There's folks that's read some on how horses are broke on the range, and from that reading they get the idea that the cowboy breaks the horses' spirit, that it's the only way a wild horse can be tamed. What I've got to say on the subject if that's what's believed, is that either them folks read something that's mighty wrong, or else they got the wrong impression and misunderstood what they read, and breaking a horse the way he's broke on the range is about the same on the animal as schooling is to the human youngster. The spirit of the wild horse is the same after years of riding as it was before he ever felt a rope, and there's no human in the world wants to preserve that spirit in the horse like the cowboy does;--he's the one what knows better than anybody else that a horse with a broken spirit is no horse at all. To them that _only_ sees a wild horse roped and rode and don't know the insides of the game, horse breaking might seem a little rough; but I'm here to say that it's not near as rough as it is necessary, and in the long run it's the rider that gets treated the roughest. You let a wild horse get away with something once and he'll try it again till there will come a time when even if there's no meaness in him he'll develop some. That's what makes outlaws. Outlaws are made mostly when a horse proves too much for the man that handles him. A wild horse will turn outlaw often if handled by any other than them that knows his kind, and there'll be no way of breaking him only thru starvation and abuse. His spirit would be broken then too, and that proves that the cowboy, knowing his business, will see that the pony's heart is kept intact. There's a variety in horse minds as big as there is amongst human minds. Some need more persuading than others, and a few of 'em, no matter how firm they're handled will have to be showed again and again that they can't get away with this or with that,--they'll keep on a trying and if ever once they do put a bluff thru there's most generally enough meaness in their system to make 'em plum worthless. And like I was saying with Smoky, "he remembered how that rope had upset him that first day he was picketed to that log outside the corral, and he wasn't hankering to be 'busted' that way again."--That little horse had brains. If he was convinced a few times he had the sense to realize it, but at the same time, _he had_ to be showed, and more because it was part of his necessary eddication than because of any meaness of his. He was willing to learn but the teaching had to come from one who _could_ teach him. There was no meaness in Smoky, not an ounce of it, he was honest clear thru, but meaness would develop if a slip was made. He fought and bit and kicked but Smoky was a wild horse and he was going only according to his instinct and more to protect himself from the strange human.