"Oh, I don't know," replied Larry, "you never can tell when some of these accomplishments will come in handy. I want Patches to be the best all-round saddle horse in these parts and a good cow pony as well."
"That is another story," said Hank Brodie, "it takes time to make a cow horse. A cow horse has got to know a lot, he has got to have horse sense. He has got to know a lot besides the cattle game; he must be able to ford rivers and keep out of quicksand, and if need be, to swim; he must keep his feet out of gopher and badger holes; he must know how to cut out cattle and how to head them back when he has got them out. He must be able to stand the strain of a lariat on a thousand pound steer when the steer is running at a gallop and he must also have sense enough to hold a lariat taut when a steer is thrown while the cow-puncher hog-ties him."
"Is there anything more?" inquired Larry in surprise. "That sounds like a liberal education."
"Oh, yes," returned his uncle, "there's all sorts of things and all sorts of difficulties coming up every day and your cow-pony must meet them with horse sense, some of it comes to him naturally but lots of it he has to learn."
After the hay on the home ranch had been cut and stacked there was a little lull in the ranch work and then it was that the cow-punchers, under the super-
