Читать книгу Cinchfoot - Thomas C. Hinkle - Страница 7

WHILE Clem and all the cowboys stood around the corral looking in at Cinchfoot, Clem was doing some thinking. After a time he said to Sam Blades, “Sam, I want you fellers to brand him today and be as good to him as you can. I’m awful set on that little horse and I got plans for him. I’m going to brand him and keep him a stallion and I don’t want him to see me or smell me so he can associate me with the branding. You fellers go ahead and get that done quick and then we’ll let him alone for a week in a corral all by himself. We’ll set feed and water in for him and let him alone.”

Clem went away and a few minutes later Clem’s brand was on Cinchfoot and he was up and tearing around in the corral; and it seemed by the way he looked up at the top poles, he wanted to jump clear over. The brand did not hurt him much. It was more the scare than anything else. It had been done so quickly, and Cinchfoot was so excited, trying to fight, he didn’t notice that part of it very much. He felt a little stinging but that was all.

The week went by and the most that Cinchfoot saw of the men was when Clem set water in the corral and plenty of oats. Toward the end of the week Cinchfoot was ready and waiting for the water and oats to be set inside. He had never tasted anything as sweet and good as oats. He would eat all Clem gave him and toward the end of the week when Clem brought the things to him he acted once as if he might come right up and get them, but he stood back and snorted when Clem tried to talk to him.

At the end of the week Clem came out one morning with the cowboys and he was ready to give Cinchfoot a little training. Clem’s eyes shone like the eyes of a boy who is glad because he has something fine that he’s proud of. He said, “Just look at him, fellers. Now ain’t he a beauty! Did you ever see a colt that could beat him? He’s horse and all horse and one that’s got plenty of fight, too. Look at his mane and tail, not much of a mane and not much of a tail yet, but both of ’em are silver and he’s already plumb beautiful. And look at the rest of him! Black as a crow. His kind don’t come often. Now look at him run and snort!” Clem’s eyes showed how pleased he was with his catch. He opened the gate carefully and with his rope dangling from his hand he came inside the corral and shut the gate. Cinchfoot tore around in a small circle a few times and stopped. He stopped and snorted at Clem who was slowly approaching him. Blaze Face, in a nearby corral, got excited too. He jumped about and snorted, but he had been tied in there with a rope a few feet long so he couldn’t tear around too much, and he was careful not to run hard against the rope that held him. Cinchfoot didn’t know as yet all that a rope could do. It was about time he should learn, though. And that’s what Clem had in mind now as he walked toward Cinchfoot slowly and quietly. By this time Sam Blades and Charley Steel had come inside and shut the gate behind them. Most of the other cowboys perched themselves on top of the corral.

Up to this time Cinchfoot had not been given a name by any of the cowboys. But he was to be given a name this morning, not only one name in fact, but two of them. The first was given to him by Clem Brown. And Clem gave him this name in the most natural way in the world. The yearling colt, as has been said, was coal black. He had shed his winter coat and there he stood as black as a horse could possibly be, except his silvery mane and tail, which already showed how beautiful both would grow to be in time to come. As Clem walked slowly up to the snorting colt he called out soothingly, “What’s wrong, Blackie? You ain’t afraid of poor old Clem, are you?” Although Clem Brown was a young man he had a ridiculous way of speaking of himself as “old” to the horses generally. “Come on, Blackie,” Clem went on, “I don’t aim to hurt you none, only enough to make you a good little horse. How are you this morning?” And then it happened. Clem made a quick motion of his arm and his loop shot out to settle over the head of Cinchfoot. It was the first time he was to know the full power of a rope. It was true he had felt some kind of brief restraint when they had branded him with Clem’s brand, but he had been let loose so quickly at the time he didn’t find out much about what a rope could do. In fact he had been the most scared when he felt the hands of men on him. There was nothing, as yet, to tell him what a rope could do if he should run against it while it was around his neck. Clem was glad on this morning that the branding of Cinchfoot had already been done for he had in mind to try to make up to the colt when he was once down. Clem knew horses and he knew the things that horses, especially the best ones, like. And he believed Cinchfoot was the kind that, once he understood, would prove to be one of the best.

When the rope settled over his head, Cinchfoot made a quick jump back, then he rushed forward and shot past Clem on the dead run. But Clem was ready. He made a quick half hitch around a post of the corral and when Cinchfoot hit the end of the rope he hit it hard and he went down hard, too. The breath was almost knocked out of him but he was going to try to get loose. He was down only a second, then he jumped up and once more shot out, and once more he hit the end of the rope and went down. This time he stayed down, but not long. Again he jumped up but he did not run, just stood and looked at Clem and snorted at him louder than ever. Clem took the half hitch off the corral post and again he walked slowly toward Cinchfoot and talked quietly to him, saying, “You’re smarter than most of ’em. You learn quick. Now, don’t get scared, little feller. I’ll give you some nice brown sugar by and by. You are a real little horse. They don’t come any finer than you, but I don’t expect you appreciate such compliments just now!”

Cinchfoot crowded close to the side of the corral and when Clem got too close he leaped away but stopped before he felt the rope tighten. Already he had learned this part of his lesson. He was still going to get away if he could, but he had learned he must try some way other than running against a rope.

Sam Blades and Charley Steel now watched their chance and in another minute Cinchfoot felt their ropes on his hind legs. He tried to get free, but Charley and Sam had him by all four legs and he was tied down. The thing had been carefully done, and Cinchfoot found, after he was quiet for a few seconds, that he wasn’t being hurt. And by the way one man acted now it didn’t seem as if things were so bad. This man was Clem Brown.

Clem got down on the ground by Cinchfoot, close to his head, and began talking soothingly to him. At the same time he did a thing unusual among cowboys. Clem took a small cloth sack from his shirt pocket, a sack that held dark brown sugar. He poured some of the sugar in his hand and held it toward Cinchfoot and said some words that were remembered that day and always afterward, “Sugar, Blackie! It’s good. Eat it!” The other cowboys were not surprised at Clem doing this. Ever since they had known him Clem had done this with his favorite horses. He carried the small sack of brown sugar most of the time. And Clem, now and then, had had a horse that would learn to like the sugar so well he would follow him like a dog, nickering for it. But Clem knew there was no chance of Cinchfoot getting interested in the sugar at this time. He only wanted to make a beginning of showing Cinchfoot that he would have good treatment. When the sugar was held too close Cinchfoot snorted. But Clem was patient. Now and then he got his hand on Cinchfoot’s neck and scratched him a little. This went on for some time and Cinchfoot began to have a queer feeling. He began to feel that this human wasn’t so much to be feared. And when the brown sugar was held pretty close a few more times, Cinchfoot was not so badly scared but that he could smell it. But that was all. The smell was as near as Cinchfoot would go at this time. Clem kept on talking to him and getting him to see that at least these human hands that were now rubbing him wouldn’t hurt, and saying now and then as he pushed the sugar up close to him, “Sugar, Blackie. It’s good. Eat it! Sugar!”

Then Clem got up quiet and easy and said, “Sam, bring in that light saddle!” This was done and the next thing Cinchfoot knew he had that thing cinched on him and he was on his feet with a long rope on his neck. He went into the air so fast that he brought a yell of joy from the cowboys on top of the corral. It looked as if Cinchfoot were saying in their language, “So! You want to see what I’ll do with this contraption, do you? Well, I’ll show you what I’ll do! I’ll buck it into the next county—that’s exactly what I’ll do!” Clem grinned happily. He said, “He’s going to make an awful fine stallion and by the way he bucks now I don’t reckon any feller will be able to set up in the middle of him, except me!”

After some time of the wildest leaping and bucking, Cinchfoot did an unusual thing, the thing that gave him the name we have been calling him. He flopped down on the ground on his side, put his head down on the ground also, and began to try with all his might to get his hind hoof against the cinch of the saddle and paw it off! For a second the cowboys did not know what was going on but after a few attempts by Cinchfoot they could see. Of course he could not reach the saddle cinch with his hoof, yet he certainly tried hard to do so. But being a horse, and coupled up the way he was, he could do nothing more than try to reach the cinch with a hind foot. Up he jumped, again and again he leaped around the corral making the cowboys there run out of his way, and this time he seemed to buck harder than ever. He paid no attention to Clem or anyone else who was in his way. He seemed to feel he needed all that corral to himself, and the cowboys got out of his way in a hurry and let him have it. He stopped with a final snort and probably would have gone at it again, but he was taken in hand now with the ropes and the saddle was removed.

Cinchfoot looked at all the cowboys as they watched him. He looked and snorted and raised his head and tail and pranced around. Then he looked into the other corral at Blaze Face, and snorted as if to say, “What kind of a party is this, anyhow? Them putting such a rig on me and thinking I’ll do nothing—I won’t have it!”

It was now that the name of Cinchfoot was first given to him. It was Sam Blades who said, “He’s a kind of a little Cinchfooter, him being determined to paw the saddle cinch off with his hind foot!” From this, the name Cinchfooter was shortened to Cinchfoot.

Clem looked at Cinchfoot and said, “He’s the kind of little horse that’ll foller me around like a dog when I get him to eating brown sugar from my hand.”

“Which he won’t do,” said Sam, “on account of old Blaze Face has got him plumb educated his way already.”

During the bucking of Cinchfoot, and even when he was tied down, Blaze Face had stood in his corral, tied up as he was, but showing as much interest in what was being done to Cinchfoot as Cinchfoot himself. Blaze Face had kept up a loud, wild snorting and jumping around—about all he could do. Once Blaze Face whirled about and taking a good look at the cowboys perched up on top of the corral, he let out a blast from his nostrils that showed how he felt about this business. It was as if he said, “The idea! A lot of you two-legged persons jumping onto a little feller like him! Why, him and me hates even to look at such as you!”

Clem grinned and said, “Blaze Face is saying to Cinchfoot, ‘Don’t you mind them too much, little feller. One of these times you and me’ll get plumb loose from all of ’em and we’ll hightail it for new country permanent!’ ”

Clem looked at Blaze Face then, grinned, and said, “All right, fellers, saddle up Blaze Face. I aim to ride him. Saddle him up and give us plenty of room on account he’s plumb unsocial at such times.”

All of the cowboys, except Charley and Sam, stayed on top of the corral. Pretty soon Charley and Sam, Sam carrying the saddle, went into the corral where Blaze Face was. He took one look at the saddle and before they got up to him he began to buck and pitch. Sam grinned and said, “He’s feeling so plumb obstinate that this time maybe he’ll throw Clem. It would be awful nice if he would!”