A Horse Called Mogollon (Floating Outfit Book 3) by J.T. Edson Page A

ordered,
then went to collect her horse.
    ‘ We
made a good gather, Lon,’ Colin remarked after Jeanie, Dusty, and
the mesteneros had gone from sight.
    ‘ Why
sure,’ agreed the Kid. ‘Likely Dusty’ll take most of ’em for
our remuda. ’Less we lose too many gelding ’em, they ought to do for
us.’
    Only geldings were permitted in
a ranch ’s remuda. Stallions tended to fight and mares had the habit of
bunch-quitting when on heat, taking several susceptible males along
with them. So the mustangs captured that day would need to be
castrated before joining the others which had been rendered
acceptable for use by the OD Connected’s cowhands.
    ‘ We’ll
not lose many,’ Colin promised. ‘Felix’s better than any trained
veterinarian I’ve seen at gelding.’
    ‘ He’s
tolerable good,’ admitted the Kid. ‘Must’ve learned from the Nemenuh.’
    ‘ Isn’t
there anything you Comanches can’t do better than other people?’ Colin
inquired, knowing ‘Nemenuh’ meant ‘The People’ and was the Comanches’ name for their
tribe.
    ‘ Can’t
rightly think of it, even if there could be,’ the Kid declared and eyed his companion in
a speculative manner. ‘Did you-all have some special reason for
asking me to stay on here with you?’
    ‘ I need some advice.’
    ‘ Which’s anybody, near on, ’d tell you, you’ve come to the
best feller around to give it. What’s up?’
    ‘ I want to catch Mogollon.’
    If Colin expected the Kid to
show surprise, or any other emotion, he was to be disappointed. The
dark youngster nodded soberly and drawled, ‘I figure you’ve got a good reason
for wanting him.’
    ‘ Jeanie
would like to have him,’ Colin replied. ‘But there’s more to it
than that. The way I see it, Lon, mustanging as we’re doing it in
Texas right now can’t go on for too many years.’
    ‘ How’d
you make that out, amigo?’ asked the Kid. ‘There’re plenty of wild hosses
around.’
    ‘ That
there are, right now. But not for much longer. Not good horses,
anyway. You saw what happened today. After we’d caught the manada, we turned five of
them loose again.’
    ‘ They
weren’t worth keeping,’ the Kid pointed out.
    ‘ That’s
what I mean,’ Colin elaborated. ‘Ever since Texans and Mexicans
started catching mustangs, they’ve been turned the worthless
animals back on to the range. They’ve caught or killed the manaderos and the culls are
given chances to mate with mares that wouldn’t come with healthy
stallions around. So the culls pass their faults on to the foals.
The stock gets poorer. In twenty years, the mustangs will hardly be
worth the trouble of catching.’
    ‘ Maybe
not even in that long,’ the Kid said.
    Colin had expressed a sentiment which
Dusty, Mark and the Kid had discussed several times. All of them
knew enough about breeding and blood-lines to figure that the
continued removal of quality animals and return of culls must
eventually ruin the conformation, stamina and speed of the wild
horses roaming the range country. Under natural conditions, only
the hardiest, best-qualified stallions had the opportunity to stamp
their characteristics on the breed. With them gone, the mediocre
males could breed and lay their fault-filled mark upon the future
generations.
    ‘ I
don’t aim to wait until it happens,’ Colin continued. ‘It’s
something I’ve talked over with Libby and Jeanie. We’re going to
get some land, maybe around here, settle down and raise a fine
strain of horses. Mogollon strikes me as being a good start to
it.’
    ‘ He’ll
be that all right. Only ole Mogollon’s not going to be took
easy.’
    ‘ Do you
say it can’t be done?’
    ‘ You
know as well as I do that taking a manadero’s near on impossible.’
    ‘ You
did it with your Thunder horse,’ Colin said.
    ‘ He
wasn’t no manadero when pappy ’n’ me caught him,’ the Kid objected. ‘And he
was a whole heap younger’n Mogollon. From all I’ve heard, that