He was doing his best and keeping as far out of reach as he could but it seemed like them crethures was everywhere, and no place where them long ropes couldn’t reach. It was during one of his wild scrambles for a get away that Smoky heard the close hiss of a rope, and like a snake coiled itself around both his front legs, he let out a squeal, and in another second he was flat to the ground and four feet tied up.
Smoky figgered the end of the world had come as he felt the human touch him, and if it’d been in his blood to faint away, he’d done it easy; but as it was he never missed a thing. He seen one of the crethures run towards him with a hot iron, smelled burning hair and hide—it was his own that burned, but it felt cool and there was no pain, for he was at the stage where the searing iron was no worse than a touch from the human hand. But there’s an end to all, whether it’s good or bad, and pretty soon, Smoky felt the ropes come off his legs, a boost to let him know that all was over, and when he stood up and run back to the bunch, there was a mark on his slick hide that was there for life—as the brand read, the little horse belonged to the 
(Rocking R) outfit.
It was all a mighty great relief to Smoky and the other colts when the branding come to an end, the bunch all put back together, and when the colts found their mammies all was turned out and free again, free to go back to the high mountain range, or run on the flats.
Smoky’s mammy took the lead, and after the rest of the bunch was thru parleying with the strange horses, they joined in with her and the colt and all strung out for the foothills. The next day they all was up in high country again and everything of the day before was forgotten, forgotten, all excepting with Smoky and the other little colts. They still remembered some, on account that it had all been mighty new to ’em, and besides, the sting of the fresh brand was there on their left thigh to remind.
But as the days went by, and new things happened right along to draw Smoky’s interest in life, the happenings at the corral was gradually left behind like a bad dream; the burn healed quick and left a neat brand all of which growed right with him.
Fall came, skies clouded and the rains was getting cold, and each time it cleared up again it was a little colder, the sun wasn’t making as high a circle and was steady losing some of its heat, and when after a few mornings’ frost the skies clouded again and the wind blowed a light snow over the high pinnacles, the bunch gradually ranged lower and lower, till, when they reached the foothills and finally the flats, the first of the winter had set in and it was time for ’em to drift to their winter range.
Their winter range was low ridges and benches that raised up in the middle of the prairie. There was steep ravines where willows and cottonwoods growed in big patches, the shelter of them was mighty fine when the cold north winds blowed and the howling blizzard made every living thing hunt a hole. Tall grass was there too, and could always be reached by pawing for it. In quiet winter days, when the sun came out and the wind went down, the bunch could always leave their shelter and find places on the ridges where the winds had swept the snow away, and where the grass was in plain sight.
Drifting acrost that flat open country and investigating that new winter territory had kept Smoky’s eyes, ears, and nostrils mighty busy. There’d been a lot to keep him looking, listening, and sniffing. Every buffalo wallow, coulee, and rise had kept his senses on hair trigger edge, and when the first snow had come, he’d enjoy that too. It made him want to buck and play as it fell on his withers and rump, and along with the cold weather that’d turned the range brown and then white, he was finding more ambition to keep on the jump. He wasn’t looking for shade no more.
If Smoky minded the cold he sure didn’t show it, and if you could of felt his warm hide and seen how thick the hair had growed on it, and how long, you’d never wondered why it was that the cold raw winds never fazed him. Mother Nature had seen to that and brought on the winter gradual, till, when the time come for it to set in, Smoky was well prepared. He was packing a natural fur coat on a good thick hide, and with an inch of tallow for a lining, and along with the rich, thick blood which he kept in good circulation he was mighty able to compete with the snows and freezing weather, and was never found to hunt shelter till the blizzard blowed over the ridges from the north.
He pawed snow for his feed that winter, for it had been quite a few months before when he found that his mammy’s milk wasn’t quite enough, and later turned out to be just a taste, and finally, she give him to understand that he was weaned. There was no arguing with her, and Smoky knowed better than try, so he pawed and hunted for grass like a big horse. He et snow and could stay away from water as long as any of the bunch, and even though he lost some of his roundness thru the worst of the winter, you couldn’t of
