Page:Patches (1928).pdf/49

 country catching fuzzy tails. We built a big trap around a water-hole and Tom and me hid in a pit nearby to watch it. We watched for two nights and nothing came along. Then a big bunch of fuzzy tails went into our trap and we sprung the trigger. One of them was a black stallion, the finest wild hoss I ever saw. He ran around the enclosure for a minute or two, then going to one side of it, he took two quick jumps and then a big spring and went over the top slick as a sliver. I jumped on my hoss and put after him but he was out of sight in two shakes of a lamb's tail, making about fourteen feet at a stride. When I measured that fence, it was nine feet high."

"Well," said Larry, "I guess that beats the world's record for high jumping, but you must remember that those horses jumped with a man on their back while this horse was riderless."

"That's true," said Pony.

"How are your Eastern saddles rigged?" inquired Big Bill. "Are they single shot or double shot?"

Larry looked inquiringly at his uncle. "He means, are they rigged with one cinch or two."

"That's still dark to me," said Larry. "I don't even know what a cinch is."

"That isn't strange," said his uncle, "here we say cinches, but in the East we say saddle girt."

"Oh," said Larry, "We have one girt."