All of our harvesting had to be done by hand, for there were no reaping machines in those days. We hired Owen Baston to cradle our grain, and my brother and I bound it. That fall, after our wheat was all harvested, my father died.
After the death of father, my brother and I did not get along very well together. He was a hard worker. I had never done much work and it went rather hard with me. Riding horses, I thought, was more fun than slaving on the farm, so I decided to go to Mr. Faust’s ranch and help him break his bronchos. After that I intended to go back to live with Washakie.
Mr. Faust lived at the south end of Rush Valley, about sixty miles southwest of Salt Lake. When I got to his ranch he was very glad to see me.
“We will have that old outlaw of a horse brought to time now,” he said to his other riders. “Here is the boy that can ride him.”
I told him that I was not so sure of that, for I had never ridden a bad horse for more than a year.
“Bad,” he said, “what do you call jumping off a fence on to the back of a wild mustang?”
“Oh, she wasn’t a bad animal to ride,” I said; “she did nothing but run.”
“My horses are not bad to break,” he went on, “but one of them has thrown two or three of the boys, and it has made him mean. I want him broken, for he is about as good a horse as I have, and I know you can break him.”
The next morning one of Mr. Faust’s best riders and I went out to bring in the band the outlaw was with. This man told me that if I was not a very good rider I had better keep off that horse, or he would kill me. I told him that I did not know much about riding, but I was not afraid to try him. We brought in the band and roped the outlaw.
