The boys was already grinning at such a good promise of seeing a little excitement, but the grins soon faded to looks of wonder. For Smoky, instead of trying to get shed of the saddle, showed he was using his brain to the best way of keeping it there. He was a cowhorse and working, and it was no time for foolishness, so, when the rigging reared up on his hind quarters that way he reared up with it, and turned while in the air. When his front feet touched the ground again the saddle was where it belonged and he was facing the steer.
When that story was told to the country around there was many hard-to-be-convinced riders, who laughed and shook their heads and remarked how it was pure luck that the pony acted that way, but if they'd knowed Smoky, if they'd seen how he juggled that saddle and worked to keep his holt on the steer there'd been a different tune.
The steer had stayed up and with his ten hundred pounds of wild weight had fought at the rope and hit the end mighty hard. Then Smoky done another thing and which kept the boys a staring and doing nothing—The steer was making another wild dash for open country, and Smoky, instead of holding his ground and waiting for the steer to hit the end of the rope broke out in a sudden run and right after the critter. When the speed of both of 'em was up good and high Smoky of a sudden planted himself till his hocks touched the ground, and when Mr. Steer hit the end of the rope that time it was just as tho that rope had been fastened to a four foot stump. His head was jerked under him, he turned in the air, and when he came down he layed.
"There was only one thing that horse didn't do," Jeff had remarked afterwards,—"he didn't give the rope a flip before he set down on it."
Smoky had kept the rope tight and Clint tied the steer down to stay till the crooked horn was sawed off. When that was done Clint put up a hand and spoke, and Smoky gave slack so the rope could be pulled off the steer's head.
Big herds of Mexico long-horned steers had been bought by the Rocking R and shipped up into that northern country, they got fat on that range and wilder than ever, and there's where Smoky showed he had something else besides the knowing how. Them long-horned critters are too fast for the average cowhorse to catch up with in a short distance, but not with Smoky;—he had the speed to go with what he knowed, and Clint would have time to whirl his rope only a few times when the little horse would climb up on the long legged steer and pack the cowboy to within roping distance.
Many a cowboy had remarked that it was worth the price of a good show to watch Smoky work, whether it was around, in or out of a herd, and many a rider had let a cow sneak past him just so he could see how neat that pony could outdodge a critter, and when after the last meal of the day and the cowboys stretched out to rest some, talk, or sing, none ever had any argument to put up and no betting was ever done against whatever Clint said Smoky could do or had done. They all knowed and admired the horse, and came a time as these cowboys came and went that Smoky begin to be talked about in the cow camps of other cow outfits. One whole northern State got to hear of him, and one cowboy wasn't at all surprised when hitting South one fall and close to the Mexican border to hear another cowboy talk of "Smoky of the Rocking R."
Many a cowboy had remarked it was worth the price of a good show to watch Smoky outdodge the critter.