He followed the cedar fence hardly realizing it was there. Then from the other side of him appeared another fence, it gradually pinched in on him as he went, till finally both fences led up to a gate and into a corral hid in the thick trees. There he stopped, realizing somehow that he couldn't go no further, and legs wide apart, breathing hard, sweat a dripping from every part of him, he stood still. The halfbreed closed the pole gate, and turned looking at the horse. "Now, you ornery mouse colored hunk of meanness, I guess I got you." But Smoky, eyes half closed and not seeing, head near touching the ground, and the rest of him trying hard to stay up, never seemed to hear. * * * * * Many months had passed and many things happened since Smoky had been hazed away from his home range on the Rocking R. There'd been long nights of traveling when many miles was covered and very little feed was got on the way. Then long, weary miles of travel had accumulated till near a thousand of 'em separated him from the country where he'd been born and raised. Many strange looking hills and flats he'd crossed as he was kept on the go with Pecos and the rest of the bunch, and when he'd come to the desert it'd been a great relief,--the deep snow had gradually been left behind by then and the bare sagebrush flats had took the place of the snow covered prairie. Many bunches of wild ponies had been seen on the way and once in a while a little bunch of cattle was passed by. The country had kept a changing, from rolling prairie it went to low hills, low hills to mountains, and on the other side more low hills and then sagebrush, the sagebrush had stayed in the landscape from then on and only added some yuccas as the southern country was reached, then spanish dagger, barrel cactus, and cat-claw. Finally a wide river in a deep canyon of many colors had been reached and swimmed acrost. A few days more travel, and then it seemed like Smoky and the bunch had got _there_,--anyway there'd been no more traveling. The next day, the half breed had corralled all the ponies, and with a running iron, blotched the Rocking R brand over with what looked like a wagon wheel. The original brand was disfigured complete, and then the horses was shoved up on a high knoll while the new brand healed. The knoll was a high flat mesa, with rimrocks all around and where it could be got up on only in one place, that place had then been closed with a rope and a blanket stretched over it. There was good feed up there, and enough snow and rain water in a natural reservoir to last many days. All would of been well for Smoky, and the long trip with the bucking of snow, hard traveling, and all with the changes of the country would of been took in as it come, but along with that trip, there'd growed something between that pony's ears which had got to chafe. It was a hate, a hate with poison and all for the breed that'd kept him and the others on the move.