His loop ready he walked towards the gelding. Smoky watched him come and that pony’s actions showed where he just wanted to shrink away to nothing and disappear; but he stayed full size, and seen where his next best move was to just move, and away to most any old place. The other geldings scattered as the human came on, and Smoky piled in amongst ’em full speed to the other side of the corral; about that time he heard the hiss of a rope and that thing which he likened to a snake coiled up and right around both his front feet.
Them front feet was jerked away from under him as he sailed in the air and tried to get away, and then he made a circle in the atmosphere and came down to earth flat on his side. He no more than hit the ground when he tried to get up. He tried it again and again, and as the cowboy talked to him and advised him to ease up on the fighting, Smoky turned a wild eyed look his way and snorted.
“Now lay down and be good,” says that cowboy. “I sure don’t want to skin up that pretty hide of yours.”
Smoky did lay down; he had to, for in another few seconds his four feet was tied together. He breathed hard as he layed there plum helpless. His mind wasn’t working no more, his heart was a thumping fit to bust, and the racing of the blood thru his body only stampeded his brain. He was past trying to figger out how he was throwed so easy and then held down where he could move only his head. No cougar or bear could of made him so helpless; he could of fought with them; but with this human it all seemed like he had no chance, and the mystery of that human’s power is what put the fear in him, a fear the likes of which was a heap worse than he’d felt if he’d been cornered by a thousand bears, cougars, and wolves.
In a dazed way he seen the cowboy bend over him; a knee touched his neck and the muscles along there quivered the same as if a snake’s fangs had been feeling for a holt. A hand touched his ear and another his forehead; there was no pain but if there had been the little horse would of never felt it.
Pretty soon a hackamore was slipped on his head, he felt the rawhide “bosal” around his nose, and then the “feador” rope around his neck, all the while the crethure was making a low, and somehow not aggravating noise. It was a talking to him.
The cowboy gave his forehead a couple of rubs, then stood up and walked around to the pony’s feet. Smoky felt the tight ropes loosening up from around his ankles and pulled away; his feet was free but his mind was confused a lot and he still layed there; then he felt a pull on the hackamore rope.
“Come on up and stand on your legs,” says that cowboy—and Smoky came to life.
He came to life a pawing and rearing and a snorting. His feet was free and he could handle ’em again; he did handle ’em and put in all the strength and action he had a trying to pull away from the cowboy which was holding him with a long rope.—There’s some talk of the skill that’s showed between the angler and the trout, but the skill that was brought out from that hundred and fifty pound cowboy a holding that eleven hundred pounds of kinky, wild horseflesh was past talking about, and beyond the figgering out of any human that’s not up to the trade of bronco busting.
The cowboy played his rope and held his horse; he’d held many like him before and most all had fought the same as Smoky was now fighting. That pony’s eyes was afire as he seen there was no chance for any get away even when he was on his feet. He couldn’t at all shake that two-legged hunk of terror, and as he snorted and fought the rope that still held fast around his head and neck, he begin to tire some; and came a time when as the cowboy stood still a few yards away he stood still too, and legs wide apart, sweat a dripping from his slick hide, he took in a breathing spell.
He stood there as he watched the cowboy back away and let the rope slide thru his hands; he watched him open the gate and get the saddle horse that’d been left to stand on the other side, seen him get on that horse and then pick up the slack of the rope that was holding him. There was thirty feet of it between him and the mounted human, and when that rope was tossed a little, as the rider circled around him, Smoky made a leap and shaking his head like trying to slip what held him, he headed straight on for the open gate.
But once past it Smoky was jerked to a fighting standstill, he hadn’t as yet reckoned that a rope could hold him—. The gate was closed after him and the rider had went thru and then Smoky felt some slack. He took advantage of that and started out full speed again; he was out of the corral and in the open, the
