The time I smashed
my rib I was bucked off on a stone. The time I hurt the point of my
shoulder I was riding a big, sulky horse named Ben Butler, which went
over backwards with me. When we got up it still refused to go anywhere;
so, while I sat it, Sylvane Ferris and George Meyer got their ropes on
its neck and dragged it a few hundred yards, choking but stubborn, all
four feet firmly planted and plowing the ground. When they released
the ropes it lay down and wouldn't get up. The round-up had started; so
Sylvane gave me his horse, Baldy, which sometimes bucked but never
went over backwards, and he got on the now rearisen Ben Butler. To my
discomfiture Ben started quietly beside us, while Sylvane remarked,
"Why, there's nothing the matter with this horse; he's a plumb gentle
horse." Then Ben fell slightly behind and I heard Sylvane again, "That's
all right! Come along! Here, you! Go on, you! Hi, hi, fellows, help me
out! he's lying on me!" Sure enough, he was; and when we dragged Sylvane
from under him the first thing the rescued Sylvane did was to execute
a war-dance, spurs and all, on the iniquitous Ben. We could do nothing
with him that day; subsequently we got him so that we could ride him;
but he never became a nice saddle-horse.
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