By the end of the first day, the five horses and cowboys had brought down nearly two hundred cow/calf pairs out of the high valleys and moved them to lower ground, closing gates behind them so the cattle couldn’t turn and go back up. The horses were loaded in the trailer and driven back to the ranch. Once there, their saddles were removed and they were turned back into their pens without the benefit of a good brushing, the kind the colt had gotten used to getting whenever Henry or Jessie had finished working with him.

Two weeks later, and on the morning of what would turn out to be the final day of the round up, it was a very tired colt that stood in the pen when Tug came to get him. Tug had grown to not only like the young horse, but also to respect him as well. During one of the days of the round up, an old red cow decided she didn’t want to come down off the mountain, and was doing everything she could to avoid capture. She had sulled up on the way down the hill numerous times, refusing to walk or try to move forward, which slowed that particular day down considerably. After finally getting to the last gate that would bring the herd to the bottom pasture, the red cow suddenly turned and, taking six others with her, bolted back up the hill.

It was at the end of a very long day, and both horses and riders were pretty well spent. Still Tug did not want to come back to that particular pasture the next day to gather those seven head again. The boys still had five more high country pastures to clear, and if they had to come back to this one, it would put them at least a half-day, and maybe a whole day, behind schedule. He couldn’t afford to have that happen. He turned the colt and charged up the hill after them. He did not take the colt directly toward them, though, as that would have just caused them to run faster. Rather, he took the colt two hundred yards to the left of the little group and galloped past them, up a draw and out of their sight. The pair raced uphill for nearly a half-mile before popping out of the draw ahead of the cows. Tug slid the colt to a stop right in their path and turned the colt’s body sideways to them, creating a wall for them to look at.

After having repeated the job for several days already, the colt understood how things worked. The idea was to go up on the mountain, gather the cattle, bring them down and go home. Part of the job was not running back up the hill a second time to turn a group of escapees back, just so they could go back down the hill again. The colt was tired, sweaty, and now mad. He and Tug had taken the responsibility of keeping the old cow moving down the hill all day in the first place, and to have her turn and bolt like that was making things hard on everybody, and he wasn’t going to have it.