The owner of a neighbor outfit sent word by one of his "reps"[1] one day that he'd give a hundred dollars for that horse; Smoky had been broke only two years then. Old Tom laughed at the offer, and Clint got peeved. The next year that offer was raised by the same party to two hundred, and Old Tom laughed again, but Clint didn't know whether to get mad or scared this time. Anyway, things went on as usual for a couple of years more, and then a big outfit from acrost the state line sent in an offer of a cool four hundred dollars for the mouse colored cowhorse.
Good saddle horses could be bought by the carload for fifty dollars a head about that time, but there never was no set price on a good cowhorse, and as a rule that kind can't be bought unless an outfit is selling out. The biggest price that was ever heard offered in that country for any cowhorse had never went over two hundred, and when rumors spread around that four hundred had been offered for Smoky many figgered that whoever offered it had a lot of money to spend;—but them who figgered that way had never seen Smoky work.
Ole Tom came up to Clint that fall after the wagon had pulled in and showed him the letter offering the four hundred. Clint had heard about the offer and he just stargazed at the letter, not reading;—instead he was doing some tall wondering at what Old Tom was going to do about it. He was still stargazing and sort of waiting for the blow to fall, when he felt the old cowman's hand on his shoulder, and then heard him say:
"Well, Clint, I'll tell you"—then Old Tom waited a while, maybe just to sort of aggravate the cowboy, but finally he went on,—"if my cattle was starving, and I needed the money to buy feed to pull 'em thru with, I might sacrifice Smoky for four hundred, but as things are now there's no money can buy that horse."
The cowboy smiled, took a long breath, and grabbed the paw the old man was holding for him to shake.
"But I'm hoping," resumed Old Tom, "that some day soon you'll get to hankering to drift to some other country and quit this outfit, so I can get Smoky for myself; I'd fired you long ago, only I'd have to fire Jeff too, and somehow I'd rather get along without the horse till one of you highbinders quit."
Clint had kept a smiling all the while the old man was speaking, then he gave his hand another shake and walked away. He knowed Old Tom had said that last just to hear how his voice sounded.
As usual, Smoky was turned out on the range along with the remuda for that winter. Clint had helped haze 'em to the breaks as he'd always done, and noticed as he stopped and let the ponies graze and scatter that the feed was mighty short and scarcer than he'd ever seen it. The whole summer had been mighty dry and the range short on grass, but this little scope of country that was the saddle horse range had always been good, and the ponies had always wintered there better than if they'd been in a warm stable and fed grain.