He'd done a mighty neat job of bucking in the Rocking R corrals and made Clint pay attention to his riding pretty well; but his bucking then, even tho it was hard, didn't compare much with the bucking of The Cougar. He'd just been bucking thru instinct, it was the natural thing for a brainy range horse to do, and when he bucked it wasn't for meaness but just to see if he couldn't get out from under that rig and man. He'd felt like it didn't belong up there in the middle of him, and he'd only wanted to make sure that it all could stick.
He'd given it all a mighty good test of course, but as compared with the way Smoky had acted with how he was now acting as The Cougar, it would match well with a man playing a peaceful game of solitary and a gambler dealing for his life with some hated enemy.
The Cougar would of killed himself to get his man, he was past caring for his own hide and only lived to hate, but even as strong as that hate was, it was queer to see that he wasn't interested to do damage only to the men that handled or tried to ride him. Maybe that was because there was always so many around,—the grandstands was full of people and it was the same around the shutes and corrals of the rodeo grounds. Them crowds might of confused him to a standstill and sort of made him keep neutral till only one or two come near.
Another thing that might of fooled a few was the way The Cougar carried his ears. Most every town person has noticed how some horses in the city's streets have some kind of leather muzzles to keep 'em from biting passing folks. Them horses have their ears back most of the time and whenever somebody comes near, they have a mighty cranky look too, but as a rule they're not as wicked as they look,—it's just that they're tired of having everybody that goes by stop and try to feed 'em peanuts or apples and such, or being petted and sometimes rubbed the wrong way. Some horses' disposition can't stand it, and them few seem to get so that they can't keep their ears forward and look pleasant any time;—they're always laying 'em back and looking like they would do some damage, but the most they would do if they had no muzzle would be to maybe just nip a little hunk of hard-twist serge or a little silk off different folks' arms.
Like a feller says to me one time, "it's just that they're bored."
The horse out on the range, no matter how mean he might be, hardly ever puts his ears back at a human; when he does, it's only once in a coon's age and only for the split of a second,—in the next split of that second something has happened.
The Cougar, being a sure enough range horse and with real mustang[4] blood to boot carried his ears in the ways of that kind. He'd look at a man thru the shute timbers and with his ears straight ahead, but in them eyes under the shadow of them ears was a fair picture of what would happen if that man ever stepped in that shute with him. It didn't need no imagination to see it either.
Never did The Cougar lay his ears back unless he was sure of his victim. When he did there'd be an ambulance wagon racing thru the arena and remarks in queer low tones passed by white faced folks up in the grandstand, which all kept accumulating and piled up in The Cougar's reputation as a bad horse.
A little bit of a freckle faced hombre who'd made the "grand finals" was along the shute one day and "up" to ride The Cougar. He'd come from acrost the border, and thru the first three days of the rodeo had proved himself to be a "ranahan"[5] in bronc riding as well as in steer roping.