Post 01451
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The local unwritten law is that these horses are let out at the owner’s risk. If killed or stolen, as sometimes happens, the owner is the loser. However, there is another unwritten law which places the catching or riding of these horses in the category of horse-stealing,–a serious matter in the West.
I rode Cricket from Silverton to Ouray, and on the way we became intimately acquainted. I talked to her, asked questions, scratched the back of her head, examined her feet, and occasionally found something for her to eat. I walked up the steeper stretches, and before evening she followed me like a dog, even when I traveled out of the trail.
For the night she was placed in a livery-barn in Ouray. Before going to bed I went out and patted and talked to her for several minutes. She turned to watch me go, and gave a pleasant little whinny as the barn-door closed.