There Clint listened mighty close as he learned a heap about the mouse colored horse when he was known as Cloudy. The stable man went on to tell as far as he knowed about the horse and the whole history of him, and when that pony was known thru the Southwest and many other places, as The Cougar, the wickedest bucking horse and fighting outlaw the country had ever layed eyes on.
Clint was kinda proud in hearing that. He’d heard of The Cougar and that pony’s bucking ability even up to the Canadian line and acrost it, and to himself he says: “That Smoky horse never did do things halfways.” But he got to wondering, and then asked how come the pony had turned out to be the kind of a horse. That, the stable man didn’t know. It was news to him that the horse had ever been anything else, and as he says:
“The first that was seen of that horse is when some cowboys found him on the desert, amongst a bunch of wild horses, and packing a saddle. Nobody had ever showed up to claim him, and as that pony had been more than inclined to buck and fight is how come he was sold as a bucking horse—and believe me, old timer,” went on the stable man, a shaking his head, “he was some bucking horse.”
“Well,” says the sheriff, “that’s another clue run to the ground with nothing left of, but the remains.”
That night, the big engine was hooked on to the trainload of cattle as to per schedule and started puffing its way on to the north. In the last car, the one next to the caboose, and the least crowded, a space had been partitioned off. In that space was a bale of good hay, a barrel of water, and an old mouse colored horse.
The winter that came was very different to any the old mouse colored horse had ever put in. The first part of it went by with him like in a trance, not realizing and hardly seeing. His old heart had dwindled down till only a sputtering flame was left, and that threatened to go out with the first hint of any kind of breeze.
Clint had got the old horse in a warm box stall, filled the manger full of the best blue joint hay there was, and even bedded him down with more of the same; water was in that same stall and where it could be easy reached, and then that cowboy had bought many a dollar’s worth of condition powders, and other preparations which would near coax life back even in a dead body.
Two months went by when all seemed kinda hopeless, but Clint worked on and kept a hoping. He’d brought the old horse in the house, and made him a bed by the stove if that would of helped; and far as that goes, he’d of done anything else, just so a spark of life showed in the old pony’s eyes; but he’d done all he could do, and as he’d lay a hand on the old skinny neck and felt of the old hide, he’d cuss and wish for the chance of twisting out of shape who all had been responsible. Then his expression would change, and he’d near bust out crying as he’d think back and compare the old wreck with what that horse had been.
As much as Clint had liked Smoky, the old wreck of a shadow of that horse wasn’t wanting for any of the same liking. It was still in the cowboy’s heart a plenty, and if anything, more so on account that the old pony was now needing help, and a friend like he’d never needed before; and Clint was more on hand with the horse, now that he was worthless, than he’d been when Smoky was the four hundred dollar cowhorse and worth more.
Finally, and after many a day of care and worrying, Clint begin to notice with a glad smile that the pony’s hide was loosening up. Then after a week or so more of shoving hay and grain, condition powers, and other things down the old pony’s throat, a layer of meat begin to spread over them bones and under that hide. Then one day a spark showed in the pony’s eyes, soon after that he started taking interest in the things around.
As layer after layer of meat and then tallow accumulated and rounded the sharp corners of Smoky’s frame, that pony was for noticing more and more till after a while his interest spread enough, and with a clearer vision, went as far as to take in the man, who kept a going and coming, once in a while touched him, and then talked.
Clint liked to had a fit one day, when talking to the horse and happened to say Smoky, he noticed that pony cock an ear.
The recuperating of the horse went pretty fast from then on; and as the winter days howled past and early spring drawed near, there was no more fear of Smoky’s last stand being anywheres near. As the days growed longer and the sun got warmer, there was times when Clint would lead the horse out and turn him loose to walk around in the sunshine, and that way get the blood to circulating. Smoky would sometimes mosey along for hours around the place and then start out on some trail, but always when the sun went down, he was by the stable door again and then Clint would let him in.
Clint would watch him by the hour whenever the horse was out that way, and he’d wonder, as he kept his eye on him, if that pony remembered, if the knocks he’d got from different people in different countries, didn’t forever make him forget his home range and all that went with it. Not many
