That no undue advantage should be taken, Lovell kept tally of
every horse cut out, and once each foreman had taken his number,
he was waved out of the herd. I did the selecting of my own, and
with the assistance of one man, was constantly waiting my turn.
With all the help he could use, Tolleston was over half an hour
making his selections, and took the only blind horse in the
entire herd. He was a showy animal, a dapple gray, fully fifteen
hands high, bred in north Texas, and belonged to one of the whole
remudas bought in Dodge. At the time of his purchase, neither
Lovell nor Flood detected anything wrong, and no one could see
anything in the eyeball which would indicate he was moon-eyed.
Yet any horseman need only notice him closely to be satisfied of
his defect, as he was constantly shying from other horses and
objects and smelled everything which came within his reach. There
were probably half a dozen present who knew of his blindness, but
not a word was said until all the extras were chosen and the
culling out of the overplus of the various remudas began. It
started in snickers, and before the cutting back was over
developed into peals of laughter, as man after man learned that
the dapple gray in Tolleston's remuda was blind.

Among the very last to become acquainted with the fact was the
trail foreman himself. After watching the horse long enough to
see his mistake, Tolleston culled the gray back and rode into the
herd to claim another. But the drover promptly summoned his
foreman out, and, as they met, Lovell said to his trail boss,
"Arch, you're no better than anybody else. I bought that gray and
paid my good money for him. No doubt but the man who sold him has
laughed about it often since, and if ever we meet, I'll take my