During the days of the Wild West, several people changed the course of American history. If I could be one of them, I would have wanted to be Frank T. Hopkins. If I were Frank Hopkins, this would be my life. I was born shortly after the Civil War in a log cabin in Fort Laramie, Wyoming. My father was an Army scout and my mother was the daughter of a Sioux chief. Growing up, I often rode with the Indians capturing and breaking mustangs. In my early teens, I was on dispatch for Generals Miles and Crook. Later I was a buffalo hunter and worked with Buffalo Jones, Bill Matheson, William Hinrer and Bill Cody. I drove Mustangs and had developed strong opinions about them. When I was General Crook's messenger, he told me: "...if the troops cannot overtake a band of Indians in two hours, it is better to abandon the pursuit." » When I asked him why, the general replied that the nervous Indian ponies "...can travel 90 miles without food or water. They can exhaust all the cavalry horses we have on the frontier." What the general didn't know was that I was aware of the problem before General Crook even realized the situation. Besides the Mustang's phenomenal endurance, Frank also considered the Mustang to be an intelligent and economical horse. You see, you can't beat the intelligence of Mustangs in the entire equine breed. These animals had to move on their own for generations. They had to choose their own destiny or be destroyed. Those that survived were animals of superior intelligence. The mustang has been grass-fed its entire life. He chose his own food in the countryside, could live where even a cow would starve, and knew how to take care of himself so much that he was always ready to leave. My first endurance race was in the summer of 1886. It was to be from Galveston, Texas to Rutland, Vermont. Buffalo Jones was as much a Mustang fan as I was. Horse for horse, Jones and I believed that a mustang could beat any other breed or type. We decided to prove our point. Jones agreed to fund the ride if he participated in the race. Only one horse was allowed per rider and the travel day should not exceed ten hours..