The breed would often watch him thru the corral poles and wonder, he'd sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be best to just place a forty-five slug between that pony's ears instead of fooling with him.
"A good long ride'll fix you," says the breed one morning as he drug his saddle near the corral chute. "And I've got a hell of a long one ahead for you to-day."
Smoky was prodded into the chute with a long pole, and saddled where he couldn't move. Then the breed climbed in the saddle, opened the chute gate and started the horse out on a long run.
Ten miles of country was covered which Smoky didn't see; his instinct made him dodge badger holes and jump washouts, and his eyes and ears was steady back and on the human he was packing, if he could only reach with his teeth and get him down.
The breed's spurs kept a gouging him, and along with the quirt a pounding, Smoky was kept into a high lope. With that kind of tattoo being played on him the pony gradually begin to warm up and getting peeved, it wouldn't be long, if that gait was kept up, when he'd be reaching the boiling point, and then get desperate.
A steep bank was reached by the edge of a creek, and there Smoky sorta hesitated a second. His ears and eyes was pointed ahead for that second and looking for a place where the going down wouldn't be so sudden, when the breed, always looking for some reason to deal the horse misery, put the steel and layed the quirt to him at once. That took Smoky by surprise, and the flame that'd been smoldering in his heart loomed up into an active volcano all at once.
Down over the bank he went, and when he landed he had his head between his front legs and went to bucking from there. By some miracle the breed stuck him for half a dozen jumps, then he made a circle in the air and landed on all fours at the foot of the bank.
A shadow on the ground and right by him made the breed reach for his gun near as quick as he landed; it was the shadow of the horse and too close; his gun was out of the holster and he turned to use it; but he was just the splinter of a second too late, and the six-shooter was buried in the ground as Smoky, like a big cougar, pounced on him.