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Updated: June 24, 2025
And so, not unlike one who had come to the conclusion that it was indeed a farewell, he waved his hand resignedly in the direction that the stage had taken and, calling to his vaquero, he gave his horse a thrust of the long rowel of his spur and galloped off towards the foothills of the Sierras.
Struggle as he might against the feeling, a terror of this motionless human at his side grew upon him; a blind, unreasoning, primitive terror. But one impulse possessed him: to be away, to escape the outburst he instinctively knew was but delayed. In an abandon he leaned far forward over his saddle, the rowel of his spur dug viciously into his horse's flank.
It was often ornamented with little bells or oblongs of metal, the tinkling of which appealed to the childlike nature of the Plains rider. Their use was to lock the rowel. His bridle for, since the cowboy and his mount are inseparable, we may as well speak of his horse's dress also was noticeable for its tremendously heavy and cruel curbed bit, known as the "Spanish bit."
Luckily the owner of the horse was Red Earnest, a friend of mine, and feeling that they would not have long to wait for explanations, I shook out the reins and gave him the rowel. I knew the country, and soon left the river road, taking an air-line course for Las Palomas, which I reached within two hours after nightfall.
He made mental reservations about the word friend, but did not care to express them. His somber eyes watched the big man jerk the spade bit cruelly and rowel the bronco when it went into the air. It was a pleasure to West to torture an animal when no human was handy, though he preferred women and even men as victims.
A sharp rowel had picked through the skin, and, though it was probably only a slight wound indeed, it had brought a smear of red to the surface. Ronicky Doone trembled with anger. "Confound you!" he said furiously. "Any fool would have known that you didn't need a spur on that hoss! What part d'you come from where they teach you to kill a hoss when you ride it? Can you tell me that?"
But the contemplations of the youth were not long permitted to run on in the gladness of his newly-found liberty. On a sudden, the action of his companion became animated: he drew up his steed for an instant, then applying the rowel, exclaimed in a deep but suppressed tone "We are pursued ride, now for your life, Mr. Colleton; it is three miles to the river, and our horses will serve us well.
We rode from Puebla to Orizaba. Amozoque, the first town on the road, is a famous place for spurs, and we bought some. They are of blue steel inlaid with strips of silver, and the rowel is a sort of cogged wheel, from an inch and a half to three inches in diameter. Monstrous as the spurs now used are, they are small in comparison with those of a century or two ago.
They were both admirably mounted, and seemed little to regard, in their manner of using them, the value of the good beasts which they bestrode driving them as they did, resolutely over fallen trees and jutting rocks, their sides already dashed with foam, and the flanks bloody with the repeated application of the rowel.
Take of aloes 7 drachms, calomel 1 drachm, ginger 4 drachms, and molassas enough to make it into a ball, wrap it in a paper and give it; give scalded bran and oats, grass if it can be got; when his bowels have moved, stop the physic, and give 1 oz. spirits of camphor in half a pint of water, every morning, for twelve days, rowel in the breast, and give a few doses of cleansing powder.
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