Smoky the Cowhorse quotes

It seemed like Mother Nature was sure agreeable that day when the little black colt came to the range world and tried to get a footing with his long wobblety legs on the brown prairie sod.

Short stems of new green grass was trying to make their way up thru the last year’s faded growth, and reaching for the sun’s warm rays.

He didn’t see the first light of day thru no box stall window, and there was no human around to make a fuss over him and try to steady him on his feet for them first few steps.

Smoky was just a little range colt, and all the company he had that first morning of his life was his watchful mammy.

Smoky wasn’t quite an hour old when he begin to take interest in things.

His mammy kept a circling around and a talking to him in horse language; she’d give him a shove with her nose then walk away and watch him.

The spring air, which I think is most for the benefit of all that’s young, had a lot to do to keep Smoky from laying still for very long.

His vision was getting clearer fast, and his strength was coming in just as fast.

His mammy came to him. She sniffed at him and he sniffed back. Then nature played another hand and he nursed, the first nourishment was took in, his tummy warmed up and strength came fast.

Smoky was an hour and a half old and up to stay.

The rest of that day was full of events for Smoky.

She sniffed at him and he sniffed back. Then nature played another hand and he nursed, the first nourishment was took in, his tummy warmed up and strength came fast. Smoky was an hour and a half old and up to stay.

The rest of that day was full of events for Smoky. He explored the whole country, went up big mountains two feet high, wide valleys six or eight feet acrost, and at one time was as far as twelve feet away from his mammy all by himself.

He shied at a rock once; it was a dangerous looking rock, and he kicked at it as he went past.

The night was a mighty good rival of what the day had been.

All the stars was out and showing off, and the braves was a chasing the buffalo plum around the Big Dipper, the water hole of The Happy Hunting Grounds.

But all that was lost to Smoky;

Taking in all, Smoky was getting mighty wise along with being mighty lucky in getting that wisdom.

Scratches is about all he ever packed out of any scramble, and scratches didn’t count with him.

His hide was getting tough and the blood that flowed in his veins wasn’t from a heart that’d peter out very easy.

It would of struck him as too good to last much longer, but as it was, Smoky took in all that life could give and enjoyed it to the limit.

He never passed anything which had him wondering for fear of missing something.

If a limb cracked anywheres within hearing distance he’d perk his ears towards the sound and seldom would go on till he found out just why that limb cracked that way. He’d follow and pester the badger till it’d hunt a hole;

It all kept a getting to be less of a puzzle to him till finally there come a time when Smoky got so he thought he knowed it all.

He figgered he had the world by the tail and with a downhill push.

Like all the other colts of his age he was just where conceit had the best of him; he got strong headed and full of mischief, and then’s when the older horses figgered him to be a regular pest and began knocking on him.

Peace was with the little bunch; all had some understanding and every horse knowed his ground.

It was all so peaceful that Smoky felt it and it all begin to wear on him to the point where he felt like tackling the big buckskin, just to start something⁠—then relief came one day and scattered that peaceful monotony from hell to breakfast.

It all happened as the little bunch, strung out, was heading for water.

He had a mighty strong failing for the little fellers and most any bunch would do if there was only a few of them in; but with Smoky, it was his mammy he missed most, his brother, and the other colts he’d growed up with.

No other bunch would do as well, and the nicker he’d send echoing acrost canyons and over ridges every once in a while was just for them certain few.

Smoky’s mammy had no choice when that black stallion came and scattered them out to his liking that way. She was made to join that little bunch of his and she knowed better than try to do different;

… he was a big horse now, and a few ridges to the north or south of that range he was raised in didn’t make much difference.—An old mare had took the lead and from then on Smoky just followed side by side with the buckskin.

A little colt nipped him in the flanks, and all was well.

A big moon came up and the light of it reflected a path that shined on the crusted snow.

The air was mighty still, still with the cold that’d gripped the range and made everything that lived and carried hoofs come to a stand, so that no air would be stirred; a breeze at that temperature would of froze stiff every standing animal in that territory.

Smoky, the buckskin, and the bunch stood on a knoll where they could see well around ’em. They looked like petrified or froze there so still they all stood;

Restlessness had got in the bunch. Smoky started out a ways and came back; then pretty soon, and keeping as close together as they could, they all begin moving.

They moved on like shadows, and like more shadows three grey shapes had took up their trail.

The big buckskin had stayed in the rear of the bunch and he was first to notice the wolves.

That might show some of the difference in the work the cowboy and the cowhorse does with a real cow outfit.—

The men go to pieces young and early and the ponies stay fat⁠—but there was no grudge for there’s nobody in the world likes to see and ride a fat strong horse more than does the cowboy.

They’ll keep the ponies fat and feeling good, and some of them horses find it hard to behave and will try to jar loose the eye teeth of their riders.

His spirit would be broken then too, and that proves that the cowboy, knowing his business, will see that the pony’s heart is kept intact.

There’s a variety in horse minds as big as there is amongst human minds.

Some need more persuading than others, and a few of ’em, no matter how firm they’re handled, will have to be showed again and again that they can’t get away with this or with that—they’ll keep on a trying and if ever once they do …

If he was convinced a few times he had the sense to realize it, but at the same time, he had to be showed, and more because it was part of his necessary eddication than because of any meanness of his.

He was willing to learn but the teaching had to come from one who could teach him.

There was no meanness in Smoky, not an ounce of it, he was honest clear thru; but meanness would develop if a slip was made.

Smoky was scared, mad, and desperate. All the action, strength, and endurance that was in him was brought out to do its best.

Not a hair on his hide was laying idle thru the performance⁠—every muscle tightened and loosened in a way to shake the weight on his back and make it pop.

Clint felt the muscles work even thru the saddle, and every part of that pony which his legs touched seemed as hard as steel and full of fast working bumps which came and went, twisted his saddle under him, and made him wonder if it …

Smoky stuck his head and neck out far as he could and nickered at the sight of the cowboy, and that cowboy having his attention some other direction at the time was made to turn mighty quick as the well known nicker was heard.—

There was all in Smoky’s looks and nicker that seemed to say “Pardner, I need help.”

Clint laughed, but the laugh wasn’t of the kind that comes from a joke.

All had him interested, it was all new, and with the nicker he’d often hear from one side of the scattered remuda and then the other, the steady ring of the horse bells and all.

The little horse wasn’t hankering for anything only just what he was in the thick of.

He’d been grazing for a good long time, and the sun was hitting towards the ridges to the west, when to the south a ways he noticed a big dust a soaring up the sky and a mile high.

The fine, cool, and sunshiny days of fall was making a last stand—rains begin to come, and as time was a crawling towards early winter, them rains got colder and then turned to a wet snow.

Mud was where dust had been, the hard-twist throw ropes had turned stiff as steel cables, saddles and saddle blankets was wet, heavy, and cold, and the shivering ponies met the feel of them with a hump and a buck.

The cowboys, all a packing long, yellow slickers, was beginning to tally up on how much wages would be due ’em.

And it did; it came up bright and real fitting to that Arizona country.

The air was clear as spring water in a granite pool, and as still.

The whole world seemed dozing and just contented to take on all the warmth and life the sun was giving.

Any other time he’d whirled at the sight and went some other way, but his vision wasn’t very clear no more, nor was his brain working very good.

He’d went on his nerves and kept on long after his muscles had hollered “quit,” and he’d got to the point where he was running because something away back in his mind kept a telling him that he should, really not knowing why.

He was past caring where he went, and even if the rider behind had stopped and quit, he’d kept on running just the same and till he’d dropped.

Two hundred miles of that trail was covered, and in the time it took to cover that distance, Smoky had fed on hate for the breed till that hate growed to a disease. Killing the breed would be all that could cure it.

Every blow that human had pounded on his head that day, a couple of weeks past, had left a scar, a scar that healed on the surface, but which went to his heart instead, spread there, and stayed raw.

Then one day, on the edge of a big desert flat and amongst the junipers, the breed spotted a high, strong, corral.

That pony had brains, a big supply of ’em and which showed in the way he’d go about throwing his man.

He wasn’t like the average bucking horse, who’d often buck back under the man that was already loosened; and instead, when The Cougar felt a man lose an inch, that inch was never got back.

The saddle kept a getting away from him from then on.

he’d handled many a fighting horse, and to him they all could do only one thing, and that was their worst.

As a true rider of the range he welcomed anything that’d test his skill and ability, and if The Cougar had come straight up from hell, wore horns, a forked tail, and cloven hoof, he’d of grinned all the more and bet his year’s earnings that he could send him back to where he came with his tail between his legs and hollering “enough.”

“Rider up,” hollered the hazer, but the judges was already watching, for it was The Cougar “coming out.”

For two summers he followed him, in that time, competing with other good riders; he’d had three chances at him and each time them chances wound up with him hitting the ground, and running as he hit.

“That horse sure means what he does,” he was heard to say to one of the riders one time, “and by golly that’s just what makes me keep after him.”

Three more long summers of rodeo work went by, and The Cougar kept on a challenging the world’s best riders. Another spring came, more rodeos was followed and where it was advertised that “The Cougar Will be Present.”

The gate was opened, and out came a streak of a mouse colored horse with a cowboy on top, and The Cougar, that famous outlaw, lined out acrost the ground on a long lope.

Anywheres, and in any line, very little respect is ever showed for a “has been.”

If The Cougar had fought and tore things up as he’d once had, all would of been hunkydory, and the crowd would all been satisfied; but the horse had come to the end of his fighting streak.

but with these equestrians, as they was called, they didn’t seem to know themselves what they wanted to do, or where they wanted to go. They’d just wander around and handle him with a rein in each hand like he was a plow horse.

They’d run him up and down streets where the ground was hard on his feet, and let him walk where the going was soft and level.

It was no wonder that the end of the day, and the stall at the stable, was looked forward to so much.

But there was no blame ever attached to these human wolves who was killing the horse only for the pleasure they’d get in riding him, and the fine exercise that went with it. Most of ’em meant well; only they didn’t know.

Cloudy, always true in whatever he done, was so willing, no jab of the spur was needed to make him go; and his willingness to do his best that way was often if not always mistaken, and took for granted that he was feeling good and rearing to go.

They didn’t know the difference between a tired, wore out horse and one that’s fresh and fit to be rode. Then again, there was many who never stopped to realize. To them a horse was just a horse, and they didn’t know nothing about horses.

They didn’t know the difference between a tired, wore out horse and one that’s fresh and fit to be rode. Then again, there was many who never stopped to realize.

To them a horse was just a horse, and they didn’t know nothing about horses.

That kind figgered a horse to be like an automobile, always able to go and as fast as was wanted;

and instead, whenever a front foot touched the ground for another step, it was like he was placing it on needles, and careful so as not to jar his shoulders and the rest of his body any more than he could help.

There was times when he felt like he wanted to split the breeze the same as he used to, but that feeling was mostly in his heart, and his old legs couldn’t follow up.

Them old legs had hit the ground too hard, too many times, and jarred too many riders out of the saddle at the rodeos where he’d performed as a bucking horse.