The steer was wild, big and husky, and wise, and soon as he seen the two riders coming thru the herd headed his way, he broke out of it and tail up in the air begin to leave the flat. About then is when Smoky appeared on the scene.
That little horse et up the distance between him and that steer in no time and soon carried Clint to within reach. On account of the crooked horn Clint had to rope the steer around the neck, and that he did neat and quick. Everything went on as it should—Smoky run on past the steer and Clint throwed the slack of his rope over that same steer’s rump and in another second that critter would of been laying with toes up to the sky and ready to tie.
The unexpected happened about that time, and when the rope tightened the steer didn’t lay at all. Instead there was a sound of something ripping. Clint went up in the air about three feet, turned a somerset and hit the ground, the saddle stood up on end on Smoky’s back and only the flank cinch was holding it there. The stub latigo of the front cinch had been ripped right thru by the tongue of the cinch buckle like it’d been paper.
Every rider around the herd seen the thing happen, and had already figgered how it wouldn’t take long for Smoky to get himself out from under the remains of that saddle. For near every horse would go to bucking and raising the dust when being pinched around the flanks that way, and Smoky had seemed so inclined to want to buck that it was thought he’d never overlook that chance.
The boys was already grinning at such a good promise of seeing a little excitement, but the grins soon faded to looks of wonder, for Smoky, instead of trying to get shed of the saddle, showed he was using his brain to the best way of keeping it there. He was a cowhorse and working, and it was no time for foolishness, so, when the rigging reared upon his hind quarters that way he reared up with it, and turned while in the air. When his front feet touched the ground again the saddle was where it belonged and he was facing the steer.
When that story was told to the country around there was many hard-to-be-convinced riders, who laughed and shook their heads and remarked how it was pure luck that the pony acted that way, but if they’d knowed Smoky, if they’d seen how he juggled that saddle and worked to keep his holt on the steer, there’d been a different tune.
The steer had stayed up and with his ten hundred pounds of wild weight had fought at the rope and hit the end mighty hard. Then Smoky done another thing which kept the boys a staring and doing nothing. The steer was making another wild dash for open country, and Smoky, instead of holding his ground and waiting for the steer to hit the end of the rope broke out in a sudden run and right after the critter. When the speed of both of ’em was up good and high, Smoky of a sudden planted himself till his hocks touched the ground, and when Mr. Steer hit the end of the rope that time it was just as though that rope had been fastened to a four foot stump. His head was jerked under him, he turned in the air, and when he came down he layed.
“There was only one thing that horse didn’t do,” Jeff had remarked afterwards—“he didn’t give the rope a flip before he set down on it.”
Smoky had kept the rope tight and Clint tied the steer down to stay till the crooked horn was sawed off. When that was done Clint put up a hand and spoke, and Smoky gave slack so the rope could be pulled off the steer’s head.
Big herds of Mexico long-horned steers had been bought by the Rocking R and shipped into that northern country. They got fat on that range and wilder than ever, and there’s where Smoky showed he had something else besides the knowing how. Them long-horned critters are too fast for the average cowhorse to catch up with in a short distance, but not with Smoky;—he had the speed to go with what he knowed, and Clint would have time to whirl his rope only a few times when the little horse would climb up on the long legged steer and pack the cowboy within roping distance.
Many a cowboy had remarked that it was worth the price of a good show to watch Smoky work, whether it was around, in or out of a herd; and many a rider had let a cow sneak past him just so he could see how neat that pony could outdodge a critter. And when after the last meal of the day and the cowboys stretched out to rest some, talk, or sing, none ever had any argument to put up and no betting was ever done against whatever Clint said Smoky could do or had done. They all knowed and admired the horse, and came a time as these cowboys came and went that Smoky begin to be talked about in the cow camps of other cow outfits. One whole northern State got to hear of him, and one cowboy wasn’t at all surprised when hitting South one fall and close to the Mexican border to hear another cowboy talk of “Smoky of the Rocking R.”
The owner of a neighbor outfit sent word by one of the “reps”1 one day that he’d give a hundred dollars for that horse; Smoky had been broke only two years then. Old Tom laughed at the offer, and Clint got peeved. The next year that offer was raised by the same party to
