brand over with what looked like a wagon wheel.
The original brand was disfigured complete, and then the horses was shoved up on a high knoll while the new brand healed. The knoll was a high flat mesa, with rimrocks all around and where it could be got up on only in one place, that place had then been closed with a rope and a blanket stretched over it. There was good feed up there, and enough snow and rain water in a natural reservoir to last many days.
All would of been well for Smoky, and the long trip with the bucking of snow, hard traveling, and all with the changes of the country would of been took in as it come, but along with that trip, there'd growed something between that pony's ears which had got to chafe. It was a hate, a hate with poison and all for the breed that'd kept him and the others on the move.
Smoky was born with a natural fear and hate of the human, he'd carried it always, excepting when Clint, that one man, was around, but hating humans had never bothered him, not till the dark face of the breed had showed itself over the skyline.
With him in sight, that hate had got to grow till murder showed in his eye, and the little fear that was still with him, was all that'd kept him from doing damage to the dark complected human that'd trailed along behind all the way. He'd boiled over to himself, stayed in the lead, and far away from the breed as he could.
The breed had throwed a rope at him one day, and missed. Smoky had never been missed that way before, and from that once he'd learned that by ducking at the right time there was such a thing as dodging a rope. The next day the breed had throwed his rope at him again, and Smoky watching, had ducked at the right time and once more the loop had missed. The breed begin cussing as he spread another loop and tried to place it around Smoky's neck, but his cussing didn't do him any good, and the loop had fell short a foot from the dodging pony's head.
Smoky would of enjoyed all that, if he hadn't meant it so much, and what's more the breed had got ferocious, which all made things more serious for the horse. He'd hated the sound of that breed's voice as that hombre, fighting his head, and cussing for all he was worth, had coiled up his rope once more and made ready for another try.
And in that third throw the breed had fooled Smoky. He'd swung his rope like as to throw it, but the loop had never left his hands. Smoky had dodged and dodged thinking sure that the rope had come, but it never had, and finally when he'd quit dodging, it did come, and with the speed of a "blue racer" had circled around his neck.
Smoky had fought like a trapped grizzly as the rope had drawed up, and the breed had to take a few turns around a corral post to hold him.