Round-Up, Ground Up

"Let me have some Man O'War en casserole"

"I'll take Zev jardiniere"

"Give me a steak a la Earl Sande"

"Waiter! There's a horse shoe in my soup."

Incredible, of course, in any U. S. restaurant would be conversation such as the above. Yet the catching of wild horses undeniably is a U. S. industry, and many a wild horse, caught, corralled, transported and slaughter-housed, is packed into cans and sold as foodstuff. In this country, to be sure, only well-to-do dogs eat horsemeat. On the Continent, poor people consume it. In French and Belgian villages are many equine butcher shops where only horse meat is sold. A stuffed horse head hangs over the doorway, to distinguish them from "chacuteries" (pork shops) where a pig's head holds the place of honor. Nor is horse meat particularly unpalatable. A little tough, perhaps, and not very tasty, yet between a relatively succulent morsel of horse and a comparatively gristly portion of cow there is not so marked a difference. As for dogs, they are fond of horse meat, ground up and mixed with cereal. In Rockford, Ill., Chappel Co. has a large factory devoted entirely to horses that are going to the dogs.

The horse meat supply comes partly from antique city horses, but also from wild horses which roam the western plains. Most famed Wild-Horse-Catcher is one Carl Skelton, who last week was conducting a great wild horse round-up along the Missouri River in Cascade County, Montana. Catcher Skelton is a onetime cineman who supported Cinemactor Buck Jones in pictures professionally known as "Westerns." He is also remembered by attendants at the Dempsey-Gibbons fight (TIME, July 16, 1923) in Shelby, Mont., as the man who won first prize at the accompanying rodeo. With his five helpers, he has already this season rounded up more than 350 horses, many of which will end their days at the Hanson Packing Co., Butte. Mont., horse-cannery. For the wild horse concession, Catcher Skelton has put up a $2,500 bond.

The technique of catching wild horses consists in camping near them until they have become comparatively tolerant of the proximity of man, then in edging them slowly toward the corral. The corral has a funnel shaped entrance wide at the outside. Into the wide part troop the unsuspecting horses, then the passageway narrows and soon they pour through the funnel's spout and into the pen. Last week Catcher Skelton and his band, either because of natural exuberance or because of the upsetting effect of a bad thunderstorm, stampeded a bunch of horses on their way to the corral. There followed a thundering herd effect which would have gladdened any cinemactor's heart. The lightning flashed. The thunder banged. The cowboys whooped. The horses, led by a black mustang stallion, galloped. Gumbo mud spattered. Arrived at the camp the horses, thoroughly out of control, splashed through the shallow water-pool, soon left wet and weary horse catchers far behind. "It's a part of the game," said Catcher Skelton.