Saddled and bridled he stood dozing while the crowd hooted with derision.
"Don't make no mistake!" shouted Haney; "he's the meanest critter on the upper fork." A young lad named Jimmy Kincaid first tackled the job, and as he ran alongside and tried the cinch, the roan dropped an ear back--the ear toward Jimmy, and the knowing ones giggled with glee.

"He's wakin'up! Look out, Jim!" The lad gathered the reins in his left hand, seized the pommel with his right, and then the roan disclosed his true nature.

He was an old rebel.
He did not waste his energies on common means.

He plunged at once into the most complicated, furious, and effective bucking he could devise, almost without moving out of his tracks--and when the boy, stunned and bleeding at the nose, sprawled in the dust, the roan moved away a few steps and dozed, panting and tense, apparently neither angry nor frightened.
One of the Reynolds gang tried him next and "stayed with him" till he threw himself.

When he arose the rider failed to secure his stirrups and was thrown after having sat the beast superbly.