blazing Star, whoa", and the gold-red meteor of the prairie would shake his mane and tail and come careering, curvetting, not direct, but round in a brief spiral to find a period point at the hand he loved. "Ten times," said Colonel Waller, of the Fort, "have I seen a man so bound up in the friendship of his dog that all human ties had second place; but never before or since have I seen a man so bonded to his horse, or a horse so nobly answering in his kind, as Hartigan and his Blazing Star."