There was little place in the rodeo for weak,
incompetent or untrustworthy men. Each owner, from his long experience
and knowledge of men, sent as his representatives the most skillful and
conscientious riders that he could secure. To make a top hand at a rodeo
a man needed to be, in the truest sense, a man.
Before daylight, the horse wrangler had driven in the saddle band, and
the men, with nose bags fashioned from grain sacks, were out in the
corral to give the hard-working animals their feed of barley. The gray
quiet of the early dawn was rudely broken by the sounds of the crowding,
jostling, kicking, squealing band, mingled with the merry voices of the
men, with now and then a shout of anger or warning as the cowboys moved
here and there among their restless four-footed companions; and always,
like a deep undertone, came the sound of trampling, iron-shod hoofs.
Before the sky had changed to crimson and gold the call sounded from the
ranch house, "Come and get it!" and laughing and joking in friendly
rivalry, the boys rushed to breakfast. It was no dainty meal of toast
and light cereals that these hardy ones demanded.
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