THE HOME RANCH 



33 



a rope " ; and he is taught this by being violently snubbed up, probably 

 turnino^ a somersault, the first two or three times that he feels the noose 

 settle round his neck, and makes a mad rush for liberty. The snubbing- 

 post is the usual adjunct in teaching such a lesson ; but a skillful man can 

 do without any help and throw a horse clean over by holding the rope tight 

 against the left haunch, at the same time leaning so far back, with the legs 

 straight in front, that the heels dig deep into the ground when the strain 

 comes, and the horse, running out with the slack of the rope, is brought 

 up standing, or even turned head over heels by the shock. Cowboys are 

 probably the only working-men in the world who invariably wear gloves, 

 buckskin gauntlets being preferred, as otherwise the ropes would soon take 

 every particle of skin off their hands. 



A bronco-buster has to work by such violent methods in consequence 

 of the short amount of time at his command. Horses are cheap, each out- 

 fit has a great many, and the wages for breaking an animal are but five 

 or ten dollars. Three rides, of an hour or two each, on as many consecu- 

 tive days, are the outside number a bronco-buster deems necessary before 

 turning an animal over as " broken." The average bronco-buster, how- 

 ever, handles horses so very rudely that we prefer, aside from motives of 

 economy, to break our own ; and this is always possible, if we take enough 

 time. The best and quietest horses on the ranch are far from being 

 those broken by the best riders ; on the contrary, they are those that have 

 been handled most gently, although firmly, and that have had the greatest 

 number of days devoted to their education. 



Some horses, of course, are almost incurably vicious, and must be con- 

 quered by main force. One pleasing brute on my ranch will at times rush 

 at a man open-mouthed like a wolf, and this is a regular trick of the 

 range-stallions. In a great many — indeed, in most — localities there are 

 wild horses to be found, which, although invariably of domestic descent, 

 being either themselves runaways from some ranch or Indian outfit, or 

 else claiming such for their sires and dams, yet are quite as wild as the 

 antelope on whose domain they have intruded. Ranchmen run in these 

 wild horses whenever possible, and they are but little more difficult to 

 break than the so-called "tame" animals. But the wild stallions are, 

 whenever possible, shot ; both because of their propensity for driving off 

 the ranch mares, and because their incurable viciousness makes them 

 always unsafe companions for other horses still more than for men. A 

 wild stallion fears no beast except the grizzly, and will not always flinch 

 from an encounter with it ; yet it is a curious fact that a jack will almost 

 always kill one in a fair fight. The particulars of a fight of this sort were 



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