There was times when he felt like he wanted to split the breeze the same as he used to, but that feeling was mostly in his heart, and his old legs couldn't follow up. Them old legs had hit the ground too hard, too many times and jarred too many riders out of the saddle at the rodeos where he'd performed as a bucking horse. Then the first year of livery stable work where he was jammed around on the town's hard and rocky streets put the kibosh on him for fair. The old tendons had been called on to do too much. But neither the old gent nor the young lady that was riding him every day noticed the stiffness crawling up on the old horse. He still went, and he still seemed willing to go some more, and far as they could tell he was as good as any four year old. Both took care of him so well that no hint ever came to either of 'em that they was riding an old horse what had along ago earned freedom and a rest for what few years was still his to live. Every afternoon the girl came, her pockets loaded down with lumps of sugar, and refusing help, saddled Cloudy and headed him for a trail from where the scenery around could be seen and well. She'd pet him on the neck and run her fingers thru his mane, and talk while the pony, given plenty of time, would pick his way thru the rocks and brush. She'd let him rest often while in the steepest climbs, and sometimes would get out of the saddle so as to give him a better chance. At them times, she'd reach in the pocket of her white riding habit and get a few lumps of the sugar she'd brought for him. Cloudy hadn't been much for sugar when it was first introduced to him. He'd sniffed and snorted at the white lump, but the young lady had kept it under his nose till he finally nibbled at it. It didn't taste so bad, and he'd nibbled at it again, and some more, till came a time as the girl kept a feeding it to him right along he'd got to looking for it. He'd even stop sometimes, look back at her while she was on him, and make it mighty plain that he wanted another one of them white lumps, and when she was by him on the ground he kept a trying to stick his nose in her pockets and reaching for 'em. He knowed where she carried it. What a surprise it would of been for the cowboys who knowed Cloudy when he was The Cougar, the man killer, to've seen him in the act of bumming a young lady for sugar that way, and what a surprise it would of been for that same young lady to've learned that not so very long ago that horse would of took her hand and snapped it off at the wrist if that hand had ever come to within reaching distance.