I
JO CALONE threw down his saddle on the dusty ground, turned his horses
loose, and went clanking into the ranchhouse.
"Nigh about chuck time?" he asked.
"Seventeen minutes," said the cook glancing at the Waterbury, with the
air of a train starter, though this show of precision had never yet been
justified by events.
"How's things on the Perico?" said Jo's pard.
"Hotter'n hinges," said Jo. "Cattle seem O.K.; lots of calves."
"I seen that bunch o' mustangs that waters at Antelope Springs; couple
o' colts along; one little dark one, a fair dandy; a born pacer. I run
them a mile or two, and he led the bunch, an' never broke his pace.
Cut loose, an' pushed them jest for fun, an' darned if I could make him
break."
"You didn't have no reefreshments along?" said Scarth, incredulously.
"That's all right, Scarth. You had to crawl on our last bet, an' you'll
get another chance soon as you're man enough."
"Chuck," shouted the cook, and the subject was dropped. Next day the
scene of the roundup was changed, and the mustangs were forgotten.
A year later the same corner of New Mexico was worked over by the
roundup, and again the mustang bunch was seen. The dark colt was now a
black yearling, with thin, clean legs and glossy flanks; and more than
one of the boys saw with his own eyes this oddity--the mustang was a
born pacer. Jo was along, and the idea now struck him that that colt
was worth having. To an Easterner this thought may not seem startling
or original, but in the West, where an unbroken horse is worth $5, and
where an ordinary saddlehorse is worth $15 or $20, the idea of a wild
mustang being desirable property does not occur to the average cowboy,
for mustangs are hard to catch, and when caught are merely wild animal
prisoners, perfectly useless and untamable to the last. Not a few of the
cattle-owners make a point of shooting all mustangs at sight, they are
not only useless cumberers of the feeding-grounds, but commonly lead
away domestic horses, which soon take to wild life and are thenceforth
lost.
Wild Jo Calone knew a 'bronk right down to subsoil.' "I never seen a
white that wasn't soft, nor a chestnut that wasn't nervous, nor a bay
that wasn't good if broke right, nor a black that wasn't hard as nails,
an' full of the old Harry. All a black bronk wants is claws to be wus'n
Daniel's hull outfit of lions."
Since, then, a mustang is worthless vermin, and a black mustang ten
times worse than worthless, Jo's pard "didn't see no sense in Jo's
wantin' to corral the yearling," as he now seemed intent on doing. But
Jo got no chance to try that year.
He was only a cow-puncher on $25 a month, and tied to hours. Like most
of the boys, he always looked forward to having a ranch and an outfit
of his own. His brand, the hogpen, of sinister suggestion, was already
registered at Santa Fe, but of horned stock it was borne by a single old
cow, so as to give him a legal right to put his brand on any maverick
(or unbranded animal) he might chance to find.
Yet each fall, when paid off, Jo could not resist the temptation to go
to town with the boys and have a good time 'while the stuff held out.'
So that his property consisted of little more than his saddle, his bed,
and his old cow. He kept on hoping to make a strike that would leave him
well fixed with a fair start, and when the thought came that the Black
Mustang was his mascot, he only needed a chance to 'make the try.'
The roundup circled down to the Canadian River, and back in the fall by
the Don Carlos Hills, and Jo saw no more of the Pacer, though he heard
of him from many quarters, for the colt, now a vigorous, young horse,
rising three, was beginning to be talked of.
Antelope Springs is in the middle of a great level plain. When the water
is high it spreads into a small lake with a belt of sedge around it;
when it is low there is a wide flat of black mud, glistening white with
alkali in places, and the spring a water-hole in the middle. It has no
flow or outlet and is fairly good water, the only drinking-place for
many miles.
This flat, or prairie as it would be called farther north, was the
favorite feeding-ground of the Black Stallion, but it was also the
pasture of many herds of range horses and cattle. Chiefly interested was
the 'L cross F' outfit. Foster, the manager and part owner, was a man of
enterprise. He believed it would pay to handle a better class of cattle
and horses on the range, and one of his ventures was ten half-blooded
mares, tall, clean-limbed, deer-eyed creatures that made the scrub
cow-ponies look like pitiful starvelings of some degenerate and quite
different species.
One of these was kept stabled for use, but the nine, after the weaning
of their colts, managed to get away and wandered off on the range.
A horse has a fine instinct for the road to the best feed, and the nine
mares drifted, of course, to the prairie of Antelope Springs, twenty
miles to the southward. And when, later that summer Foster went to round
them up, he found the nine indeed, but with them and guarding them with
an air of more than mere comradeship was a coal-black stallion, prancing
around and rounding up the bunch like an expert, his jet-black coat a
vivid contrast to the golden hides of his harem.
The mares were gentle, and would have been easily driven homeward
but for a new and unexpected thing. The Black Stallion became greatly
aroused. He seemed to inspire them too with his wildness, and flying
this way and that way drove the whole band at full gallop where he
would. Away they went, and the little cow-ponies that carried the men
were easily left behind.
This was maddening, and both men at last drew their guns and sought a
chance to drop that 'blasted stallion.' But no chance came that was not
9 to 1 of dropping one of the mares. A long day of manoeuvring made
no change. The Pacer, for it was he, kept his family together and
disappeared among the southern sand-hills. The cattlemen on their jaded
ponies set out for home with the poor satisfaction of vowing vengeance
for their failure on the superb cause of it.
One of the most aggravating parts of it was that one or two experiences
like this would surely make the mares as wild as the Mustang, and there
seemed to be no way of saving them from it.
Scientists differ on the power of beauty and prowess to attract female
admiration among the lower animals, but whether it is admiration or the
prowess itself, it is certain that a wild animal of uncommon gifts soon
wins a large following from the harems of his rivals. And the great
Black Horse, with his inky mane and tail and his green-lighted eyes,
ranged through all that region and added to his following from many
bands till not less than a score of mares were in his 'bunch.' Most were
merely humble cow-ponies turned out to range, but the nine great mares
were there, a striking group by themselves. According to all reports,
this bunch was always kept rounded up and guarded with such energy and
jealously that a mare, once in it, was a lost animal so far as man was
concerned, and the ranchmen realized soon that they had gotten on the
range a mustang that was doing them more harm than all other sources of
loss put together.