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A R O U N D T H E O L D A R M C H A I R
"I love it, I love it,
And who shall dare
To chide me for loving
The Old Arm Chair."
TWENTY=FIVE YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS.
Never-Before-Told Leather Stocking Tales in a Missionary's
Life Among the Comanches and Apaches.
By the Rev. W. W. Carithers, D.D.
THE CHRISTIAN NATION. Vol. 61.
He then ordered them to bring a
Mexican boy that he had captured
and brought home with him, and
kill this boy that he might have a
servant to take care of the horses in
the spirit land; but the friends evi­
race horse, and the combination
hardly made them pleasing companions.
They came to me entirely un­
SOilE CAXDIDATES POK THE werestill afoot as they saw bands
IXDIAX MISSION' coniing back from raids all mounted
and travelling easily as the redently
thought this Mexican would broken, and while we modified that
HON OK BOLL.*
be of more use to them if he served somewhat, yet to the end, I sujipose
suits of their captures. Texas was
on this side, and so they were not many people inight have witnessed
The Indian pony has some very the ground over which these raids
able to find him until after the old their performances and would have
fine qualities. He has an eye and a passed, and of course it was diffoot
that are the envy and despair ficult for a stranger passing through
man was dead, and the ilexican boy been willing to declare that they remained
unbroken, for they seemed
lived for a nuinber of years afterwards,
and I numbered him among to have an untamable spirit. I
of many horses with aristocratic the c(ntutry to distinguish between a
pedigrees. He has an endurance ilexican horse aud a Texan, and so
my acquaintances.
think in my experience I never was
equalled by very few of his more frequently Texas horses were
There was a great temptation to acquainted with any better horseflesh,
nor, I might add, with any
high-stepping kindred, and like his brought back and mingled to some
anyone coming new into the eountiy
to load themselves up with In­
meaner spirit. The only time you
Indian owner, he has to be studied extent with the pure bred Mexican
at close range and through a long pony. If you follow the Mexican
dian ponies, because they were were entirely charmed witb them
time to come to an appreciation of pony back, you come to troublous
worth so little money, and the idea was when you would get them safely
launched on the road with a trip
his many good qualities. He will times in Mexico, when the Spanish
of getting anything in the shape of
take any amount of abuse, and serve were seeking to subdue the ilexi-
a horse for fiveor ten dollars made of from twenty to forty miles ahead
his owner with a faithfulness whose cans, and the Spanish, to aid them
it seem very attractive. But the of you, when they would carry vou
limit is only reached when he falls, in their conquest, brought large
fact was, that after a person had as with such a sense of power and
and his best effort will not get him numbers of horses from Spain, and
many as he needed, no difference .swiftness that you were filledwith
to his feet again. He ha not al- we are told that the native :\Iexiways
been the seivant of the Indian cans when they first saw men on
how good material there was in the exhilaration and delight in their action,
and some of their antics when
pon}', nor how cheap they were,
tribes, for history tells us very clear- horse-back thought they were some
there was but little profit in acquiring
a herd of them. These ponies en every time you made a drive like
they were being hitched were forgiv­
ly that the dog was formerly used new animal that the Spanish had
for transportation when a camp had trained to fight them. If the little
had lived with the Indians long that. But in every other place they
to be moved, and in fact some of Spanish barb horse be traced back,
enough to absorb something of their were Ishmaelites—they made no
the tribes continue ro use the dog its lineage will be found to reach
philosophy, and when they came up
to some extent, and the people arc to the Arab horse, and so as a man
face to face with trouble they usually
tried to go around it. They
noted runners, some of the men per- riding an Indian pony is sometimes
forming feats that are above tho surprised at its performances, he
^Ycre not hard to train or control,
possibility of the average horse. At has another proof of the old saying
and when tlicy found the easy way
first one is led to wonder about the that blood will tell.
you might rely on an Indian pony
Indian pony, until he traces its his- Large numbers of these Indian keeping in that immediate neighborhood.
tory back a little, and then much of ponies were acquired by thrifty
his wonder gives place to admira- members of the tribe. A curious AVhite men who were lovers of
tion. The Indians themselves claim hargain was made by two Comanthat
they got their horses from ilex- che brothers who agreed to hold and some of these had the idea that
horse-flesh drifted into the country,
ico, and it was an easy matter, no their- herd of ponies in common. a cross of other stock with the Indian
pony would give fine results. er lively, so the day before tlio men
along thought the horses were rath­
doubt, to induce the Indian who Qne brother was to have all the
had been used to travel on-ioot, to ^hite or spotted ones, and the other One man, who was a Kentuckian, (("outinued on page 10.)
mount the pony and to stav with brother to hare the ones of solid
him as long as the pony cotdd be color. Any pony being white as far
induced to travel. This readiness ^gck as where the collar works, was
to mount created a demand, and to ^^ counted white. This arrangethis
could only be met bv frequent jj^ent answered all right until the
visits to Mexico, and these were easilv
recruited from the men who
brother who owned the white horses
became very sick with some disease,
probably dropsy, because they relate
*This is the fifthstory of the series.
In the issue of April 8 appeared
the first one, "The JIan Whose He was not able to gather his
that his body became of great size.
Ear Had a Little Child;" in the issue ponies, nor to attend to them m
for June 3 appeared the second on°, any way, but when he laiew that
"Little Tony;" in the issue for July
death was near, he ordered the
8 appeared the third one, "The Cow-
Boy;" in the issue for Oct. 7, appeared
the fourth one, "A Cattle Thief's place before him and the division of
ponies to be driven up into the open
Chance in the Lawless Days."
the herd took place there. After
the number that belonged to him married a Caddo woman, and stocked
his place with the little horses
were gathered in this place, he ordered
that they all be killed in order
that he might have them in the
and brought in Kentucky runninc
land where he was going. This was
done, and the. ponies were soon lying
dead in great heaps in the camp.
stock; but the resulting cross Avas
not satisfactory as I could testify
for I bought a team from him aud
drove them for years. Thev had
all the endurance and persistence of
the Indian blood, and the wild, re-tless
and imdaunted spirit of the
friends and never seemed to care.
Every day of rest they had, meant
an added hour to get them
hitched again, but they had plenty
of vigor left so that the driving of
them never became monotonous.
One time when I exchanged pulpits
with Dr. T. V. Eobb, they had
the day set for his going out to the
station, a drive of forty-five miles,
but tlie women that were going
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