Horses Nine | Page 8

The off one's stiddy enough. It's this cantankerous
skewbald that started the tantrum. Whoa now, blame ye!" Calico's nose
was in the air again and he was snorting excitedly.
"Lemme hold him 'till old Ajax goes by," said the circus man.
"Thank ye. I'll swap him off fust chance I git, ef I don't fetch back
nuthin' but a boneyard skate," declared Uncle Enoch.
As Ajax lumbered by, the circus man eyed with interest the dancing
Calico. He noted with approval the coat of fantastic design, the springy
knees and the fine tail that rippled its white length almost to Calico's
heels.
"I'll do better'n that by you, mister," said he. "I've got a
fourteen-hundred pound Vermont Morgan, sound as a dollar, only eight
years old and ain't afraid o' nothin'. I'll swap him even for your
skewbald."
"Like to see him," said Uncle Enoch. "If he's half what ye say it's a

trade."
"Here he comes on the band-wagon team;" then, to the driver: "Hey,
Bill, pull up!"
In less than half an hour from the time Calico had bolted at sight of the
circus cavalcade he was part and parcel of it, and helping to pull one of
those mysterious sheeted wagons along in the wake of the terrifying
Ajax.
"The old party don't give you a very good send off," said the boss
hostler reflectively to Calico, "but I reckon you'll get used to Ajax and
the music-chariot before the season's over. Leastways, you're bound to
be an ornament to the grand entry."
Calico's life with the Grand Occidental began abruptly and vigorously.
The driver of the band-wagon knew his business. Even when half
asleep he could see loose traces. After Calico had heard the long lash
whistle about his ears a few times he concluded that it was best to do
his share of the pulling.
And what pulling it was! There were six horses of them, Calico being
one of the swings, but on an uphill grade that old chariot was the most
reluctant thing he had ever known. Uncle Enoch's stone-boat, which
Calico had once held to be merely a heart-breaking instrument of
torture, seemed light in retrospect. Often did he look reproachfully at
the monstrous combination of gilded wood and iron. Why need
band-wagons be made so exasperatingly heavy? The atrociously carved
Pans on the corners, with their scarred faces and broken pipes, were
cumbersome enough to make a load for one pair of horses, all by
themselves. Calico would think of them as he was straining up a long
hill. He could almost feel them pulling back on the traces in a sort of
wooden stubbornness. And when the team rattled the old chariot down
a rough grade how he hoped that two or three of the figures might be
jolted off. But in the morning, when the show lot was reached and the
travelling wraps taken off the wagons, there he would see the heavy
shouldered Pans all in their places as hideous and as permanent as ever.

It was a hard and bitter lesson which Calico learned, this matter of
keeping one's tugs tight. Uncle Enoch had spared the whip, but in the
heart of Broncho Bill, who drove the band-wagon, there was no
leniency. Ready and strong was his whip hand, and he knew how to
make the blood follow the lash. No effort did he waste on fat-padded
flanks when he was in earnest. He cut at the ears, where the skin is
tender. He could touch up the leaders as easily as he could the
wheel-horses, and when he aimed at the swings he never missed fire.
Travelling with a round top Calico found to be no sinecure. The Grand
Occidental, being a wagon show, moved wholly by road. The shortest
jump was fifteen miles, but often they did thirty between midnight and
morning; and thirty miles over country highways make no short jaunt
when you have a five-ton chariot behind you. The jump, however, was
only the beginning of the day's work. No sooner had you finished
breakfast than you were hooked in for the street parade, meaning from
two to four miles more.
You had a few hours for rest after that before the grand entry. Ah, that
grand entry! That was something to live for. No matter how bad the
roads or how hard the hills had been Calico forgot it all during those
ten delightful minutes when, with his heart beating time to the
rat-tat-tat of the snare drum, he swung prancingly around the yellow
arena.
It all began in the dressing-tent with a period of confusion in which
horses were crowded together as thick as they could stand, while the
riders dressed and mounted in frantic haste, for to be late meant to be