Not once, since that day he’d bogged his head in front of the first grandstand, had a club, nor even a twig, ever been layed on him. For the first couple of years, Smoky had let the heart the halfbreed had transplanted in him, control his actions. The poison of hate in that heart had kept him from noticing or go according to the good treatment he’d been getting; and it was close on to the fifth year before his ears begin to perk up to the show of admiration and respect that was handed him from all around.
The name of The Cougar lived on for a spell, but the horse that had been packing that name was fast getting away from having the right to such.—Then the next spring came and with it rodeos begin to be pulled off here and there. Good riders begin following The Cougar again as before, and with the hopes that some day, sometime or other, they’d be able to pull their riggins off that pony’s back and be able to say:
“I rode him.”
But long before middle summer come, them hopes had died down in many of the boys, for The Cougar wasn’t The Cougar no more. Them fast, crooked, and hard hitting jumps of his, and which had jarred the thoughts and balance out of so many a good rider, had died down, and put the horse as an average with the other bucking horses. Rider after rider forked him, and sorta disappointed, had rode and fanned him easy enough; where a year or so before no fanning had been required to qualify.
The Cougar kept a bucking on and on every time he was saddled, and he was rode thru to the finish oftener and oftener till finally, no rider was ever throwed no more, not from that pony’s back.
The heart of The Cougar was shriveling up and leaving space for the heart that was Smoky’s, and that heart, even though older and weaker, was making a mighty strong stand, and steady coming back.
Soon, there came a time when the mouse colored outlaw didn’t have to be handled from a distance no more; no high corral was needed for protection against his teeth and hoofs, and like most of the other buckers he could be led from the stock car to the rodeo grounds without any other ropes holding him back, and away from the man that was leading him.
Then one day, a rider brought in a big rawboned grey, remarking that “here was an outlaw,” and an outlaw he was sure enough. From his Roman nose on up to his sunk, dead looking eyes, and taking in his lantern jaws on to his thick neck and along with the rest of him, all indicated the natural outlaw; but what made him as a most valuable horse for the rodeos, was in the how he could buck; that’s all he knowed, and like all natural outlaws that way, that’s all he wanted to know.
Right away, he was called “The Grey Cougar,” the same as to try and bring back the real Cougar. But there was no comparing the grey outlaw with The Cougar, not when that last one had meant business. To begin with, the grey horse was mean only because it was his natural instinct to be that way; he didn’t have the special ambition nor the brains that The Cougar had. With the grey it was just jug headed orneriness, and in no way could he compete with the mouse colored man killer; but he made a fine outlaw just the same, a second best that’d do.
He managed to buck a few men off from the start, and right then is when the Old Cougar begin sliding into the background, for it’d been quite a spell since that pony had made a man ride for his money.—The appearance of the grey outlaw had kinda marked the downhill start for Smoky’s career as a bucking horse, and then one day the end came sure enough, and in a few minutes.
As usual, The Cougar was announced to the crowd, and them in the grandstand who’d often heard but never seen that wicked pony in action was naturally mighty interested as that notorious horse made his appearance in the saddling chute. Many in the crowd had seen him buck before, and some of them stopped breathing for a spell; and while the gate was opened, most anything was expected from that horse; and all of them that looked on felt sure of seeing something that’d come up to their expectations, and then some.
The gate was opened, and out came a streak of a mouse colored horse with a cowboy on top, and The Cougar, that famous outlaw, lined out acrost the ground on a long lope.
Anywheres, and in any line, very little respect is ever showed for a “has been.” If The Cougar had fought and tore things up as he’d once had, all would of been hunkydory, and the crowd would all been satisfied; but the horse had come to the end of his fighting streak. Not a jump was left in him, for the Smoky heart had growed over and smothered the heart that’d been The Cougar’s. He was a “has been” and only willing to be the plain behaving Smoky again.
The crowd was disappointed, they felt they wasn’t getting their money’s worth, and there was hollers of “Take him away and hook him up on a milk wagon,” or “Sell him for a lady’s saddle horse,” and so on. It was queer, but only natural, to notice that them loud mouth remarks was passed only by the most useless, and of the kind that’s plum helpless whenever away from their home grounds.
