LET 'ER BUCK 



Over against the dull glow of the West from where 

 the half dust storm is now sweeping across Central 

 Oregon, filling the air with that peculiar mellow haze, 

 a denser cloud suddenly sweeps from the corrals as 

 twenty wild horses, never before saddled, sweep like 

 a tornado around the track. 



From in front of the grandstand, twenty bronzed 

 cowboys leave as many helpers each at his assigned 

 place, and sweep like a second tornado around to meet 

 this stampeding herd of unbroken "bunch grassers." 

 There is a clash. Some collide, a few go down. In 

 this fighting, plunging, rearing, kicking chaos some 

 rope their horses and eventually work them over to 

 their stations in front of the grandstand. Others dash 

 about the arena in mad pursuit. Off to the left is a 

 roped horse on one side of the fence, the roper on 

 the other; directly below you a dozen fight to wrangle 

 and saddle the horses already caught — and all are 

 caught eventually. 



There in that outfit, the saddling is all but accom- 

 plished. A rope breaks and regardless of surrounding 

 wranglers, riders and helpers, the escaping one dashes 

 madly through, knocking over a helper, thereby setting 

 free another horse. Here, a tenacious little brute 

 swings helper and rider into the heels of one of his 

 companions. There rider and helper fall in a grim 

 tussle with their horse, and for a moment it is hard to 

 distinguish which is which, in the pyrotechnics of 

 kicking, struggling legs, but one of the wranglers 

 catches the regulation chunk of ear in his mouth and 

 the animal is conquered. 



There a roped animal madly describes a circle, trip- 

 ping and catching men and saddles with the rope, but 

 no phase is too serious for the crowd to lose its humor. 



222 



