Smoky, the cow horse

by Will James

The shot was fired, and the report had no more than died down when the rider seemed to quit from there and fell off the horse,—the punishment he'd took in that ride had been enough to do him for many a day to come. He'd felt like his backbone was going to be pushed thru his throat from the first jump, and that feeling had kept a repeating right along with each fast coming jolt till he was near unconscious. Being the rider he was, he stuck there and tried to fight away the dizzy feeling and keep track of the horse at the same time; then after what seemed an hour, he heard a faint echo of the shot, and realized in a way that he'd qualified for first money. He'd been the first man to ride that horse past the judges, and that was enough,—he wasn't caring right then if it would be said that he didn't ride the horse to the finish.

One of the riders who knowed The Cougar mighty well had watched the horse "come out" with the same thrill that'd always been his at that time. He'd seen the pony come out many a time before, and as that last performance came to an end, he leaned over to one of the boys near him, and says:

"Do you know, it strikes me like The Cougar is beginning to fade out as a bucking horse. I don't think that pony's been keeping up his standard the last few times he's been rode, and specially this last time.—If that cowboy who's just left him had straddled him last summer, I'm sure and certain that he wouldn't of stuck as long as he did."

"Well, I've been sort of noticing that too, and figgered the horse had slowed down some," agrees the other rider, "but that's got to be expected, considering that The Cougar's been in the arenas for going on six years now—I don't see, myself, how them legs of his has been able to stand the strain that long."

Them remarks was true,—nothing was meant against the cowboy who'd been the first to stick him past the judges; and as them words was said they meant just that, with no hint that they could of done the same, and what's more, other cowboys had noticed the same what these two had spoke of. The Cougar was beginning to slow down,—but that last would maybe give some idea of what a bucking horse The Cougar really was, or had been.

That pony slowing down that way begin to be noticed more and more every time he was rode. The little vaquero from acrost the border went back satisfied that fall: he'd been the second man to ride The Cougar, and when the last rodeo of the year had been pulled off The Cougar had been rode twice more, and to a finish. The folks in the grandstands was surprised, and come to the conclusion that he wasn't so much of a bucking horse after all, but they didn't realize.—Anyway, the thousand dollar purse that'd been offered for anyone who could ride him had dwindled down to five hundred, and The Cougar was fast losing the reputation he'd made as a man-hating bucking horse.

Even his hate for the human had seemed to die down. He'd throwed a rider one day who'd landed right in front of him; the crowd had held their breath, expecting to see that cowboy mangled to pieces right before their eyes. All that would of happened, and mighty quick a year or so before, but this time the outlaw didn't seem to notice the man. He'd bucked on right over him and seeming like careful how he placed his hoofs as he'd went so as to miss him.—There was murmurs in the grandstand afterwards that The Cougar was no outlaw at all, maybe just a pet and trained to buck, and like his man killing reputation, which was most likely only a sort of a draw card and advertising for the rodeo.

But whatever the folks in the grandstand thought, Smoky had reasons of his own for gradually getting away from being The Cougar. It wasn't that his legs was getting stove up or giving away on him so much as the way things had come to him as year after year he met up with the strange riders that'd come to try him, and even tho none of 'em seemed to want a close acquaintance with him, there was nothing about them boys for the hate he was packing to feed on.

Not once, since that day he'd bogged his head in front of the first grandstand, had a club, nor even a twig, ever been layed on him. For the first couple of years, Smoky had let the heart the halfbreed had transplanted in him, control his actions. The poison of hate in that heart had kept him from noticing or go according to the good treatment he'd been getting, and it was close on to the fifth year before his ears begin to perk up to the show of admiration and respect that was handed him from all around.

The name of The Cougar lived on for a spell, but the horse that had been packing that name was fast getting away from having the right to such.—Then the next spring came and with it rodeos begin to be pulled off here and there, good riders begin following The Cougar again as before, and with the hopes that some day, sometime or other, they'd be able to pull their riggins off that pony's back and be able to say: