Smoky, the cow horse

by Will James

To them that only sees a wild horse roped and rode and don't know the insides of the game, horse breaking might seem a little rough; but I'm here to say that it's not near as rough as it is necessary, and in the long run it's the rider that gets treated the roughest. You let a wild horse get away with something once and he'll try it again till there will come a time when even if there's no meaness in him he'll develop some. That's what makes outlaws.

Outlaws are made mostly when a horse proves too much for the man that handles him. A wild horse will turn outlaw often if handled by any other than them that knows his kind, and there'll be no way of breaking him only thru starvation and abuse. His spirit would be broken then too, and that proves that the cowboy, knowing his business, will see that the pony's heart is kept intact.

There's a variety in horse minds as big as there is amongst human minds. Some need more persuading than others, and a few of 'em, no matter how firm they're handled will have to be showed again and again that they can't get away with this or with that,—they'll keep on a trying and if ever once they do put a bluff thru there's most generally enough meaness in their system to make 'em plum worthless.

And like I was saying with Smoky, "he remembered how that rope had upset him that first day he was picketed to that log outside the corral, and he wasn't hankering to be 'busted' that way again."—That little horse had brains. If he was convinced a few times he had the sense to realize it, but at the same time, he had to be showed, and more because it was part of his necessary eddication than because of any meaness of his.

He was willing to learn but the teaching had to come from one who could teach him. There was no meaness in Smoky, not an ounce of it, he was honest clear thru, but meaness would develop if a slip was made. He fought and bit and kicked but Smoky was a wild horse and he was going only according to his instinct and more to protect himself from the strange human.

That's the caliber of most range horses. Clint had handled many of 'em and always won out with their confidence and turned 'em over as broke with their spirit intact. He'd savvied Smoky the minute he dabbed his rope on him that first time: that pony was wild, wild as a horse or any animal can get, and he had the strength to go with it; but Clint seen where that little horse also had a mighty fine set of brains between them little pointed ears of his.

He treated him like a grown up would treat a kid, a kid of the kind that'd learn a lot if the chance showed up, and he missed no chance to show that pony all he should know and how good he wanted to be to him.

"Daggone it Smoky," he'd say, "it's too bad you can't know without I have to use a lot of ropes, as it is sometimes. I bet you don't think I'm a friend of yours, none at all."

Clint was right. At first Smoky had took him as an enemy and fought him according; then had come a time when he was willing to trust him some, specially when Clint had come and untangled him out of that long picket rope, talked to him, and rubbed his ears. His heart had got over thumping so much when he'd see the cowboy coming of evenings, and even tho the little horse didn't realize it as yet, he'd got to expecting him.

Then, and just about when his liking for the cowboy was coming to the top fast, something happened that'd make him wonder for a spell if that cowboy was a friend or still an enemy. The "sacking" he'd went thru in the corral had sort of jarred the confidence that'd begin to sprout for the bow-legged crethure, and then the way his head was jerked up out of his bucking spell with the empty saddle, all had left him puzzled as whether to start in and do some fighting or else be good and take his medicine.