The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
a little preliminary training every time they are mounted. These animals probably had their first touch of the saddle at the gentle hands of the "buster," who got four or five dollars a head for proving ocularly that such and such a horse could actually be mounted and ridden without death to either horse or man. Sometimes the event was not thus for either the horse or the man. Horses were at times killed in the process of "busting," and very often the "buster" himself was the victim. The most successful of these men, who came of the hardiest and most daring of the range riders, rarely lasted more than a few years in the business. Sometimes their lungs were torn loose by the violent jolting of the stiff-legged bounds of the wild beasts they rode, and many busters would spit blood after a few months at their calling. Injury in the saddle at some stage of this wild riding was almost a certainty, and falls were a matter of course. A broken leg or arm was a light calamity, accepted philosophically with the feeling that it might have been much worse. The life of the soldier engaged in actual war is far safer than that of the broncho buster. There is no wilder or more exciting scene than the first riding of one of these wild range horses. It is a battle of man against brute, and of a quality to make the heart of a novice stand still in terror. Yet upon the range this is one of the necessities, and those who engage in this business go about it methodically and steadily, probably with no thought that they are doing anything extraordinary, because they have never done anything else.
Between the more modern methods, such as one may see practised on Northern ranches to-day, and the methods of the earlier Southern ranches there is something of a distinction. On a Northern horse ranch, for instance, which sells sixty or eighty horses a year, the breaking is commonly done by a "contract buster." Perhaps thirty or forty horses are gathered in the big corral and are turned one by one into the small round corral, which has a snubbing post in the middle. Two or three men rope the horse by the fore feet and throw him, using the snubhing post if necessary. He is then quickly tied up and the "hackamore," which is provided with a blind already fastened to it, is put on his head. The blind is now slipped down over the horse's eyes, and he is allowed to stand up. The reins of the hackamore are led back, and the saddle is put on and cinched up. Sometimes the stirrups are tied together but usually not, the buster perhaps being too proud to take advantage of this aid to easy riding, though it would perhaps save him some fatigue or danger. The blind is now lifted a little and the horse is led out, the blind then being slipped down again. Now the buster comes to the horse and mounts him, the beast usually standing quietly and cowering in its supposed helpless blindness. Two other men, sometimes known in these days of modern ranching as "hazers," now mount and ride up with their quirts in hand ready to drive on the horse that is to be broken. When all is ready the buster leans forward from his seat, lifts the blind, and sets whip and spur to the horse, the assistants meantime yelling, waving their hats, and pounding with their quirts. The horse so beset is apt to be "bad" for a time, but is likely to start away from sheer fright, and as soon as he leads off the assistants leave him, and the buster "rides it out," perhaps making a run of two or three miles, and then gradually getting back to the corral again. Here the horse is again blinded, and his saddle and hackamore are taken off. He is then turned into a separate corral, as a horse that has been "ridden." Another horse is then prepared for the buster. The latter may ride five or six horses in a day, all of these operations of course being repeated until each animal has been reduced to what seems near enough to the Western idea of docility.
In the early days of ranching in the Southwest the main ideas of horse breaking were much the same as above described, but the methods employed varied in some particulars. As those were the earliest days, they are perhaps the most interesting, and offer the best field for the examination of this essential phase of ranch work.
Some of the early Southern busters were negroes, and very good breakers they made. Many were Mexicans, whose cruelty and roughness were practically certain to ruin the disposition of any horse, and who soon came into disrepute with American ranchers. Others were rough riders from the cowboy ranks, who had been riders from their youth and feared no horse that ever stood on earth. Many of them were graduated from the horse ranches where cow horses were bred and broken as a business. It is perhaps in such a school that our foreman Jim learned his splendid horsemanship, away back in the early days. In no calling known to man shall we find more of rugged, stern, and masterly quality demanded than was asked in this original school of the cowboy. In no scene of civilized life shall we find more vivid and animated interest and action than made common features about the home ranch at the time horse breaking was going on.
A horse ranch of average size would employ from six to ten men for the summer breaking season, and these would be busy from the middle of May till the end of summer. It took about a week to break a horse, and each breaker would usually handle two horses at the same time, riding them a part of the day each. After the first work was done, others might continue the handling of the horse through several weeks more, but about six days would usually fit a horse for the saddle so that a good rider could ride it; and none but good riders had any business about the cow country. For this sort of work the cowboys were usually paid about twenty to forty dollars a month, according to their value. Some Mexicans were employed, but they were not so much valued. Of course, there were always some of the young men about the ranch who were breaking their own saddle horses for themselves. Such horses were not run with the band, but usually kept up about the house. It was a notorious fact that one of the "pet horses" was sure to be about the worst case of the lot when it came to riding it, especially if it had been allowed to go late in life before it was ridden.
Any visitor to a cow ranch has seen the men at work among the horse herd, and has noticed how quickly a horse will stop as soon as it feels the rope touch it, even though it may perhaps not be caught by the noose at all. This submission to the magic of the rope is a cardinal principle in that horse's ideas of common sense. He bears deep within his mind the early lessons of his youth. The wildest broncho is very apt to cool down when he feels the iron grip of the rope. The first lesson of the rope he receives, as above mentioned, when a brawny cow puncher circles both his fore legs with a noose of this dreaded rope, throws him flat with a turn of the wrist, and hales him on his side through the dust away from his mother's side to the spot where the fiery iron is waiting. From that instant the colt hates man and all his doing. He hates the rope. He resolves that if ever he gets a fair chance he will break that rope into a thousand fragments. He is a couple of seasons older and bigger and stronger when he is at length driven into the round pen some fresh spring morning, so strong, he is sure, that he can rend any rope. He breaks into a run about the wall of the corral, but Jim, the lean and sinewy rider of the older cow horse, follows, about his head curling always that unpleasant snakelike thing the pony remembers and has hated from his babyhood. The rope comes at him with a wide curling sweep, and, in spite of his tossing and plunging, settles fair about his neck or fore feet. It tightens with a jerk. The old horse which Jim is riding stops in his stride and falls back, bracing his fore legs firmly. The young wild horse which was determined to break the rope finds himself upside down, the rope perhaps choking the life out of him. He has had lesson No. 2.
Jim, the cowpuncher and horse breaker, calmly waits till the young horse's eyes nearly start out of his head, and then signs to his assistants, who loosen the rope just in time to save the pony's life. The latter is furious at the indignity he has suffered, and as soon as he can breathe begins to plunge and kick and rear, throwing himself quite over in his struggles. Yet quietly he is pulled up, pulled down, pulled along, until he is ready for another lesson.
Upon the head of the horse now ready for breaking there is slipped a curious bitless bridle, or halter, of strands of rope, very strong and capable of being so arranged that too much pulling on it will close it fast upon a pony's nose and make the act of breathing difficult. This halter is called a "hackamore," and of course it was the invention of the Spaniard. The pony when put on the hackamore is staked out on the open ground on a long "stake rope." He is left alone for awhile here, and soon learns his next lesson. Resolved again in his heart to break this hated rope, he runs full speed to the end of it, and there comes to a halt with his heels high in the air and his neck perhaps doubled under him. If his neck happens to be broken it makes no difference, for there are other ponies just as good, plenty of them. If his neck is not broken, he gets up and does it over again, and perhaps again. Then he shakes his head and thinks it over. His next act will be to get himself tied up thoroughly in the coils of the rope, tripping himself, throwing himself,