To say that Sundown was proud of his unaccustomed regalia from the crown of his lofty Stetson to the soles of his high-heeled riding-boots, would be putting it mildly. To say that he was especially useful in his new calling as vaquero would not be to put it so mildly. Under the more or less profane tutelage of his companions, he learned to throw a rope after a fashion, taking the laughing sallies of his comrades good-naturedly. He persevered. He was forever stealing upon some maternal and unsuspicious cow and launching his rope at her with a wild shout--possibly as an anticipatory expression of fear in case his rope should fall true. More than once he had been yanked bodily from the saddle and had arisen to find himself minus rope, cow, and pony, for no self-respecting cow-horse could watch Sundown's unprecedented evolutions and not depart thitherward, feeling ashamed and grieved to think that he had ever lived to be a horse. And Sundown, despite his length of limb, seemed unbreakable. "He's the most durable rider on the range," remarked Hi Wingle, incident to one of his late assistant's meteoric departures from the saddle. "He wears good." One morning as Sundown was jogging along, engaged chiefly in watching his shadow bob up and down across the wavering bunch-grass, he saw that which appeared to be the back of a cow just over a rise. He walked his horse to the rise and for some fantastic reason decided to rope the cow. He swung his rope. It fell true--in fact, too true, for it encircled the animal's neck and looped tight just where the neck joins the shoulders. He took a turn of the rope around the saddle horn. At last he had mastered the knack of the thing! Why, it was as easy as rolling pie-crust! He was about to wonder what he was going to do next, when the cow--which happened to be a large and active steer--humped itself and departed for realms unknown. With the perversity of inanimate objects the rope flipped in a loop around Sundown's foot. The horse bucked, just once, and Sundown was launched on a new and promising career. The ground shot beneath him. He clutched wildly at the bunch-grass, secured some, and took it along with him. Chance, who always accompanied Sundown, raced alongside, enjoying the novelty of the thing. He barked and then shot ahead, nipping at the steer's heels, and this did not add to his master's prospects of ultimate survival. Sundown shouted for help when he could, which was not often. Startled prairie-dogs disappeared in their holes as the mad trio shot past. The steer, becoming warmed up to his work, paid little attention to direction and much to speed. That a band of sheep were grazing ahead made no difference to the charging steer. He plunged into the band. Sundown dimly saw a sea of sheep surge around him and break in storm-tossed waves of wool on either side. He heard some one shout. Then he fainted.