Chapter 12 Smoky The Cowhorse by Will James
"WHEN THE GOOD LEAVES"
Big posters was tacked on the telegraph poles all around the little town of Gramah. Them posters could be seen in many windows of the town's stores, and advertised the coming rodeo and cowboys' reunion. Amongst the prizes that was wrote down on the poster was prints from photographs of bucking horses and steers, and taking most of the room in the centre of it was the picture of a bucking horse which outdone all the others. It showed that horse throwing his riders in a way few riders ever get throwed. Then in big letters underneath was the words: THE COUGAR CHALLENGES THE WORLD'S BEST.
The Cougar was the name of a bucking horse, the main attraction, and challenger to all the good riders of the country. No line was drawed as to where them riders came from or how far, and the purse that was offered for the one who could ride that horse and scratch him was enough to make any good rider want to come a long way and try.
Many had come and tried him at other rodeos and where The Cougar had performed, and found that that pony was no ordinary bucking horse; and as all that tried him could tell, afterwards, there was more than his bucking to contend with. He was mean, there was murder in his eye, and if it wasn't for the "pick-up" men who hazed him, many a cowboy would of been pawed to pieces even before he could of hit the ground.
That pony seemed to have a grudge against humans in general; his ambition was for exterminating 'em all off the face of the earth. But there was one thing which the riders noticed in him as most queer, and that was in the way he seemed to hate some humans worse than others,--his hate was plainest for the face that showed dark.
A story followed the horse, and which kept a being repeated as rider met rider at different rodeos and frontier day celebrations. It was that the horse had been found on the desert, amongst a bunch of wild horses and packing an empty saddle. There'd been dried blood sticking to the hair along his jaw, and some more on his knees; the horse had been roped and tied down and the riders had looked for signs of wounds or cuts on his hide but nary a scratch had been found.
The horse was then advertised in the county and State papers and described as "A mouse colored, blaze faced, stocking legged gelding, and packing a brand that looked like a blotched wagon wheel."
The advertisement was kept running for two weeks and nobody showed to claim the horse. He was kept in the pasture for a few days more, and then one day one of the riders run him in the corral.
The cowboy had liked the looks of the pony from the day he'd set eyes on him; he'd figgered him as an ordinary horse that'd been spoiled a little, and shaking out a loop, there'd been no doubt in his mind but what that could be took out of him easy enough. But he hadn't got very far when he found that the pony would have to be throwed before a saddle could ever be put on his back. There was a look in the horse's eye which he didn't like, and that cowboy having handled all kinds of horses knowed mighty well what that look meant.
He kept his distance, and from there worked his ropes till the horse went down to his knees and then flat to the ground. The saddle was cinched on tight, and seeing that the hackamore was on the pony's head to stay, the cowboy took his seat while the horse was down, and reaching over took the foot ropes off.
What went on in the next few minutes was past ever being described with talk, and as that cowboy felt, telling about it would be a disgrace as compared with what really happened-- something like trying to paint the Grand Canyon of Arizona on black canvas with black paint.
Anyway, that cowboy had reached for the top pole of the corral and got on the other side of it before the pony had really got started to whatever he was up to; and there on the safe side he done a mental round-up, and it all came to him. He remembered the empty saddle that was on the pony's back when found that day two weeks past--then the dried blood that'd been on his jaw and more of it on his knees.
The cowboy had remarked as thru the corral poles he'd watched the man killer:
"A twelve hundred pound mountain lion is what that horse is."
That's where his name Cougar had come in, and no horse never lived up to a name like the mouse colored gelding did to his.
Then had come rumors of a Fourth of July celebration which was going to be pulled off in some big town to the south; there was to be bronc riding and everything that went with it. A prize of a hundred dollars had been offered for the best bucking horse, and that's how come one day that The Cougar made his first appearance before a grandstand. A warning was given to the "pick-up" man and "hazers" to be on hand and watch out nobody got hurt, and them few words of warning that way had proved to sound mighty right before that day was over.
The Cougar had been tried out, and then a hundred dollars was handed to the rider who'd brought him in. He'd won the prize. There was no doubt in anybody's mind but what that pony was by a long ways the meanest and hardest horse to ride there, and not only there, but anywhere else and wherever hard bucking horses was rode. Fifty dollars additional was offered for the right to keep the horse for rodeo purposes. That was refused, and when the last day of the doings come, and the riders came up for the "finals," another fifty was added to the first offer, and accepted. A bill of sale was made out, and The Cougar from that day on was drove from stockyard to stock car and from arena to arena.
In front of the crowded grandstand is where his fame as a fighting, man-hating, bucking outlaw begin to 'spread, and from State to State, town and range folks alike was on hand and whenever he was to be rode and handled; for watching that horse perform was alone worth more than the price that was asked for the ticket at the gate of the rodeo grounds.
It wasn't long when the folks thru the whole of the southwestern states begin to talk of The Cougar as they did of their favorite movie actor, actress, or the Prince of Wales. Tourists from Europe and from all parts of the U. S. came and went, and carried stories with 'em about the wonders of the wickedness of that horse. Then rodeo committees begin to perk up their ears, and at the same time started bidding for him. The Cougar's presence got to be valuable, and came a time when five hundred dollars was offered by a rival who also made a business of furnishing rodeos with strings of bucking stock. The offer wasn't considered, none at all, and the riders around had their doubts if even a thousand would change the ownership of that horse.
Every summer thru, the mouse colored outlaw was shipped along with the others more or less of his kind and unloaded at some different rodeo grounds; every few weeks and for three or four days he was rode at. Twice or three times a day during the doings, some strange rider would climb him, the chute gate would fly open, and out would come a tearing, bellering hunk of steel coils to land out a ways, and like a ton of lava from up above, jar the earth even up to the grandstand.
The judges, pick-up men, and others around would find themselves short about ten pairs of eyes as all tried to catch every crooked move that pony put into his work. All breaths seemed to be held up during that time; but never no time was them breaths held up for very long, cause, very soon, there'd be a scattering of a tall cowboy who, from the chute, had started on top, took a lot of wicked jars while setting there and so high; and good rider as he'd have to be, soon come to conclude that it sure was no disgrace to be separated from his saddle and flung out a ways-- not on that horse.
Very seldom would the rider have to walk back very far, and sometimes only a few feet was between the rider who was picking himself up and the chute where he'd rode out from so fast and furious.
As an all around outlaw and bucking horse The Cougar had no rival; there wasn't a horse in the State or any State neighboring that could compete with him in either fighting or bucking, and folks seeing or studying the horse often wondered; for anybody who knowed horses could see that that horse hadn't been born a natural outlaw like most of the rodeo's bucking horses generally are. That pony had brains, a big supply of 'em and which showed in the way he'd go about throwing his man. He wasn't like the average bucking horse, who'd often buck back under the man that was already loosened; and instead, when The Cougar felt a man lose an inch, that inch was never got back. The saddle kept a getting away from him from then on.
But there was more and which was all proof as to the amount of brains that pony carried. There was his hate for the man, and which showed the same as the hate one human would have for another, only it was more dangerous. And then again, and as the cowboy who took care of him often remarked:--
"The way that horse packs a grudge, somebody sure must of dealt him a dirty deal some time or other. I know there's sure something on his mind besides that too, and like he's pining for something that's gone and hopeless; at them times he acts like he wants my company the same as tho he was craving for somebody; but them spells don't last long, and soon he seems to come back to earth and realizing things. Then's when I'm not within reaching distance no more--but by golly, I sure wish sometimes that horse would like me as well as he hates."
The first two years he put in as The Cougar and bad horse was the most ferocious two years any horse went thru. It was wicked times, not only for the horse, but for all who handled and tried to ride him. There was so much poison in that pony's heart that the only way he could live was by hating and being hated; he fed on it, and the bars or poles that was between him and whoever he wanted to get at in his fits of wickedness showed signs a plenty of his hankering to murder,--the destroying ability of that pony's teeth and hoofs sure was visible, and convincing.
He wasn't at all the same horse that'd faced a cowboy some eight years or so past. He hadn't wanted to fight then, he'd just wanted to get away and be left alone, and he'd only fought the rope that held him; and even tho his suspicions and hate of the human had been natural he hadn't seen anything about that cowboy he wanted to disfigure.
He'd done a mighty neat job of bucking in the Rocking R corrals and made Clint pay attention to his riding pretty well; but his bucking then, even tho it was hard, didn't compare much with the bucking of The Cougar. He'd just been bucking thru instinct. It was the natural thing for a brainy horse to do, and when he bucked it wasn't for meanness but just to see if he couldn't get out from under that rig and man. He'd felt like it didn't belong up there in the middle of him, and he'd only wanted to make sure that it all could stick.
He'd given it all a mighty good test of course, but as compared with the way Smoky had acted with how he was now acting as The Cougar, it would match well with a man playing a peaceful game of solitary and a gambler dealing for his life with some hated enemy.
The Cougar would of killed himself to get his man; he was past caring for his own hide and only lived to hate. But even as strong as that hate was, it was queer to see that he wasn't interested to do damage only to the men that handled or tried to ride him. Maybe that was because there was always so many around,--the grandstands was full of people and it was the same around the chutes and corrals of the rodeo grounds. Them crowds might of confused him to a standstill and sort of made him keep neutral till only one or two come near.
Another thing that might of fooled a few was the way The Cougar carried his ears. Most every town person has noticed how some horses in the city's streets have some kind of leather muzzles to keep 'em from biting passing folks. Them horses have their ears back most of the time and whenever somebody comes near, they have a mighty cranky look too; but as a rule they're not as wicked as they look. It's just that they're tired of having everybody that goes by stop and try to feed 'em peanuts or apples and such, or being petted and sometimes rubbed the wrong way. Some horses' disposition can't stand it, and them few seem to get so that they can't keep their ears forward and look pleasant any time;-- they're always laying 'em back and looking like they would do some damage; but the most they would do if they had no muzzle would be to maybe just nip a little hunk of hard-twist serge or a little silk off different folks' arms.
Like a feller says to me one time, "It's just that they're bored."
The horse out on the range, no matter how mean he might be, hardly ever puts his ears back at a human; when he does, it's only once in a coon's age and only for the split of a second. In the next split of that second something has happened.
The Cougar, being a sure enough range horse and with real mustang* blood to boot, carried his ears in the ways of that kind. He'd look at a man thru the chute timbers and with his ears straight ahead, but in them eyes under the shadow of them ears was a fair picture of what would happen if that man ever stepped in that chute with him. It didn't need no imagination to see it either.
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* Of the early Spanish.
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Never did The Cougar lay his ears back unless he was sure of his victim. When he did there'd be an ambulance wagon racing thru the arena and remarks in queer low tones passed by white faced folks up in the grandstand; which all kept accumulating and piled up in The Cougar's reputation as a bad horse.
A little bit of a freckle faced hombre who'd made the "grand finals" was along the chute one day and "up" to ride The Cougar. He'd come from acrost the border, and thru the first three days of the rodeo had proved himself to be a "ranahan"* in bronc riding as well as in steer roping.
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* Top hand.
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"By golly," he was heard to say as The Cougar was hazed into the saddling chute, "I've come a long ways to get a setting at that pony." He felt of his taped spurs to make sure they was there to stay, "and if you watch close," he went on, grinning, "I'll give you all a few lessons on how to play a tune with a spur rowel at the tip of a pony's ears."
The little "vaquero"* was feeling good; he hadn't been to town for a year or more, and a chance to ride a mean horse where there was folks around was a big change to him. Barrel cactus and Spanish dagger had been the only witnesses to his riding ability, and riding a side-winding pony on dobie flats or high mesas wasn't so apt to bring out the best in a rider as when in a nice arena, where there's a band playing and folks a cheering.
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* Cowboy.
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"There's a horse to my liking," he says as he took a look at The Cougar. The way that pony was acting while being saddled didn't faze the rider none at all, the grin on his face kept a spreading all the wider as he made ready to climb the chute; he'd handled many a fighting horse, and to him they all could do only one thing, and that was their worst.
As a true rider of the range he welcomed anything that'd test his skill and ability, and if The Cougar had come straight up from hell, wore horns, a forked tail, and cloven hoof, he'd of grinned all the more and bet his year's earnings that he could send him back to where he came with his tail between his legs and hollering "enough."
"Rider up," hollered the hazer, but the judges was already watching, for it was The Cougar "coming out."
The cowboy let out a war whoop and grinned as the chute gate flew open and The Cougar came "uncorked." He packed that grin past the judges and at the same time "reefed" (spurred) the earth-jarring outlaw with taped rowels from back of the ear to the back of the saddle skirts.
"Yee-e-e-ep!" he howled, as the bellering Cougar left the earth once more. A cloud of dust went up which kept the judges from seeing what went on, but even if there'd been no dust they couldn't of followed what all had happened, it had happened too fast. In the next particle of time a twisting hunk of mouse colored horse flesh was tearing up the arena towards the chutes and the fence along it. The cowboy was still war whooping and fanning but he was to one side and being snapped around like a whip lash. The Cougar had found his stride and, as usual, was getting his man.
The "pick up men" rode up to grab holt of the horse's head and before the man was throwed; but they was just too late and in another second something happened that made everybody in the grandstand turn pale and hang on to each other. For the cowboy, still a fanning, was, by a wicked jolt, loosened from his saddle and headed for the ground. The Cougar reared up while the rider was still in the air, then turned, and with ears back, teeth a flashing, hoofs a striking with lightning speed, went to carry out his heart's cravings.
The man was juggled up there for a second and then came down, the horse, like the cougar he was, right after him and to finish what he'd started.
It was then that Providence or something seemed to interfere; for as the rider came down and reached the earth he was on the other side of the fence, which kept him from being totally reduced to dust. But even with the fence separating, The Cougar wasn't thru. There was a noise of splintering timbers as he tried to reach the cowboy, and it wasn't till two ropes settled around his neck and pulled him away that it was what you'd call ended.
A few riders rushed up to find the cowboy setting up and shaking his head like a trying to get back amongst the living. Pretty soon he looked up at the men around him and a sort of vacant grin spread over his features; then he looked at his clothes, noticed his shirt was most tore off of him. He wrinkled his face as he moved his body and felt kinks along his ribs and back, and looked at his hand-made rawhide chaps which showed marks where hard hoofs had connected. The sight of them made him grin again, and after a while he says:
"Daggone good thing I had these chaps on or I'd be setting here and going Adam one better."
From that day on the freckle faced cowboy was, or tried to be, at every rodeo and near whatever chute The Cougar honored by his presence. He'd run up against a horse he couldn't ride; it was hard to take and he couldn't get it into his head how it was done. He'd never seen a horse he couldn't ride before, but there was more and which all kept the cowboy to following the outlaw. The unnatural meanness of that pony had him guessing, and he sort of wanted to figger it out while a setting on top. There was a horse that not only called for skill and nerve, but the thinking ability of the pony was sure worth a trying to match.
Winters and springs and falls found him on the range and doing his work there, he was getting all kinds of good practice with his every day work, and when summers come he was always on the trail of The Cougar and with new hopes that he could go back to the range and tell his "majordomo" that he "rode him, slick and clean and to a standstill."
For two summers he followed him, in that time, competing with other good riders; he'd had three chances at him and each time them chances wound up with him hitting the ground, and running as he hit.
"That horse sure means what he does," he was heard to say to one of the riders one time, "and by golly that's just what makes me keep after him."
Three more long summers of rodeo work went by, and The Cougar kept on a challenging the world's best riders. Another spring came, more rodeos was followed and where it was advertised that "The Cougar Will be Present." The posters went on a telling how in five years' time no rider had been able to set the horse till the gun was fired, and as the cowboys remarked, "That was one truthful statement."
Smoky kept on a throwing men right and left that spring and on thru the summer. He kept his record and back clean that way till away along towards the fall, and then one day at the start of another rodeo, a cowboy from the Wyoming country, and who'd come south for the winter, happened to hear of the doings. A couple of days later that bronc fighter showed himself at the rodeo headquarters, and remarking how he'd heard of The Cougar, signed his name and entered on bronc riding.
He qualified and went thru the "tryouts" and "semifinals" like it all was so much play. The Cougar was a horse kept for the finals only, and that's the pony the cowboy had been trying to reach; the others he'd had to ride had only been a means for him to get to The Cougar.
He'd easy won the right to ride that horse, and also the chance to win the thousand dollars that was up for any rider that could. He hung around the chute and mighty close the next afternoon. Soon the time would come for him to really try his ability; and while waiting he was using that time to seeing that the latigoes and cinch had no weak spots, and would be able to stand the strain of staying around the middle of that Cougar horse.
Then the judges hollered out his name as the next rider out, and about that time the mouse colored outlaw peeked thru the bars of the chute at him and snorted. The rider whistled at the sight of the mean looking head, and, grinning a little, remarked:
"I got a hunch that this pony is going to be tetotally different than any horse I ever rode, but here goes, and I got to wish myself luck."
"You'll need lots of that," says one of the cowboys.
The saddle was on, the cinch reached for and drawed up to stay, and then the rider climbed over the poles of the chute and took his seat on a back that'd throwed the country's best riders. He pulled the rope rein up just tight enough, worked his feet ahead a little, and setting back some to sort of meet the first jolt. He took off his hat, layed all the balance he could in it, and then hollered:
"We're coming out."
"Coming out" was right, but "shot out" would of been more fitting in that case; anyway, the judges hardly seen either the horse or the man till both was out there, and both a fighting to win. There was a mighty big surprise showing on all the faces around when as the first big cloud of dust cleared, it was noticed the rider was still up there, and what's more, all indicated that he was going to stay there.
The judges was a setting on their horses, and, pop-eyed with the miracle of the performance, looked on petrified. Such a rider on such a horse was seldom seen, and they was so all took up with the goings on, they didn't notice that the rider had rode past the limit, and forgot to fire the gun marking the end of the ride. Then somebody hollered and jarred 'em out of the trance they was in.
The shot was fired, and the report had no more than died down when the rider seemed to quit from there and fell off the horse,--the punishment he'd took in that ride had been enough to do him for many a day to come. He'd felt like his backbone was going to be pushed thru his throat from the first jump, and that feeling had kept a repeating right along with each fast coming jolt till he was near unconscious. Being the rider he was, he stuck there and tried to fight away the dizzy feeling and keep track of the horse at the same time; then after what seemed an hour, he heard a faint echo of the shot, and realized in a way that he'd qualified for first money. He'd been the first man to ride that horse past the judges, and that was enough,--he wasn't caring right then if it would be said that he didn't ride the horse to the finish.
One of the riders who knowed The Cougar mighty well had watched the horse "come out" with the same thrill that'd always been his at that time. He'd seen the pony come out many a time before, and as that last performance came to an end, he leaned over to one of the boys near him, and says:
"Do you know, it strikes me like The Cougar is beginning to fade out as a bucking horse. I don't think that pony's been keeping up his standard the last few times he's been rode, and specially this last time.--If that cowboy who's just left him had straddled him last summer, I'm sure and certain that he wouldn't of stuck as long as he did."
"Well, I've been sort of noticing that too, and figgered the horse had slowed down some," agrees the other rider, "but that's got to be expected, considering that The Cougar's been in the arenas for going on six years now. I don't see, myself, how them legs of his has been able to stand the strain that long."
Them remarks was true,--nothing was meant against the cowboy who'd been the first to stick him past the judges; and as them words was said they meant just that, with no hint that they could of done the same; and what's more, other cowboys had noticed the same what these two had spoke of. The Cougar was beginning to slow down,--but that last would maybe give some idea of what a bucking horse The Cougar really was, or had been.
That pony slowing down that way begin to be noticed more and more every time he was rode. The little vaquero from acrost the border went back satisfied that fall: he'd been the second man to ride The Cougar, and when the last rodeo of the year had been pulled off The Cougar had been rode twice more, and to a finish. The folks in the grandstands was surprised, and come to the conclusion that he wasn't so much of a bucking horse after all, but they didn't realize. Anyway, the thousand dollar purse that'd been offered for anyone who could ride him had dwindled down to five hundred, and The Cougar was fast losing the reputation he'd made as a man-hating bucking horse.
Even his hate for the human had seemed to die down. He'd throwed a rider one day who'd landed right in front of him; the crowd had held their breath, expecting to see that cowboy mangled to pieces right before their eyes. All that would of happened, and mighty quick a year or so before; but this time the outlaw didn't seem to notice the man. He'd bucked on right over him and seeming like careful how he placed his hoofs as he'd went so as to miss him.--There was murmurs in the grandstand afterwards that The Cougar was no outlaw at all, maybe just a pet and trained to buck, and like his man killing reputation, which was most likely only a sort of a draw card and advertising for the rodeo.
But whatever the folks in the grandstand thought, Smoky had reasons of his own for gradually getting away from being The Cougar. It wasn't that his legs was getting stove up or giving away on him so much as the way things had come to him as year after year he met up with the strange riders that'd come to try him; and even tho none of 'em seemed to want a close acquaintance with him, there was nothing about them boys for the hate he was packing to feed on.
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 half breed 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 tho 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 raw-boned 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. Others hollored more to kind of show off, but the looks they'd get from the sensible folks around only went to prove that the show off was of just plain ignorance.
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 time 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 stock yards watched the train pull out of sight.