THE COW-PONY'S END OF THE GAME 

 Until All Is Well at the Other End and It's 

 HOGTIED! HANDS AND HEADS UP 



The cow-horse is a specialist, he's a skilled laborer. When 

 cattle roamed the plains, they were generally disturbed only in 

 the spring gathering when calves were branded and then were 

 thrown back on summer ranges; and again in early fall when 

 they were rounded up, late calves branded and all "beef" "cut," 

 driven to nearest railroad station and shipped to market. In all 

 this work, no adjunct was more necessary to the cowboy than 

 the cow-horse. He, like his master, must serve his apprenticeship 

 on the plains; without him steers could not have been captured, 

 "cut," tied, branded, penned or shipped and there would have been 

 no cattle industry on a large scale. 



His feed was bunchgrass, his drink water, often poor and 

 alkali-spoiled and he frequently went twenty-four hour stretches 

 without a drop, yet standing up to fifty miles a day, often includ- 

 ing his work. 



But as has been seen the cow-pony's great use is as a "cut 

 hoss" and "rope hoss." When the rope over the imprisoned horns 

 tautens, he knows just the right angle to swing off at and the 

 exact moment to make the sudden halt to throw or "bust" the 

 dangerous steer. He knows, too, how to withstand the physical 

 shock, which sometimes will not only tear a cinch like a piece 

 of paper, literally wrench a saddle horn from the saddle tree, 

 but occasionally violently throws down the cow-pony sideways, 

 often to the injury and sometimes to the death of its rider. 



If the cowboy is alone or working separately, he must capture 

 the animal by his rope, then dismount and hogtie the thrown 

 steer before it can rise and charge him. It is at this stage of 

 the game that the supreme test of the cow-pony's work and in- 

 telligence comes — he here often actually holds his master's life 

 in his keeping. Alone now, the cow-pony watches the steer, re- 

 sponding to the slightest change in the unbound captive's position 

 made through its struggles to rise. If there is the slightest 

 slackening of the rope, the knowing cow-pony at once moves 

 so as to take it up and thus constantly maintains a taut rope. 

 This always keeps the steer head down and helpless, while the 

 cowboy securely ties his legs together. 



In this case of old "Spot," a well-known, beloved character at 

 Pendleton, and probably the best trained cow-pony in the coun- 

 try you see him well upholding the cow-pony's end of the game 

 while Buff Vernon hogties the steer. In the picture of "Hog- 

 tied ! heads and hands up" you see one of the cleverest cow- 

 pony veterans "Sunrise" signalling to the judges, along with his 

 master, that expert roper Dan Clark, General Livestock Mana- 

 ger of the O. W. R. & N. Little wonder that the cowboy grew 

 to love his faithful ally upon whom not only his vocation but 

 his very life frequently depended. 



