It was middle afternoon when the pilot came to a big creek bottom and circled by a grove of willows and cottonwoods. The second camp of that day was made, the wrangler let the remuda come to a walk and pretty soon left ’em to graze on towards the creek a half a mile below camp; and as he seen that all seemed contented to graze, drink, and roll, he left ’em to go and put up the rope corral, snake in wood for the cook, and whatever other things that’s all the responsibilities of the wrangatang.
He kept one eye on the ponies as he worked and if any restless bronc showed indications of wanting to start drifting, that boy jumped on his horse, turned him, and watched for a spell till that bronc seemed satisfied to stay. Many a wrangler has used the excuse of “hard-to-hold ponies” just so he could get away from too much work, and most always it was a mighty good excuse too.
But Smoky and Pecos, which was his brother, had give no such a excuse to the wrangler. They both seemed mighty satisfied, and after they’d had a good drink in the cool stream, and a good roll afterwards, put their time in getting away with all the blue joint grass they could. Every once in a while Smoky would raise his head, and chewing on a mouthful of the tall feed, would look up at the ridges around him, then towards the camp and wonder at the noise the cook was making with his pots and pans. All had him interested, it was all new, and with the nicker he’d often hear from one side of the scattered remuda and then the other, the steady ring of the horse bells and all. The little horse wasn’t hankering for anything only just what he was in the thick of.
He’d been grazing for a good long time, and the sun was hitting towards the ridges to the west, when to the south a ways he noticed a big dust a soaring up the sky and a mile high. There was a steady rumbling noise as the dust came closer and pretty soon he could make out the bellering of the critter. A big herd it was, the “combings” of the first “circle,” and a thousand head or more of white-faced, brockle-faced, speckled, red, black, and all colors and sizes of range cattle topped a ridge and on a high lope was swung towards the “cutting grounds.”
About that time the horse wrangler fogged in on the remuda, and in a short while Smoky and all the ponies found themselves in the rope corral once again; the cowboys was needing fresh horses and catch ropes begin a sailing once more as the twenty and more of ’em snared their “cut” horses, a few snaked out broncs and pretty soon all hands was mounted again, and working the herd they’d brought in.
Smoky was spooked up once more as he heard the ropes sing over his ears. He heard a familiar voice say “How’s she going Smoky?” but the little horse was busy hunting a hole about that time and he was too excited to nicker an answer. Then, after what seemed an awful long time to Smoky, the ponies was left out of the corral once more and when the wrangler checked ’em all to graze, him and Pecos was in the lead.
The ponies was grazing on a low bench and on the opposite side of the creek from where the cattle herd was being worked. Many was cut out and started back on the same range from where they come, and pretty soon Smoky’s sensitive nostrils smelled the smoke from the fire that kept the branding irons hot; then the smell of burnt hair followed, he heard the beller of the critters, and snorting sorta low and in wonder, the mouse colored pony watched.
He watched the riders at work, seen long ropes a swinging, and how them long ropes would stop the bunch-quitting steer; he was familiar with some of that and somehow there came in him a hunch that he’d like to be closer; there was something about the workings of that herd across the creek that had his blood racing above natural, and he felt a kind of a call for the whole of the goings on, a call of the kind he couldn’t as yet understand, but it was there sure enough.
Finally, the smell of singed hair wasn’t on the breeze no more, branding was over for that day, and the last rope was coiled up and fastened by the saddle horn. Smoky watched as all but a few riders left the herd and headed for camp, he went to grazing then, and neck and neck with Pecos he listened to the rattle of tin plates and the laugh of the cowboys as he nosed around for the tenderest stems of the blue joint.
Four riders on “cocktail” (hours between the last meal of the day and the first night guard) got on their horses and rode to “relieve” the riders holding the herd, and it wasn’t long after that when the quiet of the evening settled on the range. Even the critter seemed to want to stop bellering for a spell at that time, most of the bells of the remuda was quiet and the ponies was dozing.
Smoky had been dozing too, but pretty soon his ears perked up at a sound the likes of which he’d never heard before, the sound came from the camp, and strange as it was there was something about it that wasn’t at all aggravating.
Around a good size
