Green horses were led out, one after another, to be saddled for the first time, and those previously broken required a few work-outs to knock the wire edge off their unwillingness to carry a rider after a winter of freedom on the range.
Three men were shoeing horses tied to snubbing posts at ten-yard intervals before the shop. One animal that had fought viciously against this treatment had been thrown and stretched, his four feet roped to convenient posts, and while he struggled and heaved on the ground Rile Foster calmly fitted and nailed the shoes on him. Cal Harris finished shoeing the colt he was working.
"That's the last touch," he said. "My string is all set to go."
"You have five colts gentled for your circle bunch," she said. "But you didn't pick a single cow horse. The boys have sorted out the best ones and the few that are left won't answer for a man that insists on a gentled string."
"Creamer and Calico will do for me," he said. "I broke them myself and maybe I can worry along."
"Did you break them like that?" she asked. Bangs was topping a horse that strenuously refused to be conquered and as they looked on the animal threw himself.
"Like that? Well, no—not precisely," Harris said. "They're not breaking horses. They're proving that they're bronc-peelers that can ride 'em before they're broke. A horse started out that way will be a bronc till the day he dies. The first thing he knows some straddler swarms him and hangs the spurs in him. He bogs his head and starts out to slip his pack—and from right then on he thinks the first thing to do whenever a man steps up on him is to try his best to shake him off."
Three men were lashing their bed rolls and war bags on three pack horses and when this task was completed they rode down the lane, each one leading his pack animal. Harris knew this as evidence that they would start after the calves on the following day. The custom was to exchange representatives to ride with each wagon within a reasonable distance, the reps to look after the interest of the brand for which they rode.
"How many reps do you trade?" he asked.
"Three," she said. "Halfmoon D, V L and with Slade."