In Cowboy Land 269 



in a horse as the most exacting could possibly 

 require. 



The definition of good behavior on the 

 frontier is even more elastic for a saddle- 

 horse than for a team. Last spring one of 

 the Three-Seven riders, a magnificent horse- 

 man, was killed on the round-up near Belfield, 

 his horse bucking and falling on him. "It 

 was accounted a plumb gentle horse too," said 

 my informant, "only it sometimes sulked and 

 acted a little mean when it was cinched up 

 behind." The unfortunate rider did not know 

 of this failing of the "plumb gentle horse," 

 and as soon as he was in the saddle it threw 

 itself over sideways with a great bound, and 

 he fell on his head, and never spoke again. 



Such accidents are too common in the wild 

 country to attract very much attention; the 

 men accept them with grirn quiet, as inevita- 

 ble in such lives as theirs lives that are harsh 

 and narrow in their toil and their pleasure 

 alike, and that are ever-bounded by an iron 

 horizon of hazard and hardship. During the 

 last year and a half three other men from the 

 ranches in my immediate neighborhood have 

 met-their deaths in the course of their work. 

 One, a trail boss of the O X, was drowned 

 while swimming his herd across a swollen 



