He was the
elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those
days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At
their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which
every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of
his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings
more resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished
him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen,
western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters
revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic
as a god, bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether
marching amid his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts
that endlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether
with his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon,
the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils
reddening through his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented
himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object of trembling
reverence and awe.
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