But whatever the folks in the grandstand thought, Smoky had reasons of his own for gradually getting away from being The Cougar. It wasn't that his legs was getting stove up or giving away on him so much as the way things had come to him as year after year he met up with the strange riders that'd come to try him, and even tho none of 'em seemed to want a _close acquaintance_ with him, there was nothing about them boys for the hate he was packing to feed on. Not once, since that day he'd bogged his head in front of the first grandstand, had a club, nor even a twig, ever been layed on him. For the first couple of years, Smoky had let the heart the halfbreed had transplanted in him, control his actions. The poison of hate in that heart had kept him from noticing or go according to the good treatment he'd been getting, and it was close on to the fifth year before his ears begin to perk up to the show of admiration and respect that was handed him from all around. The name of The Cougar lived on for a spell, but the horse that had been packing that name was fast getting away from having the right to such.--Then the next spring came and with it rodeos begin to be pulled off here and there, good riders begin following The Cougar again as before, and with the hopes that some day, sometime or other, they'd be able to pull their riggins off that pony's back and be able to say: "I rode him." But long before middle summer come, them hopes had died down in many of the boys, for The Cougar wasn't The Cougar no more. Them fast, crooked, and hard hitting jumps of his, and which had jarred the thoughts and balance out of so many a good rider, had died down, and put the horse as an average with the other bucking horses. Rider after rider forked him, and sorta disappointed, had rode and fanned him easy enough, where a year or so before no fanning had been required to qualify. The Cougar kept a bucking on and on every time he was saddled, and he was rode thru to the finish oftener and oftener till finally, no rider was ever throwed no more, not from that pony's back. The heart of The Cougar was shriveling up and leaving space for the heart that was Smoky's, and that heart, even tho older and weaker was making a mighty strong stand, and steady coming back. Soon, there came a time when the mouse colored outlaw didn't have to be handled from a distance no more; no high corral was needed for protection against his teeth and hoofs, and like most of the other buckers he could be led from the stock car to the rodeo grounds without any other ropes holding him back, and away from the man that was leading him.