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Updated: May 17, 2025
Stooping down, he loosened the stirrup-straps, bound his knees tightly to his saddle-flaps, twisted his hands in the bridle, and then, putting the gallant horse's head for the mountain path, he dashed the spurs in and fell forward fainting with his face buried in the coarse, black mane. Little could he ever remember of that wild ride.
Saddled and started to cross the Peake about three miles to the south-west, but had a fearful job in doing so, the banks being so boggy, and the current so strong. The horses could hardly keep on their feet, and most of them were up to their saddle-flaps, and some under water altogether.
To tell the truth, I hate to see a cavalry man walk, and I hold that just as he is the most gallant thing upon earth when he has his saddle-flaps between his knees, so he is the most clumsy when he has to loop up his sabre and his sabre-tasche in one hand and turn in his toes for fear of catching the rowels of his spurs.
Again, after a short interval, as we felt ourselves fording a stream, Raoul said: "Yes, the San Juan I know the stony bottom just the depth, too, at this season." Our mules plunged through the swift current, flinging the spray over our heads. We could feel the water up to the saddle-flaps, cold as ice; and yet we were journeying in the hot tropic.
At seven miles crossed a creek running north and a little west, the water being up to our saddle-flaps. At twelve miles the sand hills ceased, and we came upon an elevated plain, of a light-brown soil, with fragments of stone on the surface. At twenty-five miles, in the middle of this plain, we camped, without wood, and in sight of a large range in the far distance to the west.
At intervals, with tumultuous rush and scurry, the thud of the hoofs of unseen horses, galloping for all they are worth over grass. The suck and rub of breeches against saddle-flaps, the rattle of a curb chain or the rings of a bit. A call, a challenge, smothered exclamations.
Under all the trees where horses had been hitched, the mountaineers were tightening girths, mending unsound bridles, and pulling down stirrups from the saddles across which they had been flung to be safe from fly-kicking hoofs. Some men had switches tucked under their saddle-flaps.
I asked. "Bend down, and let the water run into your mouth." This accounted for Raoul's voice sounding so strangely. "They may not give us a drop," continued he. "It is our only chance." "I have not even that," I replied, after having vainly endeavoured to reach the surface with my face. "Why?" asked my comrade. "I cannot reach it." "How deep are you?" "To the saddle-flaps."
For three miles it takes a south-east course, then east-south-east through table land, with rocky and precipitous hills on each side. I then went on a south-east course for nine miles, through a splendidly-grassed country, with numerous small creeks running into the Stevenson. During my ride I found plenty of water, and splendid grass, up to the saddle-flaps, and quite green.
Then, stepping very gingerly, and taking extreme care not to leave any footprints on the dusty surface of the track, they groped about on the roadside. Presently they both returned to the horses, each of them carrying an armful of heavy stones which they loaded carefully into the enormous saddle-bags that dangled one on each side of the saddle-flaps.
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