But their infant minds did not carry back to the days when
they had not felt a horse under them. To be sure, in the beginning it
was only a humble donkey, but even before they knew they had graduated
to ponies, and while yet ten years old, it was only by a constant watch
that they were kept off unbroken broncos--horses that made the toughest
vaqueros throw down their hats, tighten their belts, and grin with fear.
From over the hills came the half-wild cattle, stringing along at a
trot, all bearing for the open space in the waste of the chaparral where
the _rodeo_ occurred, while behind them followed the cowboys--gay desert
figures with brown, pinched faces, long hair, and shouting wild cries.
The exhilaration of the fine morning, the tramp of the thousands, got
into the curls of the three little Misses Golden-hairs, and they
scurried away, while I followed to feast on this fresh vision, where
absolutely ideal little maids shouted Spanish at murderous-looking
Mexican cow-punchers done up in bright scrapes and costumed out of all
reason. As the vaqueros dashed about hither and thither to keep their
herds moving in the appointed direction, the infants screamed in their
childish treble and spurred madly too. A bull stands at bay, but a child
dashes at him, while he turns and flees. It is not their first _rodeo,_
one can see, but I should wish they were with mamma and the buckboard,
instead of out here in the brush, charging wild bulls, though in truth
this never were written.
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