The horse was then advertised in the county and State papers and described as "A mouse colored, blaze faced, stocking legged gelding, and packing a brand that looked like a blotched wagon wheel." The advertisement was kept running for two weeks and nobody showed to claim the horse. He was kept in the pasture for a few days more, and then one day one of the riders run him in the corral. The cowboy had liked the looks of the pony from the day he'd set eyes on him; he'd figgered him as an ordinary horse that'd been spoiled a little, and shaking out a loop, there'd been no doubt in his mind but what that could be took out of him easy enough. But he hadn't got very far when he found that the pony would have to be throwed before a saddle could ever be put on his back. There was a look in the horse's eye which he didn't like, and that cowboy having handled all kind of horses knowed mighty well what that look meant. He kept his distance, and from there worked his ropes till the horse went down to his knees and then flat to the ground. The saddle was cinched on tight, and seeing that the hackamore was on the pony's head to stay, the cowboy took his seat while the horse was down, and reaching over took the foot ropes off. What went on in the next few minutes was past ever being described with talk, and as that cowboy felt, telling about it would be a disgrace as compared with what really happened--something like trying to paint the Grand Canyon of Arizona on black canvas with black paint. Anyway, that cowboy had reached for the top pole of the corral and got on the other side of it before the pony had really got started to whatever he was up to, and there on the safe side he done a mental round up, and it all came to him. He remembered the empty saddle that was on the pony's back when found that day two weeks past--then the dried blood that'd been on his jaw and more of it on his knees--. The cowboy had remarked as thru the corral poles he'd watched the man killer: "A twelve hundred pound mountain lion is what that horse is." That's where his name Cougar had come in, and no horse never lived up to a name like the mouse colored gelding did to his. Then had come rumors of a Fourth of July celebration which was going to be pulled off in some big town to the south; there was to be bronc riding and everything that went with it. A prize of a hundred dollars had been offered for the best bucking horse, and that's how come one day that The Cougar made his first appearance before a grandstand. A warning was given to the "pick-up" man and "hazers" to be on hand and watch out nobody got hurt, and them few words of warning that way had proved to sound mighty right before that day was over.