Stories from the First Cathedral 4: A Bashaw Story

Last time I ended with the promise to share a story about Bishop Whipple's famous horse Bashaw. This story is told by Bishop Whipple in his autobiography Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate, 1899.

"A starless night came on and with the howling wind sweeping the snow first into almost impassable drifts and then leveling them to the bare ground, I had to confess myself lost.

Until one has encountered a western blizzard the word has little meaning. The Indians have always paid me their highest compliment when they have declared that I could follow a trail and find the points of the compass as well as any Indian.

I now kept my horses headed in the direction which I thought to be that of the Agency. I said my prayers, threw the reins over the dash-board, let the horses walk as they would, and curling myself up under the buffaloes, hoped I might weather the night.

Suddenly Bahsaw stopped. I was confident that the wise fellow had struck a landmark, for he knew as well as I did that we were lost. I jumped from the sleigh and could just distinguish in the darkness something under the snow that looked like a huge snake. It proved to be an Indian trail. The Indians always walked single file to avoid an ambush, and in the loam of the prairie these trails are several inches deep. Bashaw followed it, and when his mate was inclined to turn out he put his teeth into his neck and forced him into the path.

Mr Hinman was so sure that I had started that he had kept a light in the window of the Agency, and when Bashaw saw it he leaped like a hound from his kennel. When we reached the mission and Bashaw, comfortably stalled, turned his great eyes upon me, his whinny said as plainly as words, 'We are all right now, master.'" 

This is my favorite Bashaw story because it shows Bishop Whipple's relationship with his beloved horse: companion and friend. More on Bashaw next week.