Smoky took up to where he’d left off the fall before and kept on accumulating science in ways of handling the critter till that critter would just roll up an eye at the sight of the mouse colored pony and never argue as to where he wanted to put ’er;—she’d just go there.
Spring work went on, middle summer came, and sometime after, the fall roundup was in full swing again. Thousands of cattle was handled, cut out, and culled. Big herds of fat steers was trailed in to the shipping point and loaded in the cars, and when the weaning was done and the old stock was all brought in close to the cow camps, Jeff headed his wagon towards the home ranch once more. The work was over, the remuda was turned out and the riders that was kept on the payroll saddled their winter horses and scattered out for the outfit’s different camps.
Winter came on and set in, then spring bloomed out green once again, and with it the cowboys spread out on the range once more. Season after season followed one another without a ruffle that way, the same territory was covered at the same time of the year, the wagon rolled in at the same grounds, and the rope corral stretched at the same spot, old riders disappeared and new ones took their place, like with the ponies; the old cowhorses was pensioned, replaced by younger ones and the work went on, season after season, year after year, the same outfit rambled out of the home ranch and combed the range like as if no changes was taking place.
Jeff, the cow boss, the roundup cook, Clint, and a couple more riders was all that was left of the old hands as the wagon pulled out one spring;—the others’d had cravings for new countries and went and throwed their soogans on some other outfit’s wagons.
Five years had went by since that day when Clint, riding Smoky, had joined the wagon. Five summers was put in when every time Smoky was saddled and rode Clint was the cowboy that done it. Not another hand had touched Smoky’s hide in that time, excepting when Old Tom had tried to appropriate the horse for his own string, and since that day there hadn’t been any excuse for Clint to worry about anybody taking Smoky away from him. There wasn’t a cowboy in the outfit who didn’t more than want the horse, and if Clint ever failed to show up when the spring works started there’d most likely been some argument as to who should get him; but he’d always been the first to ride in at the home ranch at them times and none had the chance to lay claim on the horse.
In them long summers, and as Smoky was rode off and on, the little horse had got to know Clint as well as that cowboy knowed hisself; he knowed just when Clint was a little under the weather and not feeling good—at them times he’d go kinda easy with his bucking as the cowboy topped him off. The feel of Clint’s hand was plain reading to him, and he could tell by a light touch of it whether it meant “go get ’er,” “easy now,” “good work,” and so on. The tone of his voice was also mighty easy to understand. He could tell a lot of things by it, specially when he was being got after for doing something he shouldn’t of done. His eyes was wide open at them times, his neck bowed, and he’d snort sorta low, but when Clint would tell him what a fine horse he was, Smoky was some different—he’d just take it all in the same as he would warm sunshine in a cold fall day, and near close his eyes for the peace he was feeling at the sound of the cowboy’s voice.
The way Smoky could understand the man who rode him thru and around the big herds had a lot to do in making him the cowhorse he’d turned out to be. His strong liking for the rider had made him take interest and for learning all about whatever he was rode out to do. There’d come a time when Smoky knowed the second Clint had a critter spotted to be cut out, and the pony’s instinct near told him which one it was, till nary a feel of the rein was needed and the dodging critter was stepped on and headed for the “cut.”
The same with roping and where Smoky could do near everything but throw the rope that caught the critter. There he shined as he did anywhere else under the saddle. He’d keep one ear back, watch out and follow the loop leave Clint’s hand and sail out to settle around a steer’s horns, and the slack was no more than pulled when that pony would turn and go the other way—he knowed how to “lay” the critter, and none of the big ones ever got up, not while Smoky was at one end of the rope.
Of the many happenings that all went to show of Smoky’s knowing how in handling the critter, there’s one Clint and the boys liked to tell of. It was only an average of the others that happened, but there was something about that one which made the telling easier as to the wonders of that horse. It was the detail that counted there.
There was a big steer in the herd with a crooked horn which had curved and threatened to grow some more and right thru his eye. Clint and Jeff spotted the steer at the same time, and while one of the boys went to the wagon to get a saw to cut the horn off with, both Clint
