Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan 



All sorts of simple farming imple- 

 ments and tools came for repairs, and 

 plowshares must be sharpened. And 

 sometimes a dozen horses waited to be 

 shod. The shoeing of a horse's foot 

 interests me deeply even yet. Only 

 last August at the H-F Bar I often 

 visited the busy little shop where 

 Smoke and Blaze and Splash and 

 Colonel and all that bronco generation 

 came needless to say very decidedly 

 against their own strong wills to 

 get the little plates they needed in 

 their summer scrambling on the Big 

 Horn trails. But I did not ask the 

 privilege of assisting at the ceremony 

 there, as I always did at "Uncle 

 Harl's." My share in his place was 

 switching the flies off three legs of a 

 horse while the fourth was in the far- 

 rier's apron having a hoof pared proper- 

 ly for the setting of the new and still 

 hot shoe. This fly-chaser was a de- 

 funct horse's tail tacked onto a handle. 

 To my mind it was a genuine treasure, 



[41] 



