Part of fortifications built by Utah troops to hold back Johnston’s army.
Mr. Faust asked me whether I thought I could ride him. I was ready to try. The man who had gone with me tried to get Mr. Faust not to let me do it, for he said I might be killed. I began to think he was afraid I should prove the better rider, for the outlaw had pitched him off several times.
When things were ready, I mounted the broncho. He went off very peaceably for a little way, and I thought that they were making a fool of me; but pretty soon the old boy turned loose, and he fairly made my neck pop. He gave me the hardest bucking I ever had; but he did it straight ahead. He did not whirl as some horses do, so I stayed with him all right.
When he stopped bucking, I sent him through for ten miles about as fast as he ever went, and when I got back to the ranch I rode up the corral where the man was saddling another horse.
Standing up in my saddle, I said, “Do you call this a bad horse? If you do you don’t know what a bad horse is.”
The fellow did not like me very much after that. I got along very well with the old outlaw; but I had to give him some very hard rides before he acknowledged me his master.
I had a number of similar experiences in taming horses which were hard to manage, and although I did not come out without a scratch or a bruise, I succeeded in making almost any horse I tried to ride understand that I was his master. However, I would not advise a boy who has not a particular faculty for riding unmanageable horses to engage in the sport on the strength of my remarks here. It takes quite a knack to establish the right understanding between a horse and a man. Some persons—women as well as men—seem to have this gift naturally, and without any idea of boasting I may say that I think I had it more than most of the boys in our part of the country.
One reason, perhaps, why I got along so well with them was that ever since I was a little boy I have loved horses and liked to be around them, thinking of them more as human beings than mere dumb beasts. It was the same way, I may add, with dogs; and horses and dogs know when a boy or a man has this feeling, and it makes a difference even in the toughest of them as to how they will treat you.
I am sorry that I cannot stop and make it a part of my story to tell about some more of my adventures in taming wild horses. But possibly this is just as well, as I am afraid true stories might not prove very interesting beside some which have been printed in papers and magazines, in which I think the writers must have drawn largely upon their imagination in order to make thrilling “yarns.”
