His long legs tangled and untangled themselves as he run, and he was sure making speed. Around and around he went and finally lined out straight away from where his mammy was headed. She nickered for him and waited, all patience. He turned after a spell and headed for his mammy again the same as though he’d run acrost another enemy at the other end; and as he got close to his mammy he let out a buck, a squeal, a snort, and stopped—he was sure some little wild horse.
It took a couple of hours for them two to make that mile to the spring. The mother drank a lot of that good water, a few long breaths and drank some more till the thirst was all gone. Smoky came over and nosed at the pool, but he didn’t take on any of the fluid, it looked just like so much thin air to him, the same with the tender green grass that was beginning to grow in bunches everywhere; it was just growing for him to run on.
The rest of that day was pretty well used up around that one spot; adventures of all kinds was numerous for Smoky, and when he wasn’t stretched out and asleep there was plenty of big stumps in the cottonwood grove that could be depended on to give him the scare he’d be looking for.
But there was other things and more threatening than stumps which Smoky hadn’t as yet spotted, like for instance—a big cayote had squatted and been watching him thru dead willow branches. He wasn’t at all interested in the action Smoky was putting into his play, and only wished the colt’s mammy would move away a little further when he would then take a chance and try to get him down—colt meat was his favorite dish and he sure wasn’t going to let no chance slip by even if it took a whole day’s waiting for one to show itself.
A couple of chances had come his way but they was queered by Smoky’s mammy being too close, and he knowed better than show himself and get run down by them hoofs of hers. Finally, and when he seen his appetite wouldn’t win anything by sticking around that spot any longer, he took a last sniff and came out of his hiding place. Keeping the willows between him and the horses, he loped out till he was at a safe running distance and where he could see all around him, and there he squatted again, in plain sight this time. He hadn’t quite made up his mind as yet whether to go or stick around a while longer.—Just about then Smoky spots him.
To him, the cayote was just another stump, but more interesting than the others he’d kicked at, on account that this stump moved, and that promised a lot of excitement. With a bowed neck and kinked tail Smoky trotted up towards the cayote. The cayote just set there and waited and when the colt got to within a few feet from him, he started away and just fast enough so as the colt’s curiosity would make him follow. If he could only get the colt over the ridge and out of his mammy’s sight.
It all was only a lot of fun to Smoky, and besides he was bound to find out what was that grey and yellow object that could move and run and didn’t at all look like his mammy. His instinct was warning him steady as he went, but curiosity had the best of him, and it wasn’t till he was over the hill before his instinct got above his curiosity and he seen that all wasn’t well.
The cayote had turned and quicker than a flash made a jump for Smoky’s throat.—The generations of mustang blood that’d fought the lobo and cougar, and which was the same blood that flowed in Smoky’s veins, is all that saved the colt. That inherited instinct made him do the right thing at the right time, he whirled quicker than lightning and let fly with both hind feet with the result that the cayote’s teeth just pinched the skin under his jaws. But even at that, he wasn’t going to get rid of his enemy (it was a sure enough enemy this time) that easy, and as he kicked he felt the weight of the cayote, and then a sharp pain on his hamstrings.
Smoky was scared, and he let out a squeal that sure made every living thing in that neighborhood set up and wonder; it was a plain and loud distress signal, and it was answered. His mammy shot up the hill, took in the goings on at a glance, and ears back, teeth a shining, tore up the earth and lit into the battle like a ton of dynamite.
The battle was over in a second, and with hunks of yellow fur a flying all directions it wound up in a chase. The cayote was in the lead and he stayed in the lead till a second hill took him out of sight.
Smoky was glad to follow his mammy back to the spring and on to the other side a ways. He didn’t shy at the stumps he passed on the way, and the twig that tickled his tummy didn’t bring no play. He was hungry and tired, and when the first was tended to and his appetite called for no more he lost no time to picking out a place
