Smoky the Cowhorse

miles away was where he was born; the big mountains now covered with snow was the same he was raised on, and which he tore up with his hoofs as he played while a little colt, and by his mammy. The corrals by the stable and sheds was the ones he was first run into when branded, and in them, a few years later, broke to saddle; but what Clint would wonder the most, as he watched, is whether Smoky remembered him.

The cowboy had kept a hoping that sometime he’d be greeted with a nicker as he’d open the stable door in the morning. Clint felt if the horse remembered, he would nicker that way at the sight of him and like he used to; but morning after morning went by, and even though Smoky seemed full of life and rounded out to near natural again, no nicker was ever heard.

“Somebody must of stretched that pony’s heartstrings to the breaking point,” he remarked one day, as he’d stopped, wondering as usual, and looked at the horse.

Finally spring came sure enough, and broke up the winter. Green grass-covered ridges took the place of snow banks, and the cottonwoods along the creeks was beginning to bud. It was during one of them fine spring days, when riding along and looking the country over, Clint run acrost a bunch of horses. In the bunch was a couple of colts just a few days old, and knowing that old ponies have such a strong interest and liking for the little fellers, the cowboy figgered the sight of ’em would help considerable in bringing Smoky’s heart up a few notches, and maybe to remembering. He fell in behind the bunch and hazed ’em all towards the corrals, and as Smoky, turned loose that day, spotted the bunch, his head went up. Then he noticed the little fellers, and that old pony, gathering all the speed there was in him, headed straight for the bunch and amongst ’em.

Clint corralled him and all the rest together and setting on his horse at the gate, watched Smoky while that horse was having the time of his life getting acquainted. The pony dodged kicks and bites and went back and forth thru the bunch, and a spark showed in his eye which hadn’t been there for many a day.

The cowboy could near see the horse smile at the little colts; and he was surprised at the show of action and interest the old pony had reserved, or gained. He was acting near like a two-year-old, and Clint grinned as he watched.

“Daggone his old hide,” says the cowboy, “it looks to me like he’s good to live and enjoy life for many summers yet”; then thinking strong, he went on, “and maybe in that time he might get to remembering me again⁠—I wonder.”

He watched Smoky a while longer and till he got acquainted some, and at last deciding it’d be for the best to let him go, he reined his horse out of the gate and let the bunch run by. The old pony seemed to hesitate some as the bunch filed out. He liked their company mighty well but something held him back; then a horse nickered, and even though that nicker might not of been meant for him, it was enough to make him decide. He struck out on a high lope and towards the bunch. One of the little colts and full of play waited for him, and nipping the old horse in the flanks, run by his side till the bunch was caught up with⁠—Smoky was living again.

Clint sat on his horse and watched the bunch lope out over a ridge and out of sight; and with a last glimpse at the mouse colored rump he grinned a little, but it was a sorry grin, and as he kept a looking the way Smoky had gone, he says:

“I wonder if he ever will.”

---

With the green grass growing near an inch a day, Clint wasn’t worried much on how old Smoky was making it. He figgered a horse couldn’t die if he wanted to, not on that range at that time of the year; but some day soon he was going to try and locate the old horse and find out for sure how he really was. Then a lot of work came on which kept the cowboy from going out soon as he wanted to, and then one morning, bright and early, as he stepped out to get a bucket of water, the morning sun throwed a shadow on the door; and as he stuck his head out a nicker was heard.

Clint dropped his bucket in surprise at what he heard and then seen. For, standing out a ways, slick and shiny, was the old mouse colored horse. The good care the cowboy had handed him, and afterwards, the ramblings over the old home range, had done its work. The heart of Smoky had come to life again, and full size.

Endnotes

1. Riders representing other outfits. ↩

2. The old cattle which’d been kept and fed under the sheds thru the winter. ↩

3. Changed for a time by just cutting the hair. ↩

4. Of the early Spanish. ↩

5. Top-hand. ↩

6. Cowboy. ↩

7. Overrun. ↩

Colophon

Smoky, the Cowhorse
was published in 1926 by
Will James.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Jason DeCock,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2019 by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, and The Distributed Proofreaders Canada Team
for
Faded Page Canada
and on digital scans from the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Wild Horse Hunters,
a painting completed in 1913 by
Charles Marion Russell.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable