My horse was a wonderful animal, day after day would I fear that his game little limbs were growing weary, and that soon he must give out; but no, not a bit of it; his black coat roughened and his flanks grew a little leaner, but still he went on as gamely and as pluckily as ever....

... my little Blackie seldom got a respite from the saddle; he seemed so well up to his work, so much better and stronger than any of the others, that day after day I rode him, thinking each day, 'Well, tomorrow I will let him run loose; but when tomorrow came, he used to look so fresh and well, carrying his little head as high as ever, that again I would put the saddle on his back and another day's talk and companionship would still further cement our friendship....

 
I know not how it is, but horse and dog have won themselves in to my heart as few men have done in life. I came to feel for Blackie a friendship not the less sincere because all the service was upon his side, and I was powerless to make his supper a better one, or give him a more cosy lodging for the night. He fed and lodged himself and he carried me - all he asked in return was a water hole in a frozen lake, and that I cut for him. Sometimes the night came down upon us still in the midst of a great open treeless plain, without shelter, water or grass, and then we would continue on in the inky darkness as though our march was to last eternally and poor Blackie would step out as if his natural state was one of perpetual motion. on the 4th November we rode over sixty miles....

 Often during the long day I would dismount and walk along leading him by the bridle, while the other two men and the six horses jogged on in advance; when they had disappeared altogether behind some distant ridge of the prairie my little horse would commence to look anxiously around, whinnying and trying to get along after his comrades; and then how gamely he trotted on when I remounted, watching for the first sign of his friends again, far-away little specks on the great wilds before us. When the camping place would be reached at nightfall the first care went to the horse. To remove saddle, bridle and saddle-cloth, to untie the soft strip of buffalo leather from his neck and
twist it well around his forelegs, for the purpose of hobbling, was the work of only a few minutes, and then poor Blackie hobbled away to find over the darkening expanse his night's provender.

(November 5th snowstorm) During the greater portion of this day it snowed hard, but our track was distinctly marked across the plains and we held on all day. I still rode Blackie; the little fellow had to keep his wits at work to avoid tumbling into the badger holes which the snow had soon rendered invisible. These badger holes in this portion of the plains were very numerous; it is not always easy to avoid them when the ground is clear of snow, but riding becomes
extremely difficult once the winter has set in. The badger burrows straight down for two or three feet, and if a horse be travelling at any pace his fall is so sudden and violent that a broken leg is too often the result. Once or twice Blackie went in nearly to the shoulder, but he invariably scrambled up again all right - poor fellow, he was reserved for a worse fate, and his long journey was near its end!...

(Driving the horses across a frozen river) ...We had got to the centre of the river, when the surface suddenly bent downward and to my horror, the poor horse plunged deep into the black, quick-running water! He was not three yards in front of me when the ice broke... the horse, though he plunged suddenly down, never let his head under water, but kept swimming manfully round and round the narrow hole, trying all he could to get upon the ice... I got almost up to the
edge of the hole, and stretching out took hold of his line; but it could do no good or give him any assistance with his struggles...

'Is there no help for him?' I cried to the other men. 'None whatever' was the reply; 'the ice is dangerous all around'

Then I rushed back to the shore and up to the camp where my rifle lay, then back again to the fatal spot...As I raised my rifle he looked at me so imploringly that my hand shook and trembled...

It may have been very foolish perhaps for poor Blackie was only a horse, but for all that I went back to camp and, sitting down in the snow, cried like a child. With my own hand I had taken my poor friend's life; but if there should exist somewhere in the regions of space that happy Indian paradise where horses are never hungry and never tired, Blackie, at least, will forgive the hand that sent him there, if he can but see the heart that long regretted him.

Sir William Francis Butler