Smoky, the cow horse

by Will James

Tails was a popping as the horses slid off the mountain, jumped off ledges and sailed acrost washouts. Loosened rocks bumped against boulders, boulders crashed into dead hanging timber and pretty soon a landslide brought up the rear, but even that was too slow. The ponies and the cowboy behind 'em hit the bottom of the canyon first, and when the slide reached that spot and filled the canyon with ten feet of boulders, timber, and dirt, the whole wild bunch was half a mile away and kicking up dust on the foothills at the edge of the flat.

It was away out on the flat and where the dust wasn't so thick that Smoky took a back slant over his withers and got his first sight of the human. The way his mammy and the rest of the bunch acted, the way they run and tried to dodge or leave that human behind sure put the impression in Smoky's mind that here was a different kind of animal, the kind that no horse would stop to fight or argue with but instead run away from, if it was possible.

But it didn't seem possible, for the rider was still right on their tails, and stayed there till he drove 'em into the long wings of big log corrals which to Smoky seemed like trees growing sideways instead of up and down. But the little horse knowed that there was no going thru them trees. He stuck close as he could to his mammy's side, she and the bunch milled around for a spell around the big pen, the big gate closed on 'em and wild eyed the bunch turned and faced a bow legged, leather covered, sunburnt human.

Smoky shivered as he watched that strange crethure get off one of his kin, a horse just like any of the bunch him and his mammy was running with, all excepting for that funny hunk of leather on his back; pretty soon the human fumbled around a while and then that hunk of leather was pulled off, the horse was turned loose, shook himself, and walked towards Smoky and the bunch.

The colt was stary-eyed and never missed a thing, and soon as the loose horse came his way he took a sniff at his sweaty hide for some kind of a clue as to just what had been setting on him all thru that long run. The sniff left him more puzzled than ever, and forgetting the horse he put all his attention on the crethure which was standing up and on two legs.

There'd been a lot of lightning up in the mountains where Smoky had been ranging that summer, he'd seen some fires up there too. That lightning and them fires was great puzzles to the colt, and when he seen the human make a swift move with a paw, and then seen a fire in one of them paws, and later on, smoke coming out of the mouth, it all made things more than ever impossible for him to figger out. He stood petrified, and watched.

Pretty soon, them same paws that'd held the fire, reached down and picked up a coil of rope, a loop was made, and then the human walked towards him and the bunch. At that move the bunch tore around the corral and raised the dust; then Smoky heard the hiss of a rope as it sailed over past him and the loop settled on one of the ponies' heads. The pony was stopped and led out to the hunk of leather on the ground, it was cinched on him the same as it'd been on the other horse, and when the human climbed on is when Smoky first set eyes on one of his kind in a fight with the two-legged crethure.

It was a great sight to the colt. He'd seen some of his bunch play and kick often, and he'd done a lot of that himself, but he'd never seen any get in the position and tear things up the way that pony was doing. He knowed that pony was fighting, bucking for all he was worth, and doing his daggonedest to shed that sticking and ill built wonder that was on top of him. Smoky watched and shook when he heard the pony beller. He'd never heard one of his kind make that noise before, and he knowed without wondering just what the beller meant. He remembered doing near the same that time when the cayote had nipped him in the ham strings.

Smoky's eyes was blazing as he watched on thru the fight and the pony's hard jumps dwindled down to crowhops and then a stop. He watched the man as he got off the horse, opened the gate, lead the horse out and after closing it, watched him ride on and out of sight. It wasn't till then that he came back to himself and it come to his mind to investigate the kind of place it was that cooped him in. He rubbed noses with his mammy and went to scouting around the big corral. Long strands of mane which had caught in slivers of the logs told him there'd been lots of horses here before, sniffs at the ground and more sniffs at pieces of calves' ears that'd been cut while earmarking reminded him of the critter he'd seen while he was only a couple of weeks old. Many calves had been branded in the big corral, and with all them signs which was plain enough reading to Smoky it only made him all the more suspicious and spooky.

He was trying to get up enough nerve to go near and take a sniff at a pair of chaps hanging on the corral gate, when he noticed a dust, and under it a band of horses being hazed towards the corral he was in. With that band was a half dozen riders or more, and the sight of them made Smoky high-tail to his mammy's side in a hurry. Once there, he took in all that could be seen and watched the riders drive the horses thru the gate and turn' em in with his bunch. There was a lot of dust, milling around, and confusion, for there was now near two hundred head of horses in the one big corral, but to Smoky all that company was mighty welcome, they meant more protection, he could hide better in that big bunch and be able to always keep some of the horses between him and them two-legged crethures.