That name sounded sort of pleasing all around, and it fitted the color of the pony mighty well, but then the good points for it would never loom up like the name of Smoky had in the cow country to the north, nor would it ever be mentioned about from state to state and give thrills just at the sound like the name of The Cougar had often done; but then again that horse wasn't the same no more,--he'd went from top cowhorse, to champion bucking horse and all around outlaw, only to fade away in a livery stable, and there for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to ride as they pleased. Cloudy, was just a livery plug. * * * * * As a raw bronc and then cowhorse, Smoky had been for learning all that could be learned. As The Cougar and outlaw, he'd been for killing and disfiguring every man that gave him the chance. There'd been something that called on him to do his best while on the Rocking R range, and there he went to the top as a cowhorse. Something else, and very different, had stirred his interest while in the arena of the rodeo grounds; he'd shined there as a fighting outlaw, and in a way that'd made all the others seem to be out of sight. He'd had something big to work for, both on the range and in the arena, but now it seemed like as the big livery stable doors closed on him after his first day of use there, that the end of his string had come, he'd sort of felt it in a way, soon as the last car of the bucking horses he'd been with went and disappeared over the skyline. He hadn't tried to get away, or even snorted when the stable man came in the corral where he'd been left, and led him out. He'd followed the man to the big stable, and as he was kept there, he found nothing about the place nor the folks around that suggested anything worth while working for. He was just a horse _there_, a plug that could be rented by the hour or day, and even tho all seemed strange and new compared to what he'd been used to, there was nothing in the goings on which could put a spark in his eye. Maybe it was that his heart was growing old, but anyway, and after getting acquainted some with the place, the pony sort of took things as they come without snorting out his opinions. He was fast getting past caring,--his main interest in life soon begin to be only for the manger of hay and the little grain that was fed him when the day's work was done. One day the stable man came and curried him, that was a new experience for the horse; never had a curry comb ever touched his hide before. Somehow he didn't mind it, and then come a time when the feel of that performance was looked forward to, it felt near as good as a good roll in the dirt. The currying, his feed of grain, a rest, and to be left alone, had got to be the remains of the mouse colored pony's ambitions.