Collie urged the pony toward the gate. Baldy reared.
"A spade bit ain't made to pull teeth with, although you can," said Williams. "Baldy's old, but his teeth are all good yet. Just easy now. Ride in your saddle, not on your reins. That's it! And say, kid, I would 'a' got them staples and that axe before crawlin' the hoss, eh?"
Collie flushed. He dismounted and walked to the foreman's office. When he returned to the corral, the horse was gone. Williams still sat on the corral bars smoking and gazing earnestly at nothing.
Round the corner of the stable Collie saw the pony, his nose peacefully submerged in the water-trough, but his eye wide and vigilant. The boy ran toward him. Baldy snorted and, wheeling, ran back into the corral, circled it with an expression which said plainly, "Let us play a little game of tag, in which, my young friend, you shall always be 'It.'"
Again Collie tried to rope the pony.
"Want any help?" asked Williams, as he slid from the corral bars to the ground.
"Nope." And Collie disentangled his legs from an amazing contortion of the riata and tried to whirl the loop as he had seen the cowmen whirl it.
"Hold on, son!" said Williams. "You mean right, but don't go to rope him with the saddle on. If you looped that horn, he, like as not, would yank you clean to Calabasas before you got your feet out of that mess of rope you're standin' in. Anyway, you ain't goin' to Calabasas; you're due up the other way."
Collie was learning things rapidly, and, better still, he was learning in a way that would cause him to remember.
Williams spoke sharply to the pony. Baldy stopped and eyed the foreman with vapid inquisitiveness. "Now, son, I got three things to tell you," and the foreman gathered up the reins. "First—keep on keepin' your mouth shut and tendin' to business. It pays. Second—always drop your reins over a hoss's head when you get off, whether he's trained that way or not. And last—always figure a hoss thinks he knows more than you do. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he don't. Then he won't fool you so frequent, for you'll be watchin' him. I wouldn't 'a' said that much, only you're a tenderfoot from the East, I hear. If you was a tenderfoot from the West, you would 'a' had to take your own medicine."