From that day on the freckle faced cowboy was, or tried to be, at every rodeo and near whatever chute The Cougar honored by his presence. He'd run up against a horse he couldn't ride; it was hard to take and he couldn't get it into his head how it was done. He'd never seen a horse he couldn't ride before, but there was more and which all kept the cowboy to following the outlaw, the unnatural meanness of that pony had him guessing, and he sort of wanted to figger it out while a setting on top--_There_ was a horse that not only called for skill and nerve, but the thinking ability of the pony was sure worth a trying to match. Winters and springs and falls found him on the range and doing his work there, he was getting all kinds of good practice with his every day work, and when summers come he was always on the trail of The Cougar and with new hopes that he could go back to the range and tell his "majordomo" that he "rode him, slick and clean and to a standstill." For two summers he followed him, in that time, competing with other good riders, he'd had three chances at him and each time them chances wound up with him hitting the ground, and running as he hit. "That horse sure means what he does," he was heard to say to one of the riders one time, "and by golly that's just what makes me keep after him." * * * * * Three more long summers of rodeo work went by, and The Cougar kept on a challenging the world's best riders. Another spring came, more rodeos was followed and where it was advertised that "The Cougar Will be Present." The posters went on a telling how in five years time no rider had been able to set the horse till the gun was fired, and as the cowboys remarked, "That was one truthful statement." Smoky kept on a throwing men right and left that spring and on thru the summer. He kept his record and back clean that way till away along towards the fall, and then one day at the start of another rodeo, a cowboy from the Wyoming country, and who'd come south for the winter, happened to hear of the doings. A couple of days later that bronc fighter showed himself at the rodeo headquarters, and remarking how he'd heard of The Cougar, signed his name and entered on bronc riding. He qualified and went thru the "tryouts" and "semi-finals" like it all was so much play. The Cougar was a horse kept for the finals only, and that's the pony the cowboy had been trying to reach, the others he'd had to ride had only been a means for him to get to The Cougar. He'd easy won the right to ride that horse, and also the chance to win the thousand dollars that was up for any rider that could. He hung around the chute and mighty close the next afternoon. Soon the time would come for him to really try his ability, and while waiting he was using that time to seeing that the latigoes and cinch had no weak spots, and would be able to stand the strain of staying around the middle of that Cougar horse.