Page 151 - Among the camps, or, Young people's stories of the war

him out and get him homo. A lasso would be needed to catch
him ; for he looked too dangerous for them to go inside the
trap to bridle him. Jack strengthened the entrance by plac­

ing a few more poles across it, and then put his corn inside
the trap, and hurried home to get a rope and bridle. They
were dreadfully afraid that some one might see them, for jack
knew he could not keep the secret now if he met his mother,
and he had pictured himself, with Jake behind him, galloping

up into the yard, with his horse rearing and plunging, and
bringing him up right before his mother, with perhaps a half
dozen officers around her, They were back in an hour or
so with a good rope and bridle.
Jack made a running noose in the rope, and tried to

throw it over the horses head. He had practised this on
stumps and on Jake, playing Injins, until he was right skil­
ful at i t ; but getting it over the head of a wild and fright­
ened horse was another thing from putting it over a stump,
or even over Jake, and it was a long time before he suc­
ceeded, He stood on the bank over the horse, and would

throw and throw, and fail ; the horse got furious, and would
rear and strike at them with his fore-feet. At last, just as he
was thinking that he could not do it, the noose went over the
horse s head. Jack pulled it taut,

In a second the other end was wrapped twice around a
small tree on the bank; for Jack knew how to 11 get a pur­
chase," The horse reared and pulled frightfully, but his
pulling only tightened the rope around his neck, and at last