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] 



