“Chineago (feed).”

It appeared when Navvy swung himself over Marc’s broad back, that our great stallion had laid aside his transiently noble disposition and was himself again.  Marc proceeded to show us how truly Jim had spoken:  “Shore he ain’t no use for the redskin.”  Before the Indian had fairly gotten astride, Marc dropped his head, humped his shoulders, brought his feet together and began to buck.  Now the Navajo was a famous breaker of wild mustangs, but Marc was a tougher proposition than the wildest mustang that ever romped the desert.  Not only was he unusually vigorous; he was robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active.  I had seen him roll over in the dust three times each way, and do it easily—­a feat Emett declared he had never seen performed by another horse.

Navvy began to bounce.  He showed his teeth and twisted his sinewy hands in the horse’s mane.  Marc began to act like a demon; he plowed the ground; apparently he bucked five feet straight up.  As the Indian had bounced he now began to shoot into the air.  He rose the last time with his heels over his head, to the full extent of his arms; and on plunging down his hold broke.  He spun around the horse, then went hurtling to the ground some twenty feet away.  He sat up, and seeing Emett and Jones laughing, and Jim prostrated with joy, he showed his white teeth in a smile and said: 

“No bueno dam.”

I think all of us respected Navvy for his good humor, and especially when he walked up to Marc, and with no show of the mean Indian, patted the glossy neck and then nimbly remounted.  Marc, not being so difficult to please as Jim in the way of discomfiting the Navajo, appeared satisfied for the present, and trotted off down the hollow, with the string of horses ahead, their bells jingling.

Camp-fire tasks were a necessary wage in order to earn the full enjoyment and benefit of the hunting trip; and looking for some task with which to turn my hand, I helped Jim feed the hounds.  To feed ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a bone; however, our dogs were not ordinary.  It took time to feed them, and a prodigious amount of meat.  We had packed between three and four hundred pounds of wild-horse meat, which had been cut into small pieces and strung on the branches of a scrub oak near camp.

Don, as befitted a gentleman and the leader of the greatest pack in the West, had to be fed by hand.  I believe he would rather had starved than have demeaned himself by fighting.  Starved he certainly would have, if Jim had thrown meat indiscriminately to the ground.  Sounder asserted his rights and preferred large portions at a time.  Jude begged with great solemn eyes but was no slouch at eating for all her gentleness.  Ranger, because of imperfectly developed teeth rendering mastication difficult, had to have his share cut into very small pieces.  As for Moze—­well, great dogs have their faults as do great men—­he never got enough meat; he would fight even poor crippled Jude, and steal even from the pups; when he had gotten all Jim would give him, and all he could snatch, he would growl away with bulging sides.