He looked
absolutely astounded when our long procession drew in around his shanty.
He meant only one thing to us; he meant oats. If he had oats, we were
saved. If he had no oats, it meant again long hours of traveling with
our hungry horses.
He had a bag of oats. But he was not inclined, at first, to dispose of
them, and, as a matter of fact, he did not sell them to us at all. When
we finally got them from him, it was only on our promise to send back
more oats. Money was of no use to him there in the wilderness; but oats
meant everything.
Thirty-one horses we drove into that little bit of a clearing under the
cedar trees, perhaps a hundred feet by thirty. Such wild excitement as
prevailed among the horses when the distribution of oats began, such
plaintive whinnying and restless stirring! But I think they behaved much
better than human beings would have under the same circumstances. And at
last each was being fed--such a pathetically small amount, too, hardly
more than a handful apiece, it seemed. In his eagerness, the Little
Boy's horse breathed in some oats, and for a time it looked as though he
would cough himself to death.
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