she herself had used to free her
young one, the last of all her brood.

THE PACING MUSTANG

I

JO CALONE threw down his saddle on the dusty ground, turned his horses
loose, and went clanking into the ranchhouse.

"Nigh about chuck time?" he asked.

"Seventeen minutes," said the cook glancing at the Waterbury, with the
air of a train starter, though this show of precision had never yet been
justified by events.

"How's things on the Perico?" said Jo's pard.

"Hotter'n hinges," said Jo. "Cattle seem O.K.; lots of calves."

"I seen that bunch o' mustangs that waters at Antelope Springs; couple
o' colts along; one little dark one, a fair dandy; a born pacer. I run
them a mile or two, and be led the bunch, an' never broke his pace.
Cut loose, an' pushed them jest for fun, an' darned if I could make him
break."

"You didn't have no reefreshments along?" said Scarth, incredulously.

"That's all right, Scarth. You had to crawl on our last bet, an' you'll
get another chance soon as you're man enough."

"Chuck," shouted the cook, and the subject was dropped. Next day the
scene of the roundup was changed, and the mustangs were forgotten.

A year later the same corner of New Mexico was worked over by the
roundup, and again the mustang bunch was seen. The dark colt was now a
black yearling, with thin, clean legs and glossy flanks; and more than
one of the boys saw with his own eyes this oddity--the mustang was a
born pacer. Jo was along, and the idea now struck him that that colt
was worth having. To an Easterner this thought may not seem startling
or original, but in the West, where an unbroken horse is worth $5, and
where an ordinary saddlehorse is worth $15 or $20, the idea of a wild
mustang being desirable property does not occur to the average cowboy,
for mustangs are hard to catch, and when caught are merely wild animal
prisoners, perfectly useless and untamable to the last, Not a few of the
cattle-owners make a point of shooting all mustangs at sight, they are
not only useless cumberers of the feeding-grounds, but commonly lead
away domestic horses, which soon take to wild life and are thenceforth
lost.

Wild Jo Calone knew a 'bronk right down to subsoil.' "I never seen a
white that wasn't soft, nor a chestnut that wasn't nervous, nor a bay
that wasn't good if broke right, nor a black that wasn't hard as nails,
an' full of the old Harry. All a black bronk wants is claws to be wus'n
Daniel's hull outfit