The last of the beef herd had been turned over to another “wagon” of the Rocking R and shipped, and Jeff’s main herd was from then on made up of cows with big weaner calves, and all stock that’d need feeding thru the winter.
“A couple of weeks more now and we’ll be seeing the gates of the home ranch,” says Jeff one day, but it was a long three weeks before the stock was tended to and when camp was made for the last time. The wet snow had got flaky and dry by then and six inches of it was covering the ground.
“Now hold on a minute, Smoky, and give a feller a chance, won’t you?”
It was Clint a talking, and trying to hold Smoky down till he got his foot in the stirrup. The cowboy being all bundled up couldn’t handle himself as he’d like to; the little horse was cold; crusted snow had to be rubbed off his back before the saddle could be put on and he was aching to put his head down and go to bucking so he could warm up.
Clint was only halfways in the saddle when that pony lit into it, but the cowboy didn’t mind that. His blood was also a long ways from the boiling point and any excuse to get circulating good was welcome.
Around and around him Smoky went and all in one spot. All the fancy twists of a bucking pony was gone over and the rider met him all the way, and as Clint rode and fanned and laughed, he’d get fast glimpses of other riders and other horses a tearing up the white landscape and getting down to the earth underneath.
It was the last day of the roundup, all the work was done, the cook climbed on his seat, grabbed the lines the boys handed him, and letting out a war whoop, scared his already spooky team into a long lope towards the home ranch.
The sight of the big gates was a mighty fine one to all as the outfit clattered in, specially with the sky a threatening the way it was; the old cowhorses had their ears pointed towards the big pole corrals. They knowed what the sight of them meant at that time of the year and none tried to break away as the wrangler run ’em in. They was turned out in a big pasture that night, and the next days a couple of riders came, bunched ’em up, and took ’em thru another gate leading out of the ranch.
Clint had took it onto hisself to be one of them riders—he wanted to get another look at Smoky before letting him go to the winter range and find out for sure just what conditions that range would be in. The outskirts of it was reached that noon and as Clint rode along back of the remuda he was more than satisfied to notice the tall feed that the six inches of snow couldn’t hide. He noticed the breaks and the shelter they would give, then the thick growth of willows along the creek bottom and which meant more shelter.
Clint stopped his horse and the two hundred ponies was left to scatter. His eyes run over the well known backs for a last time, he wouldn’t be seeing them again till spring roundup started and he watched ’em slowly graze away. Many was in that bunch that he’d broke and named, and starting from the meanest fighting bronc of the rough string, and taking all the ponies on up to the best cowhorse of the foreman’s string there wasn’t one that Clint didn’t know and know mighty well as to tricks and good or bad points.
A big old sorrel with a kinked neck and by the name of Boar Hound caught his eye, and Clint remembered how that pony tried to commit suicide rather than be rode and how he’d now changed to wanting to commit murder instead and kill a few cowboys. Then a smile spread over his face as he spotted a tall Roman-nosed gruller who’d never made a jump till a rope got under his tail. He’d took a sudden liking to bucking from then on and made hisself a reputation at that which scattered over four counties.
Every horse Clint looked at brought to memory some kind of a story, and there was a variety of expressions which changed with every horse that came under his eye. A big shaggy black looked his way and snorted and with the sight of him Clint remembered how that horse had reached ahead one time and kicked to pieces a cowboy that’d been unsaddling him.
His expression was mighty solemn at the thought of that, but it didn’t last long. Like a ray of sunshine, something shot out and scattered that dark cloud of memories four ways—Smoky had showed himself from behind other horses and not over fifty feet from where Clint was setting on his horse.
The cowboy’s face lit up with a smile at the sight of the pony, and getting down off his saddle he made tracks his way, but he didn’t have to go all the way, for soon as Smoky spotted him he left Pecos, his running pardner, behind, and nickering came to meet Clint.
“A feller would think to see you act that you’re a sure enough sugar eater,” Clint remarked as the little horse came up to him and stopped. He
