"'Faith, an' it's Avenger's head ye don't like, lads, is it? By the powers o' the holy Virgin but it's me pity ye have that none of ye can show the likes in your stables. By the gray mare that broke King Charlie's neck, it's the head of him holds brains enough to distinguish ten average hunters, brains no ordinary brain pan could hold; an' it's a brain-box shape of a shot sock makin' the disfigurin' hump below his eyes. It's a four-legged gineral is Avenger, with the cunnin' foresight of a Bonaparte and the cool judgment of a Wellington.'
"Ah! but they were happy days on the old sod, buckin' timber, flyin' over brooks, stretchin' over stone or lightin' light as bird atop of walls too broad to carry and springin' on, with a good light-handed man up that knew his work and left ye free to do yours! And a sad night it was for me when Sir Pat, stripped by years of gambling of all he owned but the clothes he stood in and me, staked and lost me to a hunt visitor from Quebec!
"I was a youngster then, only a nine-year-old, but I'll niver forget the two weeks' run from Queenstown to Quebec whereon hunting tables were reversed and I became the rider and the ship me mount, across country the roughest hunter ever lived through: niver a moment of easy flat goin', but an endless series of gigantic leaps that nigh jouted me teeth loose, churned me insides till they wouldn't even hold dry feed, and gave me more of a taste than I liked of what I had been givin' Roscommon huntsmen over lane side wall jumps—a rise and a jolt, a rise and a jolt, till it was wonderin' I was the ears were not shaken from me head.
"Humiliation? It was there at Quebec I got it! In old Roscommon usually it was lords and ladies rode me of hunt days, men and women bred to the game as I meself was.
"But at Quebec, the best—and I had the best—were beefy members of their dinkey colonial Government or fussy, timid barristers I had to carry on me mouth. Seldom it was I carried a good pair of hands and a cool head in me nine years' runnin' with the Quebec and Montreal hounds. And lucky the same was for me, for it forced me to take the bit in me teeth, rely on meself, and regard me rider no more than if he were a sack of flour: I jist had it to do to save me own legs and me rider's neck, for to run by their reinin' and pullin' would have brought us a cropper at about two out of every three obstacles. Faith, and I believe it's an honest leaper's luck I've always had with me, anyway, for me Quebec work was jist what I needed to train me for an honorable finish with the Lemon County Yankees.
"One Autumn night years ago, when I was eighteen, a clever young Yankee visitor from New York appeared at our club. For two days I watched his work on other mounts, and liked it. He was good as any two-legged product of the old sod itself, a handsome youngster a bit heavier than Sir Pat, a reckless, deep drinkin', hard swearin', straight ridin' sort, but with a head and hands ye knew in a minute ye could trust, by name Jack Lounsend. The third hunt after his arrival, it was me delight to carry him, and for the first time in years to allow me rider his will of me. And you can bet your stud and gear, I gave him the best I had, for the sheer love of him, and him so near the likes of me dear Sir Pat.
"Nor was me work to go unvalued, for, to me great delight, he bought me and brought me to the States—straight away to Lemon County—along with two of me huntmates he fancied. And a sweet country I found this same Lemon County, with timber and stone nigh as stiff, and sod as sound as old Roscommon's own.
"But troubles lay ahead of me I'd not foreseen. Instead of goin' into Jack's private string, as I'd hoped, the early record I made for close finishes and safe, sure work made me wanted by the chief patron of the hunt, a New York multi-railroad-aire with a well diviloped habit of gettin' everything he goes after. So, while I venture to believe Jack hated to part with me, the patron got me.
"And a good man up the patron himself proved, one I'd always be proud enough to carry; but, as Jack used to say, the hell of it was the Lemon County Hunt numbered more bunglin' duffers than straight riders, the sort a youngster or a hot-head would be sure to kill.
"So when, as often happened, the patron was busy with faster runs and a hotter 'worry' than our hunt afforded, it frequently fell to me lot to carry the half-broke of all ages, seldom a one bridle wise to our game, as sure to pull me at the take-off of a leap as to give me me head on a run through heavy mud, the sort no horse could carry and finish dacently with except by takin' the bit in his teeth and himself makin' the runnin'. And even so, it was a tough task fightin' their rotten heavy hands and loose seat! But, by the glory of old Roscommon, never once have I been down in me eight years with the Lemons!
"Once, to be sure, on me first run, by the way, I slashed into one of your brutal wire fences, the first I'd ever seen—looked a filmy thing you could smash right through—caught a shoe in it, and nigh wrenched a shoulder blade in two. Sure, I never lost me feet, but it laid me up a few days; and you can gamble any odds you like no wire has ever caught me since; and, more, that I now hold record as the only horse in the County that takes wire as readily as timber, where it's necessary—though sure it is I'll dodge for timber every time where I won't lose too much in place.
"Down they come to Lemon County, a lot of those New York beauties, men and women, togged out so properly you'd think they'd spent their whole lives in the huntin' field; but at the first obstacle you'd see their faces go white as their stocks, and then all over you they'd ride from tail to ears, their arms sawin' at your mouth fit to rip your under jaw off, like they thought it was a backin' contest they were entered for. And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back till the hounds were mere glintin' specks flyin' across a distant hill-crest, the riders' red coats noddin' poppies; back till only faint echoes reached them of the swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; back for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will of,—for rider never lived could hold me to the wrong jump or throw me from my stride, nor was fence ever built I'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe on it.
"Once the hounds give voice, it's the divil himself couldn't hold me, whether it's the short, sharp war-cry of the Irish or the sweet, deep bell-notes of these Yankee hounds that to me ever seem chantin' a mournful dirge for the quarry. Sure, it's the faster Irish hounds that make the grandest runnin', but it's the deep-throated mellow chorus of a Yankee pack I love best to hear.
"Nouveaux riches, whatever kind of bounders that spells, is what Bob Berry calls the lot of mouth-sawers New York sends us; and whenever the patron is out or Jack has his way, it's niver one of them I'm disgraced with.
"Sometimes it's me good old Jack up; sometimes hard swearin', straight goin' Bob; sometimes little Raven, as true a pair of hands and light and tight a seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as reckless as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to carry when I was a five-year-old, with a ring in his swears, a stab in his heels, and a cut in his crop that can lift a dead-beat one over as tall gates as the best and freshest can take; sometimes it's Priest, that with the language of him and the hell-at-a-split pace he'll hold a tired one to but ill desarves the holy name he wears; and sometimes—my happiest times—it's a daughter of the patron up, with hands like velvet and the nerve and seat of a veteran.
"Horse or human, it's blood that tells, every time, me word for that. Be they old or young, you can niver mistake it. Can't stop anything with good blood in it—gallops straight, takes timber in its stride, and finishes smartly every time. Know it may not, but it balks at nothing, sets its teeth and drives ahead till it learns.
"And perhaps that wasn't driven well home on me last Fall!"
"Out to us came a little woman, a scant ninety-pounder I should say, so frail she wouldn't look safe in a drag, and a good bit away on the off side of middle age; but the mouth of her had a set that showed she'd never run off the bit in her life, and her eye—my eye! but she had an eye, did that woman. And it was hell-bent to hunt she was, bound to follow the bounds, though all she knew of a saddle came of five-mile-an-hour jogs along town park bridle paths, and all her hands looked fit for was holdin' a spaniel.
"Well, it was Lory and
Priest took her on, turn about, usually me that carried her, and it was break her slender little neck I thought the divils would in spite of me. Took her at everything and spared her nowhere, bowled her along across meadow and furrow, over water, timber, and walls, like she was a lusty five-year-old, and all the time a guyin' her in a way to take the heart out of anything but a thoroughbred. 'Don't mind the fence!' Lory would sing out, 'if you get a fall, just throw your legs in the air and keep kickin' to show you're not dead; we never want to stop for any but the dead on this hunt.' And smash on my quarters would come her crop, and on we'd go!
"Again, when we'd be nearin' a fence across which two were scramblin' up from croppers, Lory would brace her with: 'Don't git scared at that smoke across the fence; it's nothin' but the boys that couldn't get over burnin' up their chance of salvation!' And into me slats her little heel would sock the steel, and high over the timber I'd lift her for sheer joy of the nerve of her!
"But it was not always me that had her. One day I saw a cold-blood give her a fall you'd think would smash the tiny little thing into bran; landed so low on a ditch bank he couldn't gather, and up over his head she flew and on till I thought she was for takin' the next wall by her lonesome. And when finally she hit the ground it was to so near bury herself among soft furrows that it looked for a second as if she'd taken earth like any other wily old fox tired of the runnin'.
"But tired? She? Not on your bran mash! Up she springs like a yearlin' and asks Lory is her hat on straight—which it was, straight up and down over her nigh ear. 'Oh, damn your hat,' answers Lory; 'give us your foot for a mount if you're not rattled. Why, next year you'll be showin' your friends holes in the ground on this hunt course you've dug with your own head!' And up it was for her and away again on old cold-blood. Faith, but those cold-bloods make it a shame they're ever called hunters. Fall the best must, one day or another; but while the thoroughbred goes down fightin', strugglin' for his feet and ginerally either winnin' out or givin' his rider time to fall free if down he must go, the cold-blood falls loose and flabby as an empty sack, and he and his rider hit the ground like the divil had kicked them off Durham Terrace. Ah, but it was the heart of a true thoroughbred had Mrs. Bruner, and whether up on cold or hot blood, along she'd drive at anything those two hare-brained dare-devils would point her at, spur diggin', crop splashin'!
"Nor is all our fun of hunt days. Between times the lads are always larkin' and puttin' up games on each other out of the stock of divilment that won't keep till the next run, each never quite so happy as when he can git the best of a mate on a trade or a wager.
"One day little Raven and I galloped over to Lory's place.
"'Whatever mischief are you and His Wisdom up to?' sings out Lory to
Raven, the minute we stopped at his porch.
"'Nary a mischief,' answers Raven; 'want some help of you.'
"'Give it a name,' says Lory.
"'Easy,' says Raven; 'the master's got a new fad—crazy to mount the hunt on white horses. I've old Sol here, and Jack has a pair of handy white ones for the two whips, but where to get a white mount for Jack stumps us. Jogged over to see if you could help us out.'
"Lory was lollin' in an easy-chair, lookin' out west across his spring lot. Directly I saw a twinkle in his eye, and followin' the line of his glance, there slouchin' in a fence corner I saw Lory's old white work-mare, Molly. Sometimes Molly pulled the buggy and the little Lings, but usually it was a plough or a mower for hers. I'd heard Lory say she was eighteen years old and that once she was gray, but now she's white as a first snow-fall.
"'How would old gray Molly do, Raven?' presently asks Lory.
"'Do? Has she ever hunted?' asks Raven.
"'Divil a hunt of anything but a chance for a rest,' says Lory; 'never had a saddle on, as far as I know, but she has the quarters and low sloping shoulders of a born jumper, and it's you must admit it. Let's have a look at her.'
"So out across the spring lot the three of us went, to the corner where Molly was dozin'. And true for Lory it was, the old lady had fine points; when lightly slapped with Raven's crop she showed spirit and a good bit of action.
"'She's sure got a good strain in her,' says Raven; 'where did you get her, Lory?'
"'Had her twelve years,' says Lory; 'brought her on from my Wyoming ranch; she and a skullful of experience and a heartful of disappointment made up about all two bad winters left of my ranch investments. The freight on her made her look more like a back-set than an asset, but she was a link of the old life I couldn't leave.'
"'Well, give her a try out,' laughs Raven, 'and if she'll run a bit and jump, we may have some fun passin' her up to Jack.'
"So Lory takes her to the stable, has her saddled and mounts, and I hope never to have another rub-down if she didn't gallop on like she'd never done anything else—stiff in the pasterns and hittin' the ground fit to bust herself wide open, but poundin' along a fair pace. Then we went into a narrow lane and I gave her a lead over some low bars, and here came game old Molly stretchin' over after me like fences and her were old stable-mates.
"'Well, I will be damned,' says Raven; 'she's a hoary wonder. Give her a week of handlin' and trim her up, and it'll be Jack for mother at a stiff price; he's so bent on his fad, he'll take a chance on her age.'
"And then it was clinkin' glasses and roarin' laughter in the house with them, while I began tippin' Molly a few useful points at the game as soon as the groom left us in adjoinin' stalls.
"Four days later Lory brought Molly over to the hunt-club mews, and if I'd not been on to their mischievous plot, I'll be fired if I'd known her. It was a cunnin' one, was Lory, and he'd banged her tail, hogged her mane, clipped her pasterns, polished her hoofs, groomed, fed up, and conditioned her, and (I do believe) polished her yellow old fangs, till she looked as fit a filly as you'd want to see.
"And soon after, when Molly was unsaddled and stalled, into an empty box alongside of me slips Lory with Tom, the best whip and seat of our hunt, and says Lory: 'You never seem to mind riskin' your neck, Tom.'
"'Thank ye kindly, sir,' says Tom; 'hall in the day's work.'
"'Well, if you'll give the old gray mare a week's practice at wall and timber, gettin' out early when none but the sun and the pair of you are yet up, I'll give you the little rifle you lovin'ly handled at my place the other day. But mind, it's your neck she may break at the first wall, for I've niver taken her over anything much higher than a pig sty.'
"'Right-o, sir,' says Tom; 'an' there's any jump in the old girl, I'll git it out of 'er.'
"The next Saturday afternoon, the biggest meet of the season, up rides that divil of a Lory on Molly, him in a brand-new suit of ridin' togs and her heavy-curbed and martingaled like she was a wild four-year-old, the pair lookin' so fine I scarce knew the man or Raven the mare.
"'Hi, there, Lory!' says Raven; 'wherever did you get the corkin' white un?'
"'Sh-h-h! you damn fool,' says Lory.
"'The hell you say!' whispers Raven, reins aside, chucklin' low to the two of us, and with a knee-press which I knew meant, 'Sol, jist you watch 'em!'
"And we were no more than turned about when up rides the master, Jack, both ears pointin' Molly, and says:
"'Good-looker you have there, Lory. New purchase?
"'No, indeed,' says Lory; 'old hunter I've had some years; brought her on from the West; just up off grass and not quite prime yet; guess she'll finish, though.
"Think of it—the nerve of the divil—and him knowin' she was more likely to finish at the first fence than ever to reach the check. For the day's course was a full ten-mile run, and a check was laid half-way for a blow or a change of mounts.
"Presently the hounds opened at the 'throw-in,' an Irish pack it takes near a steeplechase pace to stay with, and we were off on as stiff a course as even Lemon County can show. And a holy miracle was Lory's ridin' that day. For nigh four miles he held tight behind two duffers who, while up on top-notchers, pulled their mounts so heavily that they
took a top rail off nearly every fence they rose to and swerved for low wall-gaps, till he'd got Molly's nerves up a bit. Then, takin' a chance on the last mile, Lory threw crop and spur into her and raced straight ahead, liftin' her over wall and timber to try the best, until close up on Jack. Just then Jack turned and watched them, just as they were approachin' a heavy four-foot jump, a broad stone wall and ditch. Sure, I thought it was all up with Lory, but at it he hurled her, and I'll be curbed if she didn't take it as cleverly as I could.
"Old Molly finished third at the check, but at the expense of a pair of badly torn and bleedin' knees, got scrapin' over stone and wood, which that rascal of a Lory hid by swervin' to a white clay bank and plasterin' her wounds with the clay, and then she was led away by his groom.
"Joggin' back from the 'worry' that evenin', Jack lay tight in Lory's flank till Lory had consented, apparently with great reluctance, to sell him Molly for five hundred dollars.
"The very next week, Jack, Raven, and the two whips turned out on white hunters, Jack of course upon Molly and happy over the successful workin' out of his fad. But good old Jack's happiness was short-lived, for after the 'throw-in' he was not seen again of the hunt that day, The first fence Molly negotiated in fine style, but at the second she came a terrible cropper that badly jolted Jack and knocked every last ounce of heart out of her, cowed her so completely that she'd be in that same meadow yet if there'd not been a pair of bars to lead her through, and divil a man was ever found could make her try another jump.
"Great was the quiet fun of Lory and Raven, though Lory's lasted little longer than Jack's joy of his white mount. Of course Jack was too game to let on he knew he'd been done, but not too busy to sharpen a rowel for Lory.
"And the rankest wonder it was Lory niver saw it till Jack had him raked from flank to shoulder—just stood and took it without a blink, like a donkey takes a lash.
The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier Page 19
