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ground. I grabbed the saddle horn with such a death grip that I was able to pull myself back on.
    I glanced furtively at the cowboys, thinking they might be laughing at me, but their sunburned faces were cast in bronze. The cows at that moment chose to slip off into some jack-pine thickets, and we were busy for the next half hour trying to get them back on the trail.

Chapter Three
    I HAD GOTTEN ALONG PRETTY WELL with Yellowstone and BK Heavy, considering that I was just a greenhorn or, in cowboy terms, a “button.” With more confidence than ability, I begged Ern Morgan to let me ride a huge bay horse named Sleepy. I didn’t realize that no one else wanted to ride Sleepy because the horse had a habit of groaning and grumbling as he walked, which got pretty old by the end of a long day.
    I might have suspected by the way Morgan’s lips puckered in a grin around his cigarette that the cowboys were in for some fun. I had no sooner hit the saddle than Sleepy groaned, grumbled, and ducked his head, bucking me off in one jump. I lit face-first in the dirt with my mouth wide open and came up spitting sand and whatever else was in the corral. The horse continued to groan and buck with big slow jumps.
    He looked so easy from the ground, I could have kicked myself for not hanging in there and riding. Along the fence I could see cowboys laughing at me. When Sleepy finally stopped at the end of the corral, I limped over to him and got on. My knees were shaking with pure fear, and my foot kept jumping back out of the stirrup. The old horse still had a hump in his back, but I eased him off and followed two cowboys out the gate, heading south toward the Wildhorse Meadow country to look for strays.
    It was an easy ride through open pine timber, and the cowboys kept at a walk. We had gone about four miles when Sleepy balked at crossing a small stream. I kicked him in the ribs, and suddenly the horse was bucking again and there was lots of daylight between me and the saddle.
    â€œLean back, kid! Lean back!” one of the cowboys called to me. I leaned back and finally caught the rhythm. After three jumps, Sleepy probably thought his luck had run out, for he settled down with a groan, trotted across the stream, and never tried to buck with me again.
    Something happens in a kid’s head when he manages to ride a bronc and not fall off. Down deep, I knew that old Sleepy was no world-beater, but what I learned was that I didn’t have to fall off on the first jump. The next time a horse bucked with me, I knew that I could at least try to hang in there and ride.
    With that one brief success in riding Sleepy, my mental attitude changed, as did my relationship with the other cowboys. The cowboy who hollered at me to lean back was Jack Morgan, the foreman’s brother. He had two gold teeth in front that flashed as he grinned, and his bronzed face was arrogantly handsome. Jack was a natural teacher, and when I managed to stay aboard Sleepy, he seemed to think I qualified for a little help.
    Suddenly, there he was riding alongside, showing me how to hold my reins and how to make my body flow with the horse. He even shook down his rope, made a loop, and showed me how to catch an imaginary calf, jerk my slack, and take my dallies, or turns, around the saddle horn. In those few hours of riding with Jack, I learned things I couldn’t have picked up in a year in the saddle.
    Jack advised me to think positive thoughts on a bucking horse and ride. “Gettin’ bucked off hurts,” he said, “an’ most times it’s a long way back to the home corral afoot.”
    Jack was riding a fine black colt named Spade, who was just making the transition from a braided rawhide hackamore around his nose to a spade bit in his mouth. In a little meadow, Jack put the black through his paces. The colt made long, sliding stops, and could set back on his hindquarters and spin on a dime.
    â€œYou ride with me, kid,” Jack