His chance came as the chestnut whirled to plant a hard one on the buckskin's ribs, there was only a few feet between Smoky and the stud right then and double action started from there. The stud felt hard hitting hoofs and teeth a getting him from both sides and the punishment he received all at once wouldn't of been worse if he'd a lit in a stack of wild cats. It was then that it come to his mind, and sudden, that he should let up on the fighting and start to do some running if he wanted to keep hisself all in one piece. Smoky and the buckskin kept a pounding on him and a helping along on the good hunch till finally it was all made mighty plain. The chestnut picked himself up as best and quick as he could and made a leap out of reach of the too many wicked hoofs and teeth, and tore up the earth for a change of scenery, the two pardners done their best to escort him on his way. But as that day came to an end and as the sun passed over and beyond the blue ridges Smoky and his pardner could see a lone horse outlined against the sky, the chestnut was following. He followed 'em and the bunch they'd chased him out of for three days, and once he started a fight to win back what he'd lost, he just lost more hide and won nothing but another boost out of that territory.--Smoky and the big buckskin had handed him the same medicine another stud had handed them. The days that followed was mighty peaceful to the big buckskin, and Smoky seemed some contented too, he was gradually getting used to being away from his mother and new young fillies and colts he was running with made it all a heap easier to forget. Then again, the knocks he'd got ever since that day when things had been so peaceful with his mammy, when he just figgered he'd have to start something to bust up the monotony of that peace, all took the mischief out of him. The fight with the black stallion, the lonesome ramblings with the buckskin, and the other fights with the chestnut stud all helped eddicate him and shape him into a full sized, serious thinking gelding. It didn't take so much to keep him contented no more, and somehow or another he was seeing a heap more in life. That's the way things stood with Smoky that summer, him and the buckskin ranged high up in the mountains with the little bunch of mares and colts, they all snoozed and grazed thru the days and done the same thru the nights. A little play was brought on once in a while by some of the young colts and Smoky and the buckskin was always the steady victims of them. Them two older horses was colts themselves at them times and the way they'd all nip one another and then sashay around hell bent for election, a human would wonder at the care Smoky and the buckskin was taking so that the colts would feel winners in all they'd start.