The horse as it drew near was seen to be white with lather on its breast and neck, and dripping with sweat over its whole body. It trotted along slowly and the fight was all gone out of it. Every now and then it would bore with its head, or would try to turn off to one side, but the firm hand of the rider always brought its head around again, and it trotted on toward the corral. Arrived there, Antonio reached forward and pulled the blind down over its eyes, and then springing from the saddle, began to take it off. One of the boys put a rope about the horse's neck and then pulled the long hair of the tail out, to show that it had been ridden, and it was led to the big corral and turned loose with the wild horses.
The boys joked Antonio about the horse, but he only smiled and answered that the horse was too gentle.
This could not be said of the next one, however, a big iron-grey, which fought from the moment it felt the rope on its forefeet. It was quiet while it was being saddled, but as soon as the blind was raised, it went into a perfect fury of squealing, bucking, kicking, and fighting. None of this stirred Antonio from his seat, but two or three times the animal reared up so straight that those who were watching involuntarily called, "Look out," and saw the rider grasp the saddle horn and loosen one foot from the stirrup, prepared to slip off if the horse fell over backward. At length, however, urged on by the hazers, it started off and ran half a mile and then stopping short, again began to buck furiously, but soon started on again and disappeared over the hills, the hazers close behind.
It was a long time before Antonio returned, with the boys still riding behind him, and horse and man both seemed tired by the fierce battle that they had been through, but, though exhausted by the struggle, the horse's eye rolled fiercely, while the rider's face was stern and set and his hand firm as he guided the big grey up to the corral gate.
"Well, Tony," called out Hugh, "that's a hard one. He'll need a heap of riding yet, before he's right gentle."
"Yes, sir," was the reply, "he big strong hawse; shake me pretty hard when he comin' down; pitch all different ways. Maybe some time he get me off."
The next horse was a contrast to both the others. After he had been blinded and untied, he would not stand up until he had been hit hard with the rope, and after being saddled and mounted he would not move, and when quirted he just stood still and grunted. After ten minutes of vain effort to start him, Antonio declared that he had never before seen a horse like this one, and that it was fit only for a pack horse. The animal was unsaddled and taken to another corral, where a pack saddle was cinched on him, and he was left to spend the day there alone.
All through the day the work of breaking went on, and all day Jack sat on the corral bars and watched it, and at night when supper time came, Antonio acknowledged to Jack, who asked him the question, that he was pretty tired.
"It's hard work," said Hugh, "almighty hard, and slow. It's slower here than most places, but we get a heap better horses, breaking 'em this way—kinder gentling 'em the way you saw before we put the saddle on. Ef there was time to do it, and there wan't so many horses, they'd all ought to be gentled from colts up. No trouble to break 'em that way, and never no horses spoiled like they is this way. Now you take that grey this morning; ef he ain't handled just so, he's going to be a regular devil. But Tony here is an awful good rider, and he's got a good disposition too, and I reckon he'll bring the grey through all right."
The work of gentling the horses went on day after day for a week or more, and Jack never wearied of watching the work. The patience shown by Antonio in handling the horses surprised him, for he had noticed that Joe and Rube sometimes got angry at the horses they rode, and swore at them and lashed them with their ropes. He asked his uncle why there was such a difference.