It was just when Clint seemed to be riding his easiest when without warning Smoky "broke in two" and brought out some mighty wicked saddle-twisting, and cowboy-loosening jumps; crooked, high, and hard hitting was them jumps. It looked to the horse like his man was loosened at the sudden turning of events and had been shifted to one side a little,--and that's just what Smoky was looking for to carry on the program he'd mapped out. It was the first encouragement that pony'd got since he first felt a rope on him, maybe he could get it over that cowboy yet. He bucked all the harder from the new energy the signs of winning brought him. No chance did he give so that the cowboy would ever get back in the saddle and straight up, and every jump from then on was used as a kind of leverage against the rider,--he bucked in a circle and every time he'd hit the ground he was his whole length back from where he'd started up. The cowboy was well up on the fork of the saddle and still to one side. Smoky bucked on, and cool as a cucumber in a mountain stream, kept a watching and took care that he didn't buck back under him. He was holding his own, and looked for signs of the rider loosening some more, but no sign of that showed. The cowboy was still to one side and well up in the saddle, but he sure hung there, and with his left hand on the "Mecate" (hackamore rope) he kept his right up in the air and fanned on the same as ever. As the fight kept on and no show of the cowboy ever loosening up any more was seen, Smoky begin to wonder. He'd tried different tactics and with all his figgering and variety of side-winding he couldn't tear away from that hanging hunk of humanity. He was getting tired, his lungs begin to call for air and pretty soon he wasn't so cool no more. All that was in him, science and everything, was brought out on a few more earth shaking jumps, and when a glance back showed Smoky the rider was still setting there, he got desperate again and begin to see red. He bellered and at the same time forgot all he'd studied on in the ways of getting his man. [Illustration: When a glance back showed Smoky the rider was still there, he got desperate again and begin to see red.] The fight didn't last long after that, it was too furious and unscientific. Smoky fought the air, the earth, and everything in general,--nothing in perticular was his aim, and pretty soon he lined out in long easy crowhops and then a standstill. Clint climbed off as Smoky stood spraddle-legged and took in the air. The little horse never seemed to notice him and in a hazy way felt the rider's hand rubbing around his ears and straightening out his mane. "I knowed you'd give me a tossing to-day," says Clint. And there was one thing Smoky didn't know: it was that no time during the fight did the cowboy feel he was losing his saddle; a setting to one side the way he had been was just a long-staying holt of his, something like a half nelson with the wrastler.