116 THE SURRENDER 



work wrong ; but he is a wall-flower, and takes no part in 

 the dancing. It is pretty rough sport. The pony may be 

 a running bucker, or may stand stock-still and pitch in 

 place at unexpected intervals ; he may buck over a bank ; 

 he may pitch a somerset forward ; he may rear and fall 

 over backward. The rider wants both to stick to his pony 

 and be ready to vault off in short measure if essential. He 

 uses all the legs nature has given him, stirrup or no stir- 

 rup, and lashes his pony at every rise with all his might. 

 The suaviter in modo is absolutely sunk in the fortiter in 

 re. When the pony rises the trick is to get away from the 

 cantle, and the heavy buster has a fashion when the pony 

 comes down of settling himself in his seat with a hard jolt 

 and a sort of an " Ugh !" a thing that helps fag out the 

 little fellow, which weighs barely four times as much as 

 the man, was tired before he began, and is now working 

 a dozen times as hard. One way or other the pony will 

 keep his resistance up for a certain length of time, accord- 

 ing to disposition ; but in a couple of hours he will be 

 ridden down. Unless he gets his rider into a snarl, and 

 thus earns a let-up, he will be so played out that he 

 will go along pretty quietly, with but slight attacks of 

 his bucking fever. He has found his master, and he 

 knows it. 



One more ride will be the final polish of his primary- 

 schooling. The kindergartening has been omitted. The 

 second ride will be a repetition of the first in a slightly 

 modified and less dangerous form. After this the pony is 

 considered " busted ;" but his grammar-schooling he gets 

 from the cowboy's use. He never reaches the high or 

 normal school, let alone the college; but he has a true 

 Yankee knack of educating himself, and the amount of 

 information and skill he will pick up of his o\vn accord at 

 cow-punching is wonderful. He is, of course, taught to 



