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Show 3*</ you his. " Sonny turned out to be a man about forty-five, groom and assisdtant manager, a short guy with a tall, broken nose and lots of broken teeth, who nevertheless had a great smile. And a cud in his cheek. I told him I had to have a western saddle. I told him about my past in Colorado (turned out he was from Clovis, New Mexico), and how I hadn't ridden a horse for years, and I just nad. to. Well, maybe, said Sonny, d just maybe I could rent you this second one I've got. It ain't fancy, it's sort of beat up, but . . . I'll take it, I'll take it! I shouted. "But you know, boy, Red ain't gonna let you put it on dany horse but one of them plugs. Not no western saddle, he ain't." So I told him everything, told him I would lose my girl and & everything if I didn't get the right saddle and the right horse, and he watched me closely and then grinned with eighteen broken^teeth, spit a healthy glop of tobacco juice and told me to follow him. He had his own horse there, hos pony he called it, and I lookeo at it and gasped. "Yeah," said Sonny, "ain't he a beauty?" "A pinto! For Christ's sake, a pinto! What's his name.'" "John Henry." "Ahah," I sighed, ready to mortgage my life to ride him. He was a pony all right, a cowhorse, a black and white stallion with a beautiful head, short coupled, tidy and compact. "I reckon n.e can use a little axpex exercise," said Sonny, a western boy in Chicago. "You want to saddle and bridle him? He's gentle for a stud. You can go right on in the stall with him." •Ulkti A»K» *i/oaW u~Jty, I went in and got acquainted first..rubbed him a little, combed him a little, curried him good. Even with his extra pelt for winter he was a vivid horse, CL hid wte&Zd white blaze and white around his nostrils, which were pink. But gentle or net, pink or not, there was lots of black horse in him too. I could feel « |
