Smoky showed signs of liking all that went on. He took interest in it the same as a kid would to some new game—he liked to chase the wild eyed cow, turn her when she didn’t want to be turned, and put her where she didn’t want to be put; he liked to hold the rope tight on one of the critters and feel that he was the one that was keeping ’er down. It all struck him as a kind of a game where every animal before him had to do as he and the cowboy wished.
He was all for catching on and not a nerve in him was idle as Clint would take him of evenings and ride him out for a spell, and chase, cut out, or rope at the critter. Them goings on had his mind occupied and the fact that he’d figger and think on the subject between times was proved by the way he’d go at things in a decided and knowing how way, when the day before the same thing had left him puzzled and wondering.
That little work he was getting and the all heart interest he was finding in it, had settled him to the big change from the free life he’d led with the old buckskin horse and the bunch of mares and colts—his mammy was even forgotten, and instead there’d sprouted in him something that made him take a liking for the long lanky cowboy that came to see and play with him every day. He’d got to finding a lot of pleasure in doing just what that cowboy wanted him to do, and when that was done there was a hankering in him to do just a little bit more.
That’s the way Clint wanted to keep him; just a hankering to do more would get results, and he was careful to see that the little horse didn’t tire on the work. He wanted to make it play for him and keep it that way as long as he could, for he knowed that was the way to keep Smoky’s heart and spirit all in one hunk and intact.
VII
Smoky Shows His Feelings
Jeff Nicks, cow foreman of the Rocking R outfit, was riding along and headed for the horse camp where Clint was breaking horses. Spring works was over and Jeff thinking it was a good time for him to do a little lone riding and kinda visit the camps of the outfit, had left his straw boss in charge of the wagon, caught his best horse and strung out to cover some of the Rocking R territory.
It was a hot day, not a breath stirred the air; and as the old cowman rode he lifted his hat often to kinda let a fresh supply of atmosphere come in underneath. His big brown horse was covering ground in a running walk, and Jeff keeping him down to that gate wasn’t passing a coulee nor a draw without a glance in it and then to the skyline above. It was his habit as a cowman to keep his eyes on the job while riding, and for the good of the company or his own, nary a thing had ever escaped his vision unless it was just too far for that vision to reach.
It was as he was riding along natural that way, that he noticed a thin streak of dust to the right of him quite a ways; that dust wasn’t made by anything traveling fast, and even though it reached up in the air good and high Jeff could see at a glance that the dust was stirred by something dragging.
He stopped his horse so as to get a steadier view, and pretty soon he could make out the shape of a horse underneath that dust; something that looked like a turned pack was fastened or hanging on to him and dragging alongside.
Jeff had seen many happenings on the range between man and horse and from that figgered to always investigate anything that suspicioned of something gone wrong, and to investigate quick.—He put his horse in a high lope. Down draws, over rolling hills, and acrost dog towns he went all at the same speed, and pretty soon he comes to where there’s only a small ridge between him and what he wanted to investigate.
It was then that he figgered it best to take it slow till he’d seen just what was up; if some rider had got caught in his riggin’ some way as a horse fell, and that horse was wild and unbroke, riding in on a high lope would only make things worse and cause the horse to stampede.—Nobody knowed that better than Jeff did.
He got off his horse, walked a ways, and peeking thru the tall grass seen the whole goings on at a glance. Fifty yards below him was a mouse colored horse—looked like a half broke bronc to him on account of the way the hackamore was rigged—but that horse didn’t act like half broke. He was going thru a performance that most gentle broke range horses wouldn’t put up with, and that was to half carry and half drag a man, and on the wrong side.
Jeff recognized that man as his “bronc peeler” Clint, and he was all for rushing down to see what had happened and help, but he held back—he wasn’t sure but what the mouse colored horse would scare and run away at the sight of him, and he couldn’t tell but what Clint’s hands was fastened to the saddle horn the way he was hanging on.
He could see there was still life in the rider, but
