Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/99

special police were sent by the authorities to look after it. Every conceivable type of horse was brought, good, bad and indifferent. Our first job was to weed out those with worn hoofs, blind eyes and sore backs from the remainder, and we finally selected thirty. I was then deputed to ride them all up and down the main street of Minusinsk, while the whole populace of the town was looking on. One old Tartar brought a horse from the steppe, and in a rash moment I got on his back without a saddle, for he looked to me to be a quiet creature. But before I knew where I was I found myself careering down the main street at a mad gallop, the animal buck-jumping and kicking to get me off, while I was pursued by the mounted police and the populace on foot as if I had been robbing a bank. Fortunately with the aid of the police I stopped the horse before he reached the outskirts of the town, for he was making straight for his home on the steppes, and probably would not have stopped till he got there. I then experienced something of the "feel" of a Tartar horse's mouth, and was careful after that to pay due attention to the bit. After a few more of such incidents we got the number of possible horses down to twenty, and then we told the owners that we were only going to buy five (although we really wanted ten), and that each man was to come into the house to bargain alone. Inside everything was made as official as possible. We had an impromptu doorkeeper and usher, and the interpreter and one of us sat at the table, surrounded by papers, pens and ink, in order to give the whole thing an air of importance. The wretched fellows, who had never seen such solemnity in horse-dealing