[4V50 Gary]

From page 60 of Agnes Morley Cleveland's, "No Life for a Lady." Cleveland was raised on the New Mexico frontier. Here she tells of horses and how they were reliable and trustworthy friends who knew the way home.

"Another story involved a small boy whose name I cannot recall. He lived over near the Muleshoe Ranch. A snowstorm descended upon the section and the youngster, unbeknownst to his family, set out on horseback to find his pet pony, which had been too long missing and for whose fate in the snow the young boy was gravely concerned. He felt that he must find his pony, and find it he did, but only a hollowed-out, skin-covered skeleton. Lightning had probably killed it, and then coyotes had eaten all the internal organs, leaving a clean and dried-out carcass covered with a hide too tough for the
jackals to tear.

"The little owner dismounted, sat down beside all that remained of a dear friend, and cried. The tears froze on his cheeks. As he sat there a sudden gale of blizzard proportions swept across the San Augustine Plains. The fury of the wind was so great that shelter, any shelter, was imperative.

"'I knowed Billy'd want to help me if he could,' the boy said when he finally told his tale long afterward, 'so I just crawled inside him out of the wind and my other horse stood alongside all humped up. 'course he had a saddle and saddle blanket on, which helped him. After a while it quit blowing so hard and I was getting so stiff and cold I knew I had to move around or I'd freeze, so I crawled out of Billy and took hold of Pete's tail and told him to go home and he did. He drug me through snowdrifts that'd 'a' been too deep for me, alone, and he never minded me pulling his tail. I wrapped some of it around my hands, and that helped keep them warm.'

"Exhausted but alive, the child reached home. Yes, horses know!"