The breed layed in a heap, never moving, and then the cowboy, finally getting serious, was for getting him out of there before the horse spotted him, and reduced him into thin air. Somehow, he wasn't caring to see a human get tore apart and right before his eyes that way even if that human did deserve killing, but Smoky's interest was all for shedding the saddle right then and all that carried the breed's smell; finally _it_ begin to slip;--higher and higher on his withers it went till the high point was reached, and then it started going down. When it reached the ground the hackamore had come off with it, and before Smoky, slick and clean, straightened up again, the breed had picked himself up, and without the help of the cowboy, sneaked out of the corral. [Illustration: Smoky's interest was all for shedding the saddle right then and all that carried the breed's smell.] The next few minutes was used by that cowboy in telling the breed to get another horse saddled and hit the trail while the hitting was good, and helping him getting his horses together, boosted him out of camp.--But the breed wasn't thru with Smoky, he was going to "tend to him" again, some other time. Months had went by before that other time come, and it'd been away late in the next fall before that hombre ever put his hands on Smoky again. In that time, the other ponies, which all had seemed inclined to behave, had been sold. Smoky had been kept in the corral, treated with a club regular, and fed "post hay," till, as the breed figgered, he'd break that pony's spirit, or break his neck, but he was going to _make_ him behave some way, so as he'd get the price he'd be asking for him. Then one night a high March wind had sprung up, rattled the corral gate, and finally worked it open. Smoky hadn't been long in seeing the opening, and when a few days later the breed, hunting for the horse, spotted him, the mouse colored gelding had took up with the wild bunch, and only a glimpse of him did he get. Every once in a while that whole summer the breed had tried cutting Smoky out of the wild bunch and run him in, but that pony had been harder to get near than any of the wild ones he was with. He knowed what was on the program for him if that breed ever caught him again,--the steady beatings he'd got from him had made his hate grow for the human till a striking rattlesnake looked like a friend in comparing. [Illustration: That pony had been harder to get near than any of the wild ones he was with.] But the breed hadn't been for quitting,--he couldn't stand to have anything get the best of him, not even an ornery pony, and as Smoky enjoyed his wild freedom them summer months, the breed had kept a studying which circle Smoky and the wild ones would take whenever they was being chased, and getting a good lay of the land he finally figgered a plan.