ing. In that case he went headlong. If he took the rope
with him he sometimes trod on it and gave himself a nasty check.
Usually, however, he got it across his big neck and kept it from falling
to the ground. He never stopped for any gate. When he saw one he gave a
bellow, charged it and went through the fragments with me after him. If
I was really anxious to get him back at once I usually caught him within
a mile. When I wanted a rest I only succeeded in turning him five or six
miles away, after he had thrashed a bull or two belonging to other
ranchers. No fence was any use to keep him out or in. On one occasion he
broke into a barn in which a rash young bull was kept. When the row was
over that barn stood sadly in need of repair: and so did the young
pedigree bull. I may say that on this particular occasion El Toro got
away entirely by himself, and I only knew he was free when I found the
door of his stable in splinters.

There was a magnificent difference between El Toro as I sat on him and
scratched him with a nail and as he was when he turned himself loose for
a happy day in the country. In the stable he was as mild as milk. I
could have almost imagined him purring like a cat. He chewed the cud and
made homely sloppy noises with his tongue, and regarded me with a calm,
bovine gaze, which was as gentle as that of any pet cow's. I could have
fallen asleep beside him. It is reported that my predecessor Jack, on
one occasion, came home much the worse for liquor and was found
reclining on El Toro. There was not a soul on the ranch who dared
disturb the loving couple. But when the rope was parted and El Toro
loped down the road to seek a row as keenly as any Irishman on a fair
day, he was another guess sort of an animal. He carried his tail in the
air and bellowed wildly to the hills. He threw out challenges to all and
sundry. He gave it to be understood that the world and the fatness
thereof were his. This was no mere braggadocio; it was not the misplaced
confidence of a stall-fed bull in his mere weight; he really could
fight, and though he was only on the warpath about once a month, there
was not a bull in the valley which had not retained in his thick skull
and muddy brains some recollection of El Toro's prowess. The only
trouble about this, from my pet bull's point of view, was that he could
rarely get up a row. Most of his possible enemies fled when he tooted
his horn and waltzed into the arena through a smashed fen