The Cougar reared up while the rider was still in the air, then turned, and with his ears back, teeth a flashing, hoofs a striking with lightning speed, went to carry out his heart's craving.
The man was juggled up there for a second and then came down, the horse, like the cougar he was, right after him and to finish what he'd started.
It was then that Providence or something seemed to interfere, for as the rider came down and reached the earth he was on the other side of the fence, which kept him from being totally reduced to dust. But even with the fence separating, The Cougar wasn't thru. There was a noise of splintering timbers as he tried to reach the cowboy, and it wasn't till two ropes settled around his neck and pulled him away that it was what you'd call ended.
A few riders rushed up to find the cowboy setting up and shaking his head like a trying to get back amongst the living. Pretty soon he looked up at the men around him and a sort of vacant grin spread over his features; then he looked at his clothes, noticed his shirt was most tore off of him. He wrinkled his face as he moved his body and felt kinks along his ribs and back, and looked at his hand-made rawhide chaps which showed marks where hard hoofs had connected. The sight of them made him grin again, and after a while he says:
"Daggone good thing I had these chaps on or I'd be setting here and going Adam one better."
From that day on the freckle faced cowboy was, or tried to be, at every rodeo and near whatever chute The Cougar honored by his presence. He'd run up against a horse he couldn't ride; it was hard to take and he couldn't get it into his head how it was done. He'd never seen a horse he couldn't ride before, but there was more and which all kept the cowboy to following the outlaw, the unnatural meanness of that pony had him guessing, and he sort of wanted to figger it out while a setting on top—There was a horse that not only called for skill and nerve, but the thinking ability of the pony was sure worth a trying to match.
Winters and springs and falls found him on the range and doing his work there, he was getting all kinds of good practice with his every day work, and when summers come he was always on the trail of The Cougar and with new hopes that he could go back to the range and tell his "majordomo" that he "rode him, slick and clean and to a standstill."
For two summers he followed him, in that time, competing with other good riders, he'd had three chances at him and each time them chances wound up with him hitting the ground, and running as he hit.
"That horse sure means what he does," he was heard to say to one of the riders one time, "and by golly that's just what makes me keep after him."