which smelled of Pa and snorted, and didn't seem to want Pa to get
on, but they held the horse by the bridle, and Pa finally got
himself on both sides of the horse, and took the lariat rope off
the pommel of the saddle and began to handle it, kind of awkward,
like a boy with a clothesline. I didn't like the way the cowboys
winked around among themselves and guyed pa, and I told Pa about
it, and tried to get him to give it up, but he said, "When I get
my steer tied, and stand with my foot on his neck, these winking
cowboys will take off their hats to me all right. I am Long Horn
Ike, from the Brazos, and you watch my smoke."

Well, the boys tightened up the cinch on pa's saddle, and pointed
out a rangy black steer in a bunch down on the flat, and told pa
the game was to cut that steer out of the bunch and rope it, and
tie it, and hold up his right hand for the time keeper to record
it. Gee, but Pa spurred the horse and rode into that bunch of
cattle like a whirlwind, and I was proud of him, and he cut out
the black steer all right, and rode up near it, and swung his lariat,
and sent it whizzing through the air, and the noose went out
over the head and neck and fore feet of the steer, and the
horse stopped and set itself back on its haunches, and the
rope got around the belly of the steer, and when the rope became
taut, and the steer ought to have been turned bottom-side
up, the cinch of pa's saddle broke, the saddle came off with pa
hugging his legs around it, and the black steer started due west
for Texas, galloping and bellowing, and you couldn't see Pa and
the saddle for the dust they made following the steer. If Pa had
let go of the saddle, he would have stopped, but he hung to it,
and the rope was tied to the saddle. The buckskin horse, relieved
of the saddle, looked around at the cowboys as much as to say,