Adventure Magazine, April 10, 1924 — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

152 They wouldn’t even send him to jail for thirty days, a week before a rodeo, except to be sure and have him sitting pretty, ready for the occasion. All were at pains to keep Tierail good-natured, lest he in a temper withdraw his name, Mr. Roland Hawthorn, from the large announcements of what was to take place—with no insurance as to what might actually happen on the dates specified. _ Garden Gate, the settlement built at the sweet spring in the great pass through which one looks out of the mountains down into the vast, wind-worn, water-gashed, sage-freckled plains of the Red Desert, was in an exuberant mood. Cattle loss, grazing down those strong-grass slopes and areas, had been well below ten per cent. for several years. All hands were growing wealthy. Many were rich beyond their own dreams. They had staggered under burdens, till this Autumn when they could cash in on fat beef. The desire to celebrate possessed the region long before the people realized what the emotion was. They had been carrying so much for so long that some thought they were still fighting on, when as a matter of fact, they had won through with the tri- umph of brave souls that never know when they are whipped, and to whom the thrill of victory is so rare, or unknown, that it comes unsuspected, unlooked for—as an exuberance of immeasurable joy. Some even regarded the delight of having won through, when it came, as a questionable heart-ache, something dubious, a hurt as it twisted through the unaccustomed play- ways of heart and soul. “8 OFF yonder, somewhere, was a és) horse whose fame reached Garden Gate. The reputation of Waltzing Jupiter spread across the Red Desert on account of his superlative wickedness. The year before Garden Gate discovered its wish to celebrate, Waltzing Jupiter was going to be carried, willynilly, to Rawlins to partic- ipate, and later to Cheyenne to edify in the big business of being happy and exer- cizing in that prairie metropolis. They started with Waltzing Jupiter from the Bird-Brand ranch. Five men brought him and nine other horses to the corral, and after some discussion it was decided to truck the bad horse down to the railroad, and ship him in a stall car with a passing rodeo outfit. They spent two days accus- Adventure toming Waltzing Jupiter to the big truck, and then dragged him to the deck with ropes. They started with him for the hun- dred-mile drive over the ranch-country trail. At intervals, when the animal became ner- vous, they stopped to quiet him, soothingly. Twenty miles from the railroad he jumped over the side bars, landed running like an antelope, and returned whence he started in something like eight hours flat. Waltzing Jupiter was bony at his best— long, lank, saw-range back and _ spur- knobbed over his hips. “An’ that hoss has so much nerve he naturally runs to ribs and hollow flanks!’ riders remarked of his appearance, which was full of anxiety and cussedness. He was yellow, with a rusty red tail and a red mane. A hue and shade difference would have made Waltzing Jupiter a Cali- fornia sorrel, beautiful to look upon, but despite the exuberance of his wonderful health, he was a sorry-looking horse at his liveliest, and his temper was mean and surly, full of treachery and ill-will—un- gentled and proud of it. The Bird-Brand boys determined to take their prize to Garden Gate, if they had to kill him to do it. They knew that the com- bination of this brute and Mr. Roland Haw- thorn, alias Tierail, would be wonderfully fine to see, merely as an exhibition. Know- ing both the horse and man, they wished those two scoundrel characters to meet. They performed a haying operation, on their way down to Garden Gate. They went out with jack-knives in the scrub and whittled off, with much back-breaking labor, several! arms full of a low, slightly gummy, rather pretty posy-bearing crop of fodder. The posies were some of them white, some pale violet, and some rather pinkish. The feed was compressed into burlap bags, and used to give additional packing around Waltzing Jupiter, who was hog-tied, this time, and loaded like a dead elk into the ranch truck. Waltzing Jupiter was indignant, but help- less. He was shaken loose from his fetters, and released into a pen, just within the Garden Gate fair-grounds. He was given water, imported alfalfa and other luxuries. In two days, on the date of the rodeo, he had come to be acclimated, localized and was just rearing to go. That morning, be- fore any one was around, Jim Fallsy, of the Bird-Brands, fed Waltzing Jupiter some of those pretty flowered reapings. That horse COMmiclboookkSs.G©