The cowboy had no more than reached the top pole of the corral when a sudden commotion, which sounded like a landslide, made him turn. Smoky had come up, and at last given a chance had more than started to make use of it. It was his turn to do some pounding, and he done it with the saddle that was on his back and which went with every crooked and hard hitting jump he made.
The breed had rode many hard horses and he was a good rider, but he soon found that Smoky was a harder horse to set than any he'd ever rode before, and as good a rider as he was there was many a twist brought in that he couldn't keep track of,—they kept a coming too fast, and it wasn't long when he begin to feel that setting in that saddle on such a horse was no place for him. The saddle horn and cantle was taking turns and hitting him from all sides, till he didn't know which way he was setting. Pretty soon he lost both stirrups, and once as he was a hanging over to one side, one of them stirrups came up and hit him between the eyes. That finished him—, he hit the ground like a ton of lead.
The cowboy up on top of the corral had laughed and enjoyed the performance all the way thru, and when the breed dug his nose in the dust of the corral he laughed all the more, he'd never been more agreeable to seeing a man get "busted" in his life.
The breed layed in a heap, never moving, and then the cowboy, finally getting serious, was for getting him out of there before the horse spotted him, and reduced him into thin air. Somehow, he wasn't caring to see a human get tore apart and right before his eyes that way even if that human did deserve killing, but Smoky's interest was all for shedding the saddle right then and all that carried the breed's smell; finally it begin to slip;—higher and higher on his withers it went till the high point was reached, and then it started going down. When it reached the ground the hackamore had come off with it, and before Smoky, slick and clean, straightened up again, the breed had picked himself up, and without the help of the cowboy, sneaked out of the corral.
Smoky's interest was all for shedding the saddle right then and all that carried the breed's smell.
The next few minutes was used by that cowboy in telling the breed to get another horse saddled and hit the trail while the hitting was good, and helping him getting his horses together, boosted him out of camp.—But the breed wasn't thru with Smoky, he was going to "tend to him" again, some other time.