for breakfast.”
“I expect when she was a-stomping this cat she was a-thinking, ‘Why daggone your hide! The idee—you a-trying to kill my little feller! I ain’t got no use for you! You can’t travel in my set—you’re that disgusting!’ ”
“Yes, and likely she thought while she stomped him, ‘I suppose I ought to leave enough of you for the buzzards to pick on account they’ll be hungry. Well, I’ll mix ’em up a good mess of hash for once. I’ll pound you up like a tough beefsteak. The buzzards is nice and I’ll fix ’em a right nice meal.’ ”
As they talked they thought of how much she and Mustang meant to Sam. A month before the chief owner of the ranch had sold a herd of horses to be shipped into Kansas and Sam had bought Big Bay and Mustang, paying a higher price for them than for horses in general. But Jim and Charley and Bud knew. As they put it, “Sam was plumb set on these two from the first.”
This was the last day of the spring roundup on the Horseshoe, one of the biggest cattle and horse ranches of the Old West. All the spring colts and calves, or any others that had not been found the spring before, were being rounded up to be branded. Already more than a score of riders were starting the horses toward the place for branding, and as the men looked toward the north they saw a large herd of horses gallop in the direction of the ranch with many riders behind them, “fogging them on.”
Sam said, “Jim, you fellers go on. I’ll ride slow like because I want to lead Big Bay. I don’t want her to get loose again with Mustang.” And at this Jim and Charley and Bud rode away. They sat as straight as posts in their saddles, with the easy grace of men who had grown up in the saddle—men who were among the best riders in the world.
Suddenly Jim Parkman’s horse leaped quickly aside when a jack rabbit jumped up almost under his feet, but Jim, like a bird that knows its wings, was not moved from his saddle but swerved with the horse as if he had been a part of him. All these riding men here took all this the same as when a bird wheels and darts but keeps its balance. No one thought of it as anything unusual except, now and then, an Easterner, like the man one day who saw Jim and Sam ride. The Easterner said, “Seems to me like the Maker of these men must be kinda proud Himself that He made them!”
In the meantime Sam was trotting his horse along at an easy pace, leading Big Bay, with Mustang galloping ahead, only sometimes the colt would “cut loose,” kick up his heels and run off in the wrong direction. But Sam only grinned when he saw Mustang “letting out the kinks,” as the cowboys would say, and he kept on grinning when Mustang would come tearing back like a thunderbolt and snort as he ran up close. Sam, the trained horseman, knew Mustang was an unusual colt! His actions on this day made Sam know it all the more. Mustang started out and ran as fast as any of the grown horses, which the colts at his age could do. Mustang “put on the brakes” as he raced ahead and snorted at nothing in particular. Back he came, running toward Sam and Big Bay as if he were scared stiff, but Sam understood. He said, as Mustang again, stiff legged, stopped himself almost under the nose of Sam’s horse, “Mustang, if you grow up you’re going to make a great horse. And I aim to keep close watch on you and keep you at the ranch. I can tell right now that you’re like your old mammy—you got fight in you. You won’t fight me but if animals or fellers ever get rough with you they’ll think some kind of a mountain cat is all over ’em! I’m going to take your old fighting mammy here and tie her to a tree while we finish with this roundup of the horses. I won’t let her loose again. She must stay at the ranch so I can know you’ll grow up!”
When night fell, Sam tied Big Bay to a tree a little back from the campfire. After supper Sam and Mustang put on their usual show for the other men. Sam would scratch Mustang’s neck for a while and Mustang would stand with his head low and his eyes half closed, telling plainly enough he liked to have Sam do this. Then Sam would grin broadly and he’d reach his arm over Mustang and tickle him under his flank and Mustang would kick. The reason the men enjoyed this so much was that Mustang seemed to want Sam to tickle him, for after Sam would scratch his neck for a time, Mustang would throw his head up and look a little wild in the eyes and crowd close to Sam. Sam knew what that meant. It meant that Mustang was saying, “Tickle me, Sam, I want to buck!” And Sam obliged him. There were other things Mustang would do that amused the men. Mustang had learned to pick up Sam’s big hat from the ground and he would shake it a little, drop it and look at it with curiosity. It had happened one day after Sam had played with Mustang for a time that Sam thought he’d lie down and doze a little, putting his big hat over his face as the cowboys did when asleep on the plains. Mustang had come over and pulled Sam’s hat from his face and waked him up. After that Mustang could be counted on to do such things.
On this night the men, in due time, rolled up in their blankets, Sam with them, and they were soon all sound asleep.
It was a bright starlight night. The campfire cast its light on the cowboys, rolled up in their blankets and lying asleep with their feet toward the fire. The cowboys lay silent with their big hats over their faces. Standing in the shadows and looking curiously at sleeping Sam was Mustang. He walked up and stood with his nose less than a foot from the big hat over Sam’s face. Big Bay was standing tied to the tree and she was about asleep. She knew, though, that Mustang was nosing around Sam over there. Well, she’d let him. In fact she’d be glad to let Sam take some of the care of him because she had never had a colt like Mustang, who seemed to be always awake and prancing around the men. Sam was such a good sleeper that he snored a little when he slept, as he was doing now. Mustang heard the queer sounds coming from Sam and he must have wondered what made Sam do it! In any case he must have wondered something because he reached down and, with his mouth, jerked Sam’s hat from his face. Sam, startled, sat up so quickly that Mustang jumped back with a snort, but he stood close, head down, looking at Sam. This awakened Jim and Bud. When they saw that it was Mustang with his pranks that had awakened them, Jim said, “Sam, you’ll plumb spoil that colt, you always playing with him. You better take Big Bay about a mile away and tell her to keep him with her so us fellers can sleep!”
Sam got up and, in his sock feet, led Big Bay to another tree farther away. Mustang came right along and when Sam had tied Big Bay he spanked Mustang lightly on the rump and said, “Daggone your little hide. You stay here and be quiet and let us fellers sleep!”
But Mustang didn’t go to sleep. He only stood there and looked at Sam walking back toward the small campfire.
MUSTANG was nine months old when an accident befall Big Bay that took her from him. Sam McSwain had put oats in her feed box that morning and scratched her neck and talked to her as he always did before riding away for the day. He talked to her as if she could understand, saying, “Now I’ll see you and Mustang tonight when you come in for your oats.”
The day passed. It was sunset when Sam and Jim Parkman rode in together. The other men had already come in. Sam had just started to dismount when, looking out on the plain, he said, “Well! Look there. There’s Big Bay and there’s something the matter with her. She can’t walk straight.”
Big Bay came on. She reached the ranch yard and fell. The men gathered around her. There was a great swelling on her jaw and every man understood. Jim said, “Snake bite! A daggoned rattler got her.”
And it was true. Big Bay had watched carefully all her life, but while she was eating in some tall green grass that morning a big rattler had struck without warning.
The men stayed up with her until morning and did all they could, but at sunrise this splendid
