The cowboy rode The Cougar till the other side of the grounds was reached. There he stopped him and climbed off, and hearing the hurrahs from the grandstand, he touched the horse on the neck and says:
“Never mind, old horse, you’ve done yours—and I’d liked mighty well if I could of turned you loose amongst that bunch that’s making all that noise up there, and watch ’em scatter—but you’re not fighting any more.”
The rodeo was on its last day, the prizes was handed out that night, and the next morning the bucking horses was loaded in the stock cars on the way for some other town where another rodeo was going to be pulled off. In them box cars there was one place where The Cougar had stood while on the road, but this time, and in that same place, was a grey horse who snorted as the train begin to move. The Cougar had been left behind, and from the inside of the stockyards watched the train pull out of sight.
XIII
“A Many-Men Horse”
The Cougar being he was useless for rodeo purposes, had been sold to the livery stable man for twenty-five dollars.
It was figgered that at least twenty-five dollars worth of use would be got out of him there. The horse was fat and strong looking, could be broke to harness, and made to do his share with any of the six and eight horse teams which was kept on the road acrost the deserts as freight teams.
But one day, and before the harness ever disgraced The Cougar’s hide, a bunch of tourists had flocked into town to stay for a spell, and one of the crowd suggested a little horseback riding. The livery stable man was at once swamped with orders for saddle horses, and before he got thru tallying up how many he could furnish, he found he was short of about three. By scouting around, he dug up two more, but he was still short one, and then his eye fell on the mouse colored horse.
At first, he was for overlooking that horse entirely, but as he needed one more to finish up the party, he couldn’t very well afford to overlook any horse that might do. He caught the horse and saddled him, and scared but game, he got in the saddle. If that pony still had one jump left in him, it was up to that old boy to find out; and one jump from that horse would be that much too many. He’d never do for no tourist then.
But The Cougar never even humped up as he was rode around the stable corrals. The man’s legs begin to quit shaking, and as he sat there, his face gradually turned from blank white to natural color again; and then he begin to grin and show pleasant surprise as he noticed how well the horse reined whichever way was wanted.
“By japers,” he remarked to the stable door, “this feller is a real saddle horse.”
So, when the tourists, all togged up in their shiny riding habits, appeared sometime later, the stable man was all ready and waiting for ’em. He sized ’em all up as to which would get along with each horse best, and being he was still dubious as to what The Cougar might do, he looked ’em all over careful once more till the strongest and most able looking young man in the bunch was spotted.
The Cougar’s reins was handed to him, and sort of cautious, he asked:
“I suppose you know how to ride well?”
That young man turned on him, surprised at such a question, and answered sarcastic:
“Why certainly.”
The stable man grinned as he watched him and all ride up the street. “Why certainly,” he says to himself, and grinned some more. “I hope he’s just as certain on his riding when he gets back.”
It was evening before the party, slouching all over their horses, returned to the stable. The stable man smiled, satisfied, as he noticed that the young feller, not at all mussed up, was still riding The Cougar. He’d been worried about letting that young feller have the horse, but everything was OK now and the folks seemed to’ve all enjoyed their ride considerable, and so well that they wanted the horses again for the next day.
“This is a very fine horse,” says the young feller as he got off The Cougar. There was all about him that as much as went on to say, “Why certainly I can ride.”
The stable man had seen many like him, and knowed exactly how well he could ride; but he was relieved in learning that The Cougar had behaved so well.
“And what’s the horse’s name?” asks the young feller.
For a minute the stable man done some tall thinking; if the horse’s real name was given out, the young feller would sure swell up and bust in learning that he’d rode the famous outlaw nobody else had been able to ride for so long; and even though the horse hadn’t made a single jump with him, his “certainly” would get more conceited than ever. And then again, he maybe wouldn’t want the horse any more. So after hesitating a while he finally came onto a new name for the horse.
“Cloudy, is that horse’s name,” he says.
That name sounded sort of pleasing all around, and it fitted the color of the pony mighty well, but then the good points for it would never loom up like the name of Smoky had in the cow country to the north, nor would it ever be mentioned about from state to state and give thrills just at the sound like the name of The Cougar had often done. But then again that horse wasn’t the same no more—he’d went from top
