That much of the second lesson learned, they saddled him. Strangely enough, Corazón submitted to the operation without fuss, the only untoward symptoms being a decided upward slant to the back of the saddle and the tucking of his tail. Reb waggled his head over this exhibition.
“I don’t like his standing quiet that away; it ain’t natural,” he vouchsafed. “Look at the crick in his back. Jim-in-ee! he’ll shore pitch.”
Which he did. The cinches were tightened until Corazón’s eyes almost popped from his head; then they released the bound leg and turned him loose. What was that galling his spine? Corazón took a startled peep at it, lowered his head between his knees, and began to bawl. Into the air he rocketed, his head and forelegs swinging to the left, his hind quarters weaving to the right. The jar of his contact with the ground was appalling. Into the air again, his head and forelegs to the right, his rump twisted to the left. Round and round the corral he went, blatting like an angry calf; but the thing on his back stayed where it was, gripping his body cruelly. At last he was fain to stop for breath.
“Now,” said Mullins, “I reckon I’ll take it out of him.”
There has always been for me an overwhelming fascination in watching busters at work. They have underlying traits in common when it comes to handling the horses--the garrulous one becomes coldly watchful, the Stoic moves with stern patience, the boaster soothes with soft-crooned words and confident caress. Mullins left Corazón standing in the middle of the corral, the hackamore rope strung loose on the ground, while he saw to it that his spurs were fast. We mounted the fence, not wishing to be mixed in the glorious turmoil to follow.
“I wouldn’t top ol’ Corazón for fifty,” confessed the man on the adjoining post.
“Mullins has certainly got nerve,” I conceded.
“A buster has got to have nerve.” The range boss delivered himself laconically. “All nerve and no brains makes the best. But they get stove up and then--”
“And then? What then?”
“Why, don’t you know?” he asked in surprise. “Every buster loses his nerve at last, and then they can’t ride a pack-hoss. It must be because it’s one fool man with one set of nerves up ag’in a new hoss with a new devil in him every time. They wear him down. Don’t you reckon?”