He had a hunch when he first set eyes on that pony that he'd met the horse which would start "things a popping" when any rider showed up to claim all that's half broke. Clint had dreamed of such a horse as the mouse colored gelding but he'd never expected to see one really living, that pony had got holt of his heart strings from the start, and as he watched thru the bars of the corral out to where the horse was picketed he felt him to be the kind he'd steal if he couldn't buy, and if he could neither steal nor buy he'd work for.
It'd been two days since he'd run him in and put him on the picket rope outside the corral a ways, and in them two days Clint had been mighty fearful lest somebody rode up on him, seen the horse and took possession of him as private saddle stock for the superintendent or some other what owned shares in the outfit and liked pretty horses that way. Clint wanted that horse mighty bad and he was just leary something would happen so he'd be took away from him, but as he'd reason some he was less worried and he'd wind up by saying as he'd take another peek towards the gelding. "They'd have to let me break him first, and before anybody else gets him I'll sure make an outlaw out of that horse."
That was no way for Clint to feel maybe, but that's sure enough the way he figgered on doing rather than lose the horse to anybody else;—that feeling was past skin deep with him and that I think excuses him some.
In the two days that Clint'd had the horse up, there was no chance passed where he could show his feelings and win that pony's confidence,—if the picket rope tangled him up too much Clint was right there to untangle him and each time the gelding fought less when he came. That pony was gradually losing his fear of being et up or tore apart by the human and pretty soon he felt as Clint came and went that each visit from that crethure brought some comfort in a way.
It was on the second evening and when the day's work was all done that Clint made his way from the bunk house to where the gelding was picketed. He went up to within a rope's length of the horse, rolled a smoke, and stood there watching him.
"Smoky," he says, "you're some horse"—Clint hadn't hardly realized he'd spoke a name, he was too busy watching and admiring that pony's every move, so as it was that name came unconscious like to the cowboy and it was used and repeated from then on as natural as tho that name had been thought and decided on.
He'd named many horses and had always let the name come to him either by the color, size, or shape of each horse, and sometimes by the way they acted. He'd called one tall rangy horse "Shorty" and another low built small horse "Skyhigh." Often the name didn't at all fit the horse in that way but there was some reason there, the same as there was a mighty good reason to call the mouse colored gelding "Smoky."
He did look like a rounded shiny cloud of grey smoke, and as he held his ground and watched the cowboy, he acted as tho he might live up to his name and really go up in smoke,—his acquaintance with the human hadn't been very long and he wasn't as yet any too confident.
Clint could tell as he watched just what was going on in that pony's think tank, he could still see fear in his eyes, but mixed in with that fear was a lot of nerve that showed fight. He knowed that pony would fight and make himself hard to handle, and he'd of been mighty disappointed not to've seen them signs in the horse. It was only natural that any of his kind should act this way and he figgered the wilder the spirit the bigger and more worth while would the winning be.—He would take his time, do a good job and turn Smoky from a wild raw bronc into a well broke and eddicated cowhorse.
He took a few steps closer and Smoky backed away to the end of the rope,—he snorted when he found he couldn't back no further and pawed at the rope as the cowboy kept a coming still closer and closer. Clint took his time but came on steady and a talking the while till he finally got within a couple of feet of the horse and where he could touch him. Hanging on to the rope with the right hand he reached out with the left and touched him easy between the eyes. Smoky flinched and snorted but he stood it,—he stood it for quite a spell and felt the hand rubbing on his forehead and working up and up towards his ears.