Free Some More Horse Tradin' by Ben K. Green Page B

giveninstructions to take the money for the rest of the payment on the horses. I got down off my horse and counted it out to him standing on the porch. He asked if I would come in and have a bit to eat, but I told him that I had brought a little grub with me rolled up in a sack behind the saddle, and that I’d go on back and get ready to drive my horses to town.
    He said, “Oh, that’ll be fine,” but you could tell he was a little amused. “Did you bring anyone to help you?”
    I said, “I guess there’s nobody here at the ranch to help me to the road with these mares.” I didn’t really answer his questions, but it sounded to him like I was alone.
    â€œI suppose there should be,” he said, “but all the boys left early this morning.”
    As I stepped on my horse and turned him back down toward the corrals, I noticed a cowboy’s shadow on the window of the bunkhouse—but I didn’t turn to look. I just rode on. The corrals were between the main headquarters and the public road and off to one side from the regular road maybe half a mile. As I rode up, I saw about half of the mares wearing a little rope tied around their necks right at the throat latch—up close behind their ears and just under their jaws—just as close as a throat latch would fit if it were coming off a bridle. These little ropes were drawn up tight, not enough to choke, but there was a fold of skin drawn up under the rope—no slack and no air at all between the rope and the mare’s neck, not even room to pass your finger.
    My distinguished friend was catching these mares—they were gentle to catch—and putting these little ropes on them with a slip knot that had a little knot tied under it. He explained to me that these little ropes were just exactly as tight as a horse could breathe at a walk, but when the horse started to run and had to expand her nostrils and windpipe, then these ropes would choke. And while the mare was choked, she couldn’t run. She would gasp for breath and stagger. This would make it possible for us to ride aroundthese mares and herd them back in a bunch to drive to the road.
    I had never heard of this trick, but it made sense. He explained to me that it was an old trick that he had learned in Mexico, and that for once the Shield mares were not going to scatter like a covey of quail when they hit the greasewood, mesquite, and cactus. When these mares tried to run, the extra breath they needed would cause them to choke down. We would have no difficulty driving them to the road.
    He said that when we got them to the road that he could give them relief. This didn’t make sense to me—this relief—but all the rest of his plan sounded foolproof, even though I had never seen it tried or heard of it before. Anyway they showed very little fright when he would rope them or walk up and catch them. At the last there were three or four that we had to crowd in behind a gate—push against the fence and turn the gate back against them—in order to reach through the cracks of the fence and tie the little rope on them.
    When we had the last rope on the twenty-eighth mare, he had two ropes left over. He said he didn’t know why he needed an extra, but that it had always been his custom to have an extra rope or two at anything he might undertake in handling horses, which would make sense in anybody’s language. He led his horse into the corral, drove the mares up close to the gate, and told me to open the gate and ride out in front of them—in the hope that they would follow my horse if they didn’t choose to run. Well, I opened the gate and held my horse up to just a modest trot, and he waved his hands and spoke to the mares. As they came out at the gate, there was a little flat in front of the corrals—oh, maybe a quarter to a half mile long—and it was in this little flat that you could drive them a little piece. It was