"He was pretty near as wild as Diablo when I first got him," said the boy. "And mean—say, he'd been kicked around all his life. But I fatted him up in the barn, and he got so's he'd follow me around. And now he runs loose like a dog and comes when I whistle. He knows more things than you could shake a stick at, Crackajack does." "I'll bet he does," said Bull with shining eyes.
"Say," said the boy suddenly, "I'm going to tell you about the way I worked with Diablo."
"I'll take that mighty kind," said Bull gratefully. "D'you think I'd have a chance with him even if you showed me how?"
"You got to have a way with hosses," admitted the boy, and he examined Bull again. "But I think you'll get on with hossflesh pretty well. When Diablo first come, he used to go plumb crazy when anybody come near his corral. He still does if a growed man comes there. Well, they used to go out and stand and watch him and laugh at him prancing around and kicking up a fuss at the sight of 'em.
"And it made me mad. Made me plumb mad to see them bother Diablo when he wasn't doing no harm, when they wasn't gaining anything by it, either."
"I used to go out when nobody was around and stand by the bars with a bit of hay and grain heads in my hand. First off he'd prance around even at me, but pretty soon he seen that I wasn't big enough to do him no harm, and then he'd just stand still and snort and look at me. Along about the third time he took notice of the grain heads and come and smelled them, and the next day he ate 'em.
"Well, I kept at it that way. Pretty soon I went inside the corral. Diablo just come up sort of excited and trembling and didn't know whether to bash my head in with his forehoofs or let me go. Then he seen the grain heads and ate them while he was making up his mind what to do about me. And he winded up by just having a little talk with me. He was terribly dirty and dusty, and he was shedding. Nobody dared to brush him, and so I took a soft-haired brush and started to work on his neck. He liked it, and so I dressed him down and left him pretty near shining. And every day after that I went and had a talk with him and brushed him. Then I rode Crackajack up to the bars and let Diablo see me on him, with no bridle or saddle. Pretty soon I found out that it was the saddle and the bridle and the spurs that scared Diablo to death. He didn't mind anything else so very much. So one day I climbed up the fence and slid onto Diablo's back, and he just turned his head and snorted at me. Just then Pa seen me and let out a terrible yell, and Diablo pitched me right off over his head and over the fence. But I got right up and came back to him. He seen that he could get me off whenever he wanted to and he seen that I didn't do him no harm when I got on.
"After that everything was easy. I never bothered him none with a saddle or a bridle. And there you are. D'you think you can do the same?"
"But the saddle and the bridle?" said Bull. "What about them?"
"That's up to you to figure out a way of getting him used to 'em. I'll go introduce you now, if I can."