I managed to come to, first, though, and hung my rope on him before he could get started.
I don't know to this day where the old gray that I was after went.

Well, sir; he fought like a devil, and for a spell we had it around and around until I wasn't dead sure whether I had him or he had me.

But he was only a yearling then, you see, and I finally got him down." Phil paused, a peculiar expression on his face.

Patches waited silently.
"Do you know," said the cowboy, at last, hesitatingly, "I can't explain it--and I don't talk about it much, for it was the strangest thing that ever happened to me--but when I looked into that black stallion's eyes, and he looked me straight in the face, I never felt so sorry for anything in my life.

I was sort of ashamed like--like--well, like I'd been caught holding up a church, you know, or something like that.