The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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his heels terribly on the harsh fibre of the rope. In this he is allowed to fellow his own sweet will, because he is not intended to be used on Broadway, and a little skin missing here or there constitutes no drawback for the purposes of the range. The pony cuts and bruises himself and falls down, and no doubt reviles and swears in Spanish, but it does no good, except that ever there grows in his mind a vast and vaster respect for this relentless thing, this rope which has him fast.
And then Jim comes along after a while, with a rope or blanket or something of the sort, and begins to whip it over the back of the pony, driving the latter half crazy with fright, for never has he had such a thing near him before. The pony cringes and plunges, but Jim lays a hard hand upon the hackamore and draws him into submission and into a personal contact resented with all the soul of the fiery little creature thus robbed of his loved liberty. A second man comes up on the other side of the pony and lays hands upon him. In a twinkling a red kerchief is slipped across his face and tied fast to the side strands of the hackamore. Smitten with blindness, the pony cowers and is motionless and dumb. The end of the world for him has come, for never in all his wild life did he ere this fail to see the light of day or the half light of night, which served him full as well. Surely, thinks the pony, all now is over, and the end has come. He shrinks and does not resist the hand laid upon his muzzle, the other hand laid upon his ear, the twist given to his head, the whipping of the blanket over and on his back, touching him where never any object has touched before. But with a jerk he may perhaps throw off the blinder of the handkerchief and begin instinctively the wild stiff-legged bucking of his breed. "He's shore bronch'," says Jim. "You'll have to hold his head closter." Then the hackamore tightens again, and the hands lay hold of the ears and the trembling muzzle again, and — and then, before the frightened and frenzied pony has had time to dread or suspect anything further, there comes a rattle and a creak, and there falls with an awful thud and crash upon his back a vast thing the like of which he had never dreamed for himself, though he has seen it upon the tamed slaves which aided in his own undoing. The saddle has been thrown upon him. Unless closely blindfolded, he promptly bucks it off again, wildly kicking into the bargain, his head tossed high with terror and hatred, his legs straining back from the iron hands that hold him.
But the iron hands do not relax. They hold like the hands of fate. The saddle is bucked off time and again, a dozen times, but it comes back again with the thud and crash, and someway it does not actually kill, after all. The pony stops to think about it. Jim, who has been waiting for this moment of thought, cautiously reaches under the pony with a long crooked stick to the girth that hangs upon the farther side. Slowly and quietly he pulls this girth to him, talking to the pony the while. Slowly and quietly he puts the end of the girth through the iron ring or buckle. Then, quietly, slowly, Jim gets out to the end of the "cinch" as far as he can, because he knows what is going to happen. Commonly the girth of the breaking saddle has a big buckle with a tongue which will quickly engage in the holes punched through the girth. Taking the cinch strap firmly in his hands, Jim gives a sudden jerk backward and upward, and the pony feels an awful grip of something tightened about his body where never such a thing had been felt before. At once, wild and demonlike in his rage and terror at such indignities, he falls wildly to bucking again; but now Jim is close up at his side, pulling the harder at the cinch, which does not slip but holds its own. The men at the pony's head swing down and twist his head askew. The hackamore tightens, the saddle holds. Tighter and tighter the girth goes, and at length the trembling beast feels he must endure this also. Panting and red-eyed, courageous and full of fight still, he braces his feet apart and stands so, trembling with anger and shame. And Jim quietly pokes another stick under and gets hold of another girth, the hind cinch (" flank girth," it is called in the South), and soon the pony feels upon his stomach the grip of this hairy, hateful thing, which all his life he never ceases to resent, because it cuts off his lung room and makes him feel uncomfortable with its sinking into the soft part of a pony's anatomy, which ought to be respected even by a cowpuncher, but isn't. The pony rebels again and viciously at this flank girth, but it does no good. The great saddle stays with him.
And now Jim, with his eyes gleaming a little and his jaws set hard together, slips up to the side of the panting pony, who stands with his head down, his legs apart, his eyes bloodshot, flinging his head from side to side now and again in a wild effort to break away and win back that freedom for which his heart is sobbing. Jim puts a cautious foot against the stirrup. The pony whirls away and glares at him. He realizes now what is the purpose of these enemies. Jim speaks in low and soothing tones to him, but calls him perhaps by some such name as, "You d — d black devil, you hol' on a minute, kain't ye? Whoa, bronch'!" Again and again Jim seeks a place with his left foot. He has now gathered up into a coil the long stake rope, and this he holds in his left hand or ties with a half turn at the saddle horn. He knows there may be a severance of the personal relations of himself and the pony, and if so the rope will be needed to reestablish them. At last Jim makes a swift run, a bound and a spring all in one. Before the pony knows how it has happened he feels upon his back a horrible crushing weight. He feels his side half crushed in by the grip of a long pair of human legs. He feels his head "turned loose." He hears a long keen yell from a dozen throats about him, answered by a similar shrill yell, not of fear but of confidence, above him from this creature which is crushing down his back, breaking in his sides. All the hate, the terror, the rage, the fear, the viciousness, the courage of this undaunted wild beast now become blended into a mad, unreasoning rage. He has fought the wolves, this pony, and is afraid of nothing. He will unseat this demon above him, he will kill him as he did the wolves; he will trample him into the dirt of the plains. Down goes the pony's head and into the air he goes in a wild, serio-comic series of spectacular stiff-legged antics. His nose between his knees, he bounds from the ground with all four feet, and comes down again with all legs Bet and braced, only to go into the air again and again. He "pitches a-plungin'" — that is, jumping forward as he bucks, perhaps going six hundred yards before he stops for lack of wind. Or he may stand his ground and pitch. He may go up and down, fore and aft, in turn, or he may pitch first on one side and then the other, letting his shoulders alternately jerk up and droop down almost to the ground — a very nasty sort of thing to sit through. He may spring clear up into the air and come down headed in the direction opposite to that he originally occupied, or he may "pitch fence cornered," or in a zigzag line as he goes on, bounding like a great ball from corner to corner of his rail-fence course of flight. The face of Jim may grow a little pale, his hand that pulls upon the hacka-more may tremble a bit, and the arm that lashes the pony with the quirt may be a little weary, but still his legs hold their place, and his body, apparently loose and swaying easily from the waist up, keeps upright above the saddle. Jim knows this must be ridden out.
The pony soon exhausts himself with his rage. His breath comes short. He stops. The legs of the rider relax a trifle, but the eye does not. With a renewal of the wild screams or "bawling" with which he has punctuated his previous bucking performance the pony springs forward again at speed. He stops short with head down, expecting to throw the rider forward from the saddle. The rider remains seated, perhaps jarred and hurt, but still in the saddle. Then the pony rears up on his hind feet. The cowpuncher steps off with one foot, keenly watching to see whether the broncho is going over backward or going to "come down in front," and go on with his performance again. If he goes on, the rider is in the saddle as soon as the horse's feet are on the ground. If the pony throws himself over backward, as very likely he will, the rider does not get caught — at least, not always caught — but slips from the saddle, jerking up the pony's head sharply from the ground. He quickly puts his foot on the horn of the saddle, and there is the wild horse flat on the ground and absolutely helpless, trussed up by the bridle and held down by the foot at the saddle horn. If the horse could get his head to the ground he would have a leverage, and could break away and get up, but Jim is careful that he shall not get his head down. Meantime he "quirts him a-plenty." He does not talk soothingly now. He wants this pony to know that it is better to keep his feet on the ground than to acquire the habit of travelling on his back or on his hind feet. At last Jim lets the pony up, and, much to the surprise of the latter, the rider is someway again in the saddle.
Now the pony stands quiet, stubborn, with his head down, grunting at the stroke of the long rowelled spurs which strike his sides. At once he bounds forward again wildly, repeating his former devices at accomplishing the undoing of the rider, whom he now begins to fear and dread as well as hate. The latter is immovable