orse-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."

The ancients had a fable of a horse and a rider so attuned--so wholly
one--that the brain of the man and the power of the horse were a single
being, a wonderful creature to whom the impossible was easy play. And
there is good foundation for the myth. Who that has ridden on the polo
field or swung the lasso behind the bounding herd, can forget the many
times when he dropped the reins and signalled to the horse only by the
gentle touch of knee, of heel, by voice, by body swing, by _wishing_
thus and so, and got response? For the horse and he were perfectly
attuned and trained--the reins superfluous. Thus, centaur-like, they
went, with more than twice the power that either by itself possessed.

Fort Ryan where the Colonel held command, was in the Indian reserve