---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Lyman, Albert R.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 29
number: 3
published: 1926-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Lyman, Albert R., “Maneater,” *Improvement Era* 29, no. 3 (January 1926): 240–248."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2903unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2903unse
start_page: 240
end_page: 248
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1926-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2903unse
  publication_year: 1926
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1926, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Maneater

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MANEATER A Tale of the Range By Albert R. Lyman "One white foot, try 'im: Two white feet, buy 'im: Three white feet, deny 'im; Four white feet and a white nose. Take off his hide and feed 'im to the crows." In the roar of the stampede old Galagher howled something about "horses," and plunged out of camp. Like a flock of black-birds taking flight, the outfit quit its beef and hot biscuits and plunged headlong after him. All hands, the cook, the foreman, the horse- wrangler, the stranger within their gates: ropes, bridles, boots, spurs — they descended the hill like a tangle of wild men, Bob Reddington pawing the sand just three feet in the lead. Thus it happened that Bob had his pick of the horses, and he made straight for the great sorrel, just as a boy grabs the rosiest apple in the pan. Because Baldy wore hobbles, and because he was approached in a sharp bend in the river, he submitted in surprise to this precipitate capture. He surrendered to the strange master with his strange bridle, and stood till "Reddie" sprang upon his muscular back, indicating with long spurs the urgent need of haste. And then the sorrel horse simply "swallowed 'is head" and bawled, and began traveling staccato with violent emphasis on the down stroke. Reddington landed in a dry grease-wood, while the rest of the Texas outfit dashed away after the stampede. "Well by !" Bob gasped, looking up with admiration at the fine form, for Baldy showed more careful attention and good looks than any horse in the outfit. The fact was, he had no connection with the outfit, but belonged to the stranger, old Pete Tomson, who at that moment was "burning the earth" alongside of the steers on one of the outfit's raw- boned cayuses. Reddington caught the bald-faced horse again, and running his hand with admiring caress along the supple back, ventured to mount carefully, and suggested a mild start towards the vanishing cloud of dust. At the very moment he thought the misunderstanding all over, the sorrel beauty took another convulsion and "stacked" him unceremoniously on the grass. He tried it a third time with more care and identical results. As the herd came back, old Tomson met Bob leading the sorrel horse. "Why don't you ride?" asked the old man, stroking his white beard, and showing by a strange cockeyed look on his kind face that he knew perfectly why Bob walked. Reddy simply grinned. "Let's change," suggested old Peter, and dismounting, he struggled stiffly to the back of his own animal. "Bob looked to see something happen, and then to discover why it did not happen, but the handsome sorrel pranced along with arched neck, and Tomson rode at perfect ease. "What'll ye take for 'im?" Reddington demanded, almost refusing to believe his eyes, "I've got to have 'im — I'll let 'im stack every tenderfoot that comes to camp, an' have more fun than a circus." Old Peter stroked his beard in thoughtful hesitation, taking small

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MANEATER 241 account of how Bob raised his bids with extravagant bounds. "Oh, I couldn't part with old Baldy, no way," the old man insisted, "an' then look at 'is four white feet — 'is white nose, and that short jaw — 'ed kill ye." "But you get along with 'im," urged Reddy, eager as a boy begging for candy. "Aye, but I know 'im." "That's it; in a little while I'd know 'im, and be able to fool everybody. Come on, I'll give you two rattlin' good horses and forty dollars." Something in the offer seemed to sting old Peter, and he drew his brows together in a distressed frown. He stroked his whiskers in perplexity, but apparently he had urgent need of cash, and seemed to argue himself into favorable consideration. From contemplating Baldy's arched neck and grace- ful white feet, he turned that cockeyed twinkle squarely on Bob and demanded, "How do you treat horses?" "The looks of them bays '11 tell ye all about my treatment," affirmed Reddington, triumphantly, but failed to explain that as one of the regular "hands," he rode the horses of the outfit, leaving his' own to grow fat for such time as he might be fired, or for other causes should have to hunt new quarters. The smooth coats of the sturdy bays seemed to appeal favorably to the old man; giving the sorrel horse a long farewell hug, and purring low tones of endearment, he took his money and his new horses and disappeared in Comb Wash. Right here it is worthy of mention that, excepting Reddington's saddle, his wide hat, his six-shooter and the clothes he wore, he had given all he owned, including his wages to date, for the bald-faced horse. But oh, what a beauty of a horse! His new master sized him up with big satisfaction. What chest capacity! What powerful frame! He was taller and heavier and better in every way than Foreman, Galagher's topnotcher, and that was the best animal the outfit owned. But in his eager efforts to scrape acquaintance with and be "in on" the sorrel beauty's secret, Reddington made no progress at all. Baldy required no bidding from him to "stack" strangers, and threw everyone who reached his back, including Reddy himself. He couldn't ride his own horse, his only horse, for which he had given all his possessions in order to have a big laugh on the unsuspecting. And now he had brought down on himself the echoing smile of the camp. That laugh grew louder and more annoying every time he was "stacked," which was every time he rode Baldy. Sometimes the sorrel horse went half a day without making a crooked move, but he never carried himself proudly nor cheerfully, as with old Peter, and when it was least expected, often after a hard ride, he "swallered his head and left the earth" with an abruptness that assisted a man out of the saddle as a bullet is assisted through the barrel of a gun. As the weeks passed and Baldy found in the outfit no man at all resembling old Peter, he developed new vindictiveness every day. At first he was satisfied to pitch his master through the air, as a kitten is thrown heels- over-head from where it is found with its nose in a milk-pan, but now he contrived to kick or strike his offenders, either in transit or when he had arrived in a heap on the ground. The boys learned to line up in good view for the performance, feeling sure it was a better show every time. Even old Galagher couldn't refrain as he waited with expectant grin to see Reddy make good his boast to "ride the brute or kill 'im." One morning at Rincone cabins, Bob went writhing over Baldy's head, and reaching the earth on hands and knees found no time to rise, but traveled desperately on all fours through the open doorway to escape the teeth and hoofs of his short-jawed pursuer. When he slammed the old

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242 IMPROVEMENT ERA lumber door for safety, Baldy whirled and kicked it to splinters across the room. Two rods away lay Reddy's wide hat, and charging upon it with teeth and hoofs the sorrel horse left it in four pieces. The boys climbing on the corners of the cabin, or sitting at a safe distance in their saddles., howled themselves hoarse. "Maneater!" roared old Galagher, and the name stuck like glue. To the Texas outfit there was but one other thing in their little world quite as funny as Maneater, and that was Bob Reddington. Bob would have fled from this galling situation, but he had no horse on which to reach another camp. More important still, he wanted to redeem his standing with the outfit, and desperate resolution struggled in his troubled mind. If he could but find a ring-bit, he could prevent that "head swallering" movement and keep his place in the saddle. The line-up for the show came off no more till the arrival of the ring-bit, with which it was understood the fight was to be carried to death or victory. All hands waited. Maneater's beady eyes betrayed awful wrath as he stood shaking his head in torture, when Reddy seized the saddle- horn with his right hand, gripped the headstall with his left and swung to the saddle with all possible violence. "Now go it, ye stockin'-footed hyena," he exulted, ramming his long spurs in the back cinch, and holding Baldy's head erect with savage hand. The disappointment of the outfit was exactly to Bob's relish. Holding himself in readiness all forenoon, he caught Maneater three times trying to "start something," and each time he did terrible execution to that short jaw, and stained his spurs with fresh blood. Baldy's high- strung spirit had never been conquered by force, yet for six hours he had carried this savage creature on his back against his will; his anguish showed in the unnatural white of his eyes, and he called to the inventive powers of his horse-soul for means of escape. Without a moment's warning he rose on his hind feet, and threw him- self backward full length on the ground. By desperate effort Bob missed the descending horn of the saddle, but the cantle caught his leg under the sorrel horse's weight, leaving him powerless to rise. Springing up in triumph Maneater would have settled his steel-shod hoofs in his writhing master, but one of the boys dashed to the rescue wjth a heavy lariat. No one rode Baldy to camp; they led him. The foreman sent out a horse for Reddy in the evening, and he lay helpless on his blankets in the cabin the next three weeks. Part of this time Baldy rested, hiding with lowered head among the other horses when they were being roped in the corral, and feeling no doubt that he had found a new means of escape. Before the end of the three weeks, a Buck Summers drifted into camp, and hearing Bob's story agreed not only to ride the sorrel horse, but to cure him of his latest trick. Arming himself with heavy quirt and strong spurs, Buck reached the saddle without trouble. He held Baldy's white nose at a safe elevation with the Ring-bit, grinning his big teeth into view under a mop-rag mustache with perfect assurance of victory. When Baldy threw himself backward with all possible force, Buck feared neither the horn nor the cantle, but alighting with skilful purpose on Maneater's head, gripped his nose to prevent him from rising, and then beat him with that heavy, quirt till the sorrel head was a shapeless mass of cuts and bruises. When Buck mounted again the trick was repeated and the beating followed. After trying his trick the third time with the same result, Maneater stumbled meekly along under his new conqueror, too blind to know or care where he went. "He'll never try that stunt again," Buck declared, as he brought Baldy back, slow and dejected to the convalescent Bob. and he never did. ' When Buck mounted him next morning with that mop-rag grin, they went but

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MANEATER 243 half a mile before Baldy kicked Buck's foot as it rested in the right stirrup. "Hugh, ve think that's new to me?" grinned Summers, proudly assuming to know horses from A to Z. for the blow had landed with poor effect on the heavy heel of his boot, and caused no pain. Dismounting he cut a thick club from a Cottonwood, and carried it in his hand. When Maneater tried to kick again in less than ten minutes, the green club camie down with heavy thud on his white ankle, leaving him to travel for some distance on three feet, and to limp sadly the rest of the day. His ankle swelled to an awkward lump, and he never kicked at the stirrup again. Three days later, with the sorrel horse too lame to ride, and Reddy barely able to hobble to the corral and watch the fellows catch their horses, Summers stepped over the bars with a lariat, grinning his big teeth to sight under that clot of a mustache, yet with no thought of catching the sorrel horse. But Maneater had recovered his sight in one eye fairly well after the beating, and recognizing his deadly antagonist he dropped his ears back 'on his neck, rushed from the jam of cayuses around him, and caught Buck s shoulder in the firm grip of his short jaw. All his fury for revenge would have been satisfied to the limit in a few seconds, but the boys drove him off with clubs. As it was Summers had to go post haste to a hospital in Durango, and he never returned. Baldy still carried a swollen head, a milky film over one eye, and a lame hind foot, when Reddington recovered sufficiently to catch him without getting bitten or kicked. With Buck's terrible teachings, the sorrel horse carried Bob, seemingly resigned to the inevitable. But he never pranced nor took a proud step as with old Tompson, and somewhere beneath his des- perate eye, or in the brain centers represented by his short jaw, he mustered the bitter elements of his unbroken resolution. Six days he limped meekly forward under his despotic lord, unable to buck because of the ring-bit, fearing to fall backward for memory of the quirt, and refraining from assault for want of opportunity. Bob swore he would ride him every day to keep him in subjection. His painful pro- gress over the rough hillsides showed how nearly his hoofs were worn to the quick, but no one had courage or inclination to fit him with shoes, and no one wanted them on his dangerous feet. Once his powerful hind hoof had missed old Galagher's knee by a short inch, and all hands feared and hated him like a can of dynamite. On the seventh day of his continuous service, with every other man riding a fresh horse, Bob started with them on Maneater across Kigaly Point. The trail led zigzag at sharp angles down the steep mountain-side into Peavine Canyon, for the earth is too nearly on edge for its thick brush to grow upright, and a trail going straight down would of necessity be "slantin- dicular." The sorrel horse made the first mild elbows of the trail, apparently dejected enough, but like the professional gambler who holds his trump card calmly with lying face for the opportune moment, he was all alive and expectant within. At the most diabolical point on the whole dizzy altitude he whirled straight down from the narrow way, and took a break- neck header towards the distant bottom. It was hair-raising! How far he went would be hard to tell, and more hard to believe, but he alighted on his feet with Reddington still in the saddle, though frozen with terror. Gathering himself quickly among the sliding rock and tangle of brush, he left the earth again, neck or nothing, landing far down the mountain on a broken ledge, over which he rolled, crashing into a jungle of oak. Finding himself free below the oak, he picked his way to the foot of the hill and headed madly down the canyon. When the furious Reddy assembled himself from this chaos, he mounted a rock with poison resolution and emptied his revolver in Maneater's direc-

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244 IMPROVEMENT ERA tion with all possible accuracy, but the report of the gun died away in the solitude, and the flying figure disappeared in a grove of maple. After a long chase the boys brought Baldy back, and late in the afternoon Bob led him down over the hill to camp at the old Kigaly cabin, trying to focus all his insane wrath on some improved method of punishment. Three great spruce trees used to stand in front of the old cabin, in fact they may still be seen in decay along the hillside, and spanning the little stream where they have fallen. Between these giant pines the white-footed outlaw was made fast with three lariats, and then Reddington climbed up with an axe, and chopping off the huge limbs, let them fall with cruel force on the frantic horse. The desperate captive writhed and struggled, bawling out such imprecations of rage as his horse-instincts had given him, and pleasing Reddy immensely with every expression of pain. Though Maneater received some terrible bumps, especially on his withers which was never fully right again, he sustained no broken bones, and might have made fair recovery with civilized treatment. But his treatment grew worse. Tied by a strong rope to a tree he stood long hours with nothing to eat or drink. When he was moved it was but to starve and choke some- where else, till he became a walking skeleton. Too impoverished to register effective resistance, Bob could hold him with one hand and wrench the savage ring-bit in his jaws with supreme torture. Reddington rode him as far as he could go in a day, and tied him fast at night. He whipped him, he rammed the sharp rowels of his long spurs into Baldy's bony shoulders, and viewed the twin kidney-sores with exultant smile. He cursed Maneater to himself, and to everyone with patience to listen. Early in October Bob was fired; the show had lost its novelty. Tired of his riding a giveout horse, ashamed of his appearance, and sick of Man- eater's manners, old Galagher had reached the limit of his patience. With no further right to the horses of the outfit, and no money to buy a pony of his own, Reddy could go on Maneater or a-foot, and he waited there a week for Baldy to gather a little strength before starting. A week made small difference to the sorrel horse, pining his life away, but the outfit would tolerate him no longer in camp, and saddling up he started alone for North Elk. On the steep trail leading put of the Notch, the old horse staggered beneath him, and dismounting, Reddington tried to lead him by the reins, but Baldy dragged along so feebly, and seemed so near ready to drop, Bob hung the reins over the saddle-horn, leaving the horse to pick his own way up the hill while he followed. Once free. Maneater climbed too fast for his panting master, and when ordered in hard tones to stop, he broke into a weak trot, disappearing over the hill-top above. The furious Reddv climbed desperately, his mouth a fountain of wrathful threats, but with small hope of overtaking the run-away. At the top of the hill he took up the track with feverish strides, and if that track had stayed in the trail he might have been hunting it still. But the despon- dent fugitive turned off towards the rim of Dark Canyon and in a grove of oak he caught his reins on a crooked knot, compelling him to await his frenzied pursuer. "Oh, ye will, will ye?" hissed the perspiring Reddington as he came up, at the same moment stooping for a heavy stick at his feet. Baldy knew exactly what it meant, and before that stick could come down across his weary head, he lunged to the limit of his rein and reached Bob's hip with his front foot. Then focussing all his depleted strength in a quick turn, he would have finished the job with his heels, but Bob rolled and struggled beyond his reach, and lay raving and helpless against a tree. Snatching his six-shooter from his hip he aimed straight at Maneater's head, but he hesitated — he was far from help and off the trail — when he had killed the horse the next and only thing would be to kill himself. "No, by

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MANEATER 245 !" he groaned, lowering his gun, I'll put myself out of it, but you can hang right there and starve!" With trembling fingers he examined the old gun carefully to be sure that its word should be final, and cocking it he placed the cool muzzle against his hot temple. Quick footsteps caught his ear — the hoof-beats of a horse — a rider hurried towards him following the track he had made to the place. It was old Peter Tomson. Straight to Maneater he rode, looking neither right nor left, and the old sorrel uttered a low and long-drawn-out whinney of glad recognition, turning his poor scarified head as far around as the reins would permit. Peter dropped from his saddle and threw his stiff old arms around the lean neck, while Baldy still "nickered" in low, friendly tones, nestling his long bony head against Tomson's dusty denims shirt. "My poor Baldy!" moaned the old man, leaning his grizzled face against the tangled mane, "I'm ashamed of it — ashamed to the bone," and his voice sounded decidedly husky. He ran his stiff fingers over the scabs of vicious spur-thrusts in the shrunken shoulder, he noted the old wound on the withers, he discovered the lame foot, and every trace of abuse from ears to hoofs. Hardly deigning to see the prostrate Bob groaning loud for recog- nition he released the laragos and lifted the saddle and blankets with care; the great kidney-sores met his quick glance. He shook his head slowly and painfully and almost groaned. And all the time, the old man talked on in low and penitent tones as if his old friend could understand, and that friend rubbed his withered white nose against the old man's sleeve, breathing forth that pleading sound which horses often employ to beg for grain after it is brought in sight. "Well, sir — " blurted the old man, turning squarely on Reddie with that cockeyed twinkle in a firmness never to be misunderstood, "I've heard Baldy's solemn testimony, I'm ready for yours." "He struck me," Bob groaned, hoping his point would carry. "How many times have you struck him since last May?" old Peter demanded, but Reddington dropped his jaw and looked his wrath in silence. "I've heard all about it," Peter proceeded, "and Baldy's testimony confirms the worst I've heard, and more. I've come for this horse!" "Give me anything I can ride, and he's yours." "I'll give you the price, but never a horse of mine again." "What good'll the price do me? I want something to carry me away from here," and Reddington felt desperate enough to go on with his killing. "Look'e here, I struck the Texas outfit half an hour after you left, and found 'em in a bad way. They'd had a row and two men had quit. They want you back mighty bad — they sent a horse with me for you to ride, and they'll raise ye ten dollars a month. ; The horse is tied up with my outfit where you left the trail." Exultant that old Galagher needed him so soon, Bob determined to leave them in the lurch, but old Peter couldn't be moved. "You've got to go back," he insisted with emphasis, "ye couldn't ride Baldy any more even if I'd let ye, and I wouldn't let ye ride 'im againif ye could. I'll pay the cash, but I'm goin' to have 'im. Name yer price." "Would ten dollars be too much?" Reddington faltered, looking af the most wretched horse he could remember. "Ten dollars!" the old man snorted, "Huh!" he sniffed in disdain, and Bob was about to ask if five would be too much. "I'd never insult Baldy by any such beggar's valuation. I'll give ye forty dollars in gold. That's a small fraction of what he's worth, but I'll pay the rest to him in personal service." He took the saddle from his own sleek pony and adjusted it carefully on Maneater's back, putting Bob's saddle on his own pony. ' Then he took the bridle from Baldy's head and thrust the ring-bit in hot disgust towards

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246 ' IMPROVEMENT ERA Bob, while his cockeyed twinkle fairly sparkled with wrath. "I'd blush to be found dead with such an infernal thing as that!" he hissed, and un- buckling it from the headstall and the reins, he threw the bit far out over the rim of the canyon to be lost in the jungle of brush and trees below. "Now take off yer spurs," he commanded, no compromise in his tone, and when he had assisted the groaning Reddy to the pony's back, he led the way on his rescued Baldy back to the trail. And wouldn't it just beat the dickens? Maneater arched his lean old neck, and lifted his stocking feet with a pride never known since the Rincone stampede, while old Tompson sat up in the saddle contemplating him with joy and regret. He said little to Bob, though he enquired the origin of each scar, shaking his head in shame and disgust at every new detail. Bob blamed Buck Summers all he could, but he found it impossible to talk in any but hangdog tones, and didn't dare once to say how much it pained him to ride. ; With forty dollars in his pocket, Bob watched old Peter disappear over the hill, not riding Maneater, but allowing him to travel by his side in all the joy of a colt restored to its mother. As for the old man, he contemplated that scarified old sorrel horse seemingly too much absorbed to take account of anything else. When Reddy joined the Texas outfit again that evening, for he found himself too hungry and helpless to head for any place more distant, he had money in his pocket, he had no offending Maneater, he drew greater wages, held higher rank, and began to take a new view of life. Better still, he discovered, as the soreness went out of his hip, that the sorrel horse had been bombarding him with truths which old Peter had but rubbed in with telling effect in few words. Autumn and winter came and went, and spring found Bob still in the employ of the outfit and at perfect peace with every horse he rode. Early in July the foreman took all hands to Deer Flat to run down two of their best saddle horses which had been running there with a band of wild "boom- tails" since March. Early in the day they stationed themselves along the trail, and the chase began with excitement and hope. Each relay in its turn "burned the earth" in the dust of the flying mustangs, getting near enough to see the two renegades with heads and tails erect in the lead. The possi- bility of cutting them off, and roping them seemed ever too near to admit of any stop for dinner, and every man urged his horse to the utmost when the wild things came round. But the thundering hand succeeded twice before noon in getting away among the trees and rocks and taking a breathing spell before the outfit could adjust to the change and keep them in motion. Once the "boom-tails" evaded one relay of riders completely, leading another a horse-killing distance before it was relieved. At four in the afternoon, the chase resolved itself into a last chance; the capture had to be made in the upper end of the flat where the band was due to appear, and where it would try to make a mad rush for the cedars. If they reached the cedars again, the day was lost. It was the supreme moment — of that every man was sure, and equally sure that the brute beneath him was about on its last legs till after a night's rest. The men, scattered along two miles of sage-brush flat, toiled eagerly for the point where the thing was to happen, Bob and two others a good quarter in the lead. When the mustangs appeared from a ravine with reaching noses and flyir? t^ils. Reddv and his two associates spurred up to head them from the trees to a wide circle in the open. It was no use. The wild things drove straight ahead while the three men came to a panting stop on a little knoll. Behind them they saw the dust of Galagher and the boys laboring

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MANEATER 247 forward in vain, for the band was headed full tilt for the cedars a mile to the west. Then half a mile away a lone horseman appeared riding at furious clip towards the band as if he meant to head them — it must have been the foreman, but how he got there, and what he thought he could do alone, was a mystery. The three watched from the knoll, and the others came wearily up from behind to stop in exhaustion. The tenth one to arrive was Galagher himself, and the mist of the mystery grew thick before them. All ten watched with bated breath, their horses too near dead to go further. The .little speck caught up with the big dust and turned — then it turned again and seemed to divide. " You right sure it was a horseman?" demanded old Galagher. "Absolutely sure!" affirmed the three. "It must a been a mirage," scowled the foreman, trying to make out that disturbance in the distance. "It does beat !" Then they could make out that big dust, like a comet with a dark head, was moving into the cedars, and a doubtful cloud now and then indicated the direction it had taken. But an animated knot of something remained still out in the sage- brush after the dust had cleared away. That knot had in it a white spot — most of the boys could make out the spot clearly. Then they reached unanimous decision that the knot was approaching. "Well I'll be !" swore the foreman, as voice for the other nine. The dark speck grew to be a horseman — -or two horsemen — no, it was one hosreman leading two horses, a dark horse and a light horse. As he emerged from the mist of distance, the rider could be seen to have a white beard, and his horse a white face. It was Peter Tomson — -behind him he towed the two renegades on the ends of his lariat. And he rode — was it really? No mistake, it. was Maneater, sleek and fine, neatly shod and muscled like Samson. "Well by gum!" snorted old Galagher, again as voice for the outfit, running his fingers in his towseled hair as if afraid his eyes had deceived him, "How in did ye do it?" "How did I do it?" old Peter repeated in great calmness, and a cock- eyed twinkle of tremendous satisfaction, "First of all, I have here exactly the kind of a horse for which King Richard offered his whole blamed kingdom and any other little item which might be mentioned." Stroking his white beard with his stiff old hand, he contemplated the chestnut arch of Baldy's massive neck in great satisfaction. "I knew you wanted these ponies mighty bad, and when I saw by the tracks this morning that ye was hazin' 'em around, I went back to the ranch and changed horses. Guessed you fellers watched me rope 'em — you saw how I ran all over 'em and got 'em so badly hoodooed they just gave up till I took all I wanted out of the band and let 'em go." They gathered around the splendid sorrel horse with open mouths. Dim scars could be traced on his head, his withers, and his right hind foot, but his short jaw gripped a mild bit, and no spurs hung on the old man's heels. Expressions of surprise and admiration could be heard from every one. "It's Maneater, sure enough!" In that Texas outfit the big horse saw or heard something to arouse memories and feelings fixed deep in his powerful being: his upright ears dropped back on his glossy mane, the white of his fiery eyes became strangely visible, and ten men drew back with instincts of fear. But old Tomson purred something in an undertone, patting the plump shoulder, and Baldy resumed his wonted poise with soldier-like discipline. "Name yer price," sang out old Galagher in high spirits. "No use talking to me, affirmed the old man with lines of cockeyed firmness all over his wrinkled face, and facing them in indignant defiance;

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248 IMPROVEMENT ERA "when I struck you fellers at Rincone, I was in trouble and needed money, but no man's gold and no man's promise will part this horse from me again!" "Oh, I meant to ask," the foreman hastened to explain, "what do we owe you for bringing in these run-aways?" "Well, that's different," and old Peter had cooled perceptibly, "As to these ponies, I'm glad ye got 'em. All I want is for this outfit, and one man in particular, to take off his hat to a real horse." "Hurrah for sorrel Baldy!" yelled old Galagher, swinging his wide Stetson. "Whoo-hoopee!" howled ten voices with deafening emphasis, and while the sound floated far out over the dry sage-brush of Deer Flat, ten wide hats waved genuine admiration for the invincible Maneater. Miklovie Ranch, Blanding, Utah. The Crag I have watched the eagles soar aloft, I've watched the racing stream — ■ I see the clouds sail overhead, The shadow's dark, the sunlight's gleam. For many years, tall, gaunt, I've stood, Sustaining the stately pines — And in my sides geologists Have delved in search of mines. The mountain storms have swept me o'er, Deep snows have on me lain; The clouds hang 'round my rugged brow, I'm drenched with washing rain. 0 man, thou tiny creature frail, With thy short span of life; How futile thou compared with me, How vain thy world of strife! For centuries past I've watched the world, And will for more to come, 1 have lived and seen and scanned man's ways, How can he be so dumb? If these small minds could live and learn As much as I have known, They then would model new their lives And taste of peace unknown. They view the streams run from my sides, My snow-capped towers see — I vision all, their faults I know; Less blameless they than leaf or tree. Aye, man is but a puny thing, With all his earthly frills; O, that he were tender, wise and strong, As are the rugged hills! Boneta, Utah WARD EVANS