Free Hook 'Em Snotty by Gary Paulsen Page A

Bobbie’s mouth went up but she didn’t say anything.
    “Gramps said I should come out and see if you need any help.”
    Bobbie chewed the inside of her lip. “If you’re coming with me, you better get ready. I’m leaving in a half hour. I already fed your horse. He’s the strawberry roan in the pen. Saddles are in the tack shed.”
    Bobbie moved past her cousin and grabbed a tarp off a peg on the wall. She took it outside and wrapped it in her bedroll.
    In a few minutes Alex returned, leading the roan. Bobbie frowned. The horse’s back was still bare. “I told you the saddles are in the tack shed—over there.”
    “All I could find were Western saddles. I’m used to riding English.”
    “You mean those itty-bitty things with hardly any leather on ’em and no saddle horn?”
    Alex nodded.
    “Look, Al, we’re not going on an Easter egg hunt. We’re looking for stray cattle. Some of them are mean and all of them are wild. You’ll be spending whole days in the saddle. Maybe you should tell Grandpa you want to stay here until I get back. It’ll only be a week.”
    “You wish.” Alex turned and led the roan toward the tack shed again. “Don’t worry about me, hotshot. If you can handle it, so can I.”
    Bobbie tightened the cinch on Sonny, the big sorrel gelding that was her favorite roping horse. “Looks like we’re in for it, old boy.” She fastened the saddlebags and headed for the house.
    In the yard, she stopped to give Wolf a pat.He really was part wolf. Bobbie had raised him from a pup and he adored her.
    She walked into the house. The screen door slammed behind her. “That you, Bobbie?” Her grandpa came in from the kitchen. “You kids about ready?”
    “She’s a flake, Grandpa. And besides, she rides English.”
    “Give her a chance, Bobbie. Look, if they took you to Los Angeles and turned you loose, you wouldn’t have a clue. How smart you are depends on what part of the world you happen to be standing on at the time.”
    The screen door opened. Alex poked her head in. “I’m ready, Wyatt.”
    “Wyatt?”
    “You know. As in—you make me
urpp
.” Alex winked at their grandfather.
    Bobbie’s face turned red. She thought about dragging Alex outside and settling their feud right then. But one look at Grandpa told her it wouldn’t be a wise move. Instead she said, “I guess we’re ready, then.”
    Grandpa followed them out to the horses. Bobbie whistled for Wolf, checked her cinch,and swung into the saddle. “See you in a week, Grandpa …”
    She looked over at Alex, who was riding the roan in circles, bobbing up and down in the saddle, English style.
    Bobbie sighed. “… if not before.”

C HAPTER 3
    The girls rode in silence up a sandy canyon bed for a couple of miles; then Bobbie turned onto a narrow trail to the right. Cattle had climbed the embankment for years and hollowed out a path up the steep canyon wall.
    Wolf stayed close. Sometimes they couldn’t see him, but he was always within easy calling range.
    The path soon became more rugged. Bobbie ducked under a piñon limb that had grown over the trail. It hit Alex full in the face and dragged her off the back of the horse. Shelanded in the only mud puddle in the whole trail.
    The frightened old roan jumped forward a few steps and then stopped, waiting patiently for Alex to get up.
    Bobbie turned in the saddle. “Are you okay?”
    Alex had a red welt across her cheek. She glared at her cousin. “You did that on purpose.” Shaking, she slung some of the mud off her hands, wiped the rest on her pants, and grabbed the reins.
    A cow was bawling somewhere down the canyon. Without a word Bobbie sank her spurs into Sonny and loped toward the cliff. The horse lunged off the ledge and landed back in the bottom of a sandy gully with Wolf right on his heels.
    Bobbie quickly spotted the cow behind a salt cedar. She was a big cow with a two-month-old heifer calf. Bobbie shook out her rope into a good-sized loop, gave it a couple