Hiding among the tree boughs, the colt watched me with curiosity. He was cautious, but not overly fearful. Nearby, his mother grazed, keeping a close eye on my movement.

Here, high on the Pryor Mountains along the Montana and Wyoming border, I was watching wild Mustangs, horses whose lineage dates back about 400 years. Their striped legs, tapered muzzles, flat foreheads, small ears and deep and narrow chests are characteristic of the Spanish horse, an Arabian-Barb blend bred in Andalusia and Seville in the 16th century. The Spanish horses were first brought to North America by Hernando Cortes in 1519.

While a day’s drive south of the Canadian border, there is an Alberta connection to this magnificent herd. Cowboy singer Ian Tyson, who ranches east of Longview, immortalized the herd in his song La Primera. In researching the song, Tyson visited the herd about six years ago. “I wanted to write the definitive story of La Primera, and this herd is the purest bunch of Spanish Mustangs around,” Tyson said. The lyrics, telling the tale of the arrival and survival of North America’s wild Mustangs, also have been published as a children’s book, with illustrations by Adeline Halvorson, who was raised in Saskatchewan and now lives in Chilliwack, B.C.

“Some horses that people call Mustangs are really just feral horses. But these Pryor horses are the real thing. They don’t look like any other horse you’ve ever seen. You can see they are throwbacks to the old Mustangs, with the zebra stripes on their legs,” said Tyson. His song includes the lyrics: “High in the Pryor Mountains, first light of dawn, Coyote Dun walks beneath the morning star.”

With strains of the song playing in my mind, I watched the family bands — each consisting of a stallion, several mares and foals — move about the mountainside. And then, as if emerging from my thoughts, there stood a handsome coyote dun stallion (a bay with black points and dorsal stripe) and his harem. Known as Jackson, he is one of the boldest stallions on the mountain.

Not far away grazed Cloud, famous to those who have read Ginger Kathrens’ books and watched her documentaries on the PBS Nature series about the creamcoloured stallion. Over the years, Cloud has become an emblem for wild horses, with Kathrens operating the Cloud Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of wild horses on public lands.

I spent seven hours on the mountainside, in the company of volunteer guide Tom Dillon. “I never tire of coming up here,” he said. “It’s different every time. And you’re never sure what horses you will see.” Duns and blue grullas are the dominant colours, but there are also buckskins, bays, blacks and roans. All are small, between 13 to 15 hands, with sloping croups.

The majority of the herd’s 125 horses roam on the mountain’s rocky wind-swept mesa, seeking out natural pools or snow banks for water, and retreating to groves of pine and spruce for protection. Other horses live at the base of the mountain’s rose-coloured cliffs, in the high desert, poking about for food in between thick sage.

A harsh and isolated area, with such natural barriers as canyons and the Bighorn River, a portion of the area is adjacent to the Crow Indian Reservation. Many of its old-timers say the horses have been living on the mountain for at least 200 years.

After the Spanish horses arrived in North America, many ran off or were abandoned. They became the mounts for Indians, the cavalry and settlers. Today, it is estimated there are about 35,000 wild horses and burros in the U.S. By comparison, Canada has several hundred in Alberta and B.C., in addition to the horses protected by federal law on Nova Scotia’s Sable Island.

Established in 1968, the Pryor Mountain preserve is the first public federal wild horse range, one of three such U.S. ranges set aside for wild horses above all other purposes. The other two are in Nevada and Colorado. In addition, there are 180 wild horse areas.

The Pryor Mountain herd is deemed special because DNA analysis has revealed they are descendants of Spanish Colonial horses. Like those horses, the Pryor animals also have five large lumbar vertebrae, while most modern breeds have six. “It’s a fused vertebrae,” said Matt Dillon, who’s observed the unique backbones in skeletal remains. Dillon is the director of the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Centre in Lovell, WY, a non-profit educational centre dedicated to

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