Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-upGrinnell, George Bird
General
Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up
Grinnell, George Bird
Cowboys -- Juvenile fiction; Western stories
"The steer did not want to go out of the bunch and kept trying to break
back, and the horse had a hard time to keep him going; but he kept
right after him, and did succeed in working him out to the edge of the
bunch, and all this without any guidance at all by the man, except what
Bosler may have given with his knees. It was a wonderful sight, and by
the time the steer was out of the bunch 'most all the men had stopped
their work and were watching.
"But this wasn't a patch on what came afterward. When the horse got
the steer outside, the steer turned to fight; and the two stood facing
each other. The steer wanted to get back among the cattle; the horse
wanted to drive him over to the Bosler bunch. All the time the steer
was threatening with his horns, and the horse kept moving around from
side to side to keep in front of the steer and yet not let it hook him.
"They maneuvered that way for quite a little while, and then, all of a
sudden when the horse saw his chance, he made a big jump--twenty feet
clear, I believe--and got his breast right against the steer's neck in
such a position that the steer could not hook him. Then he began to
push the steer over toward the other bunch of cattle, where he wanted
to take it. The steer did not want to go, and braced itself; and the
horse just pushed. It was fearful hard work. He would push and push and
push as far as he could, until he was tired out; then he'd stand and
rest for a few minutes, while the sweat dropped down; and then he'd
begin pushing the steer again, until finally he pushed him to the edge
of the other bunch of cattle. All the time the steer was trying to
twist around so as to use his horns, but the horse worked it so that he
never got touched.
"Long before this, all the round-up work had stopped, and all the
men--I guess there must have been two hundred and fifty of 'em--were
watching the horse and wondering at him. I reckon the oldest cow man
there had never seen anything like that before.
"After he'd got the steer over to the edge of the other bunch and where
he wanted it, of course Old Blue had to figure out some way to get away
from the steer without getting hurt. We were all wondering how he'd do
it, and before long we could see him getting ready, and could figure on
what he was going to do. He began to draw his hind feet up under him
like a cat, and at last, giving the steer a great push, he wheeled on
his hind feet and made a long spring--and struck the ground running.
The steer went for him, but did not come near catching him.
"That cow horse was in a class by himself. I never saw another like
him, and I've seen thousands of cow horses, in Texas and California and
up in this country."
"That's a wonderful story, Joe," exclaimed Donald; "almost beyond
belief if you hadn't seen it yourself."
"Well," said Joe, "it's a story about a wonderful horse."
"What sort of horse was he, Joe?" asked Jack. "Was he a big horse--a
half-breed?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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