He had a long black beard streaked with gray, and sharp blue eyes set deep under tufted white eyebrows. He seemed a friendly old man whose interest in life remained keen as in his youth, despite the feebleness of his body. He showed Bud where to turn the horses, and went to work on the pack rope, his crooked old fingers moving with the sureness of lifelong habit. He was eager to know all the news that Bud could tell him, and when he discovered that Bud had just left the Muleshoe, and that he had been fired because of a fight with Dirk Tracy, the old fellow cackled gleefully,
“Well, now, I guess you just about had yore hands full, young man,” he commented shrewdly. “Dirk ain't so easy to lick.”
Bud immediately wanted to know why it was taken for granted that he had whipped Dirk, and grandpa chortled again. “Now if you hadn't of licked Dirk, you wouldn't of got fired,” he retorted, and proceeded to relate a good deal of harmless gossip which seemed to bear out the statement. Dirk Tracy, according to grandpa, was the real boss of the Muleshoe, and Bart was merely a figure-head.
All of this did not matter to Bud, but grandpa was garrulous. A good deal of information Bud received while the two attended to the horses and loitered at the corral gate.
Grandpa admired Smoky, and looked him over carefully, with those caressing smoothings of mane and forelock which betray the lover of good horseflesh.
“I reckon he's purty fast,” he said, peering shrewdly into Bud's face. “The boys has been talking about pulling off some horse races here next Sunday—we got a good, straight, hard-packed creek-bed up here a piece that has been cleaned of rocks fer a mile track, and they're goin' to run a horse er two. Most generally they do, on Sunday, if work's slack. You might git in on it, if you're around in these parts.” He pushed his back straight with his palms, turned his head sidewise and squinted at Smoky through half-closed lids while he fumbled for cigarette material.
“I dunno but what I might be willin' to put up a few dollars on that horse myself,” he observed, “if you say he kin run. You wouldn't go an' lie to an old feller like me, would yuh, son?”
Bud offered him the cigarette he had just rolled. “No, I won't lie to you, dad,” he grinned. “You know horses too well.”
“Well, but kin he run? I want yore word on it.”
“Well-yes, he's always been able to turn a cow,” Bud admitted cautiously.