Show adventurers club sl lk riding lesson by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter heard stories about how people have learned to swim by y J getting thrown into the water and having to swim well heres here s the story of how duke edwards learned to ride a horse duke lives in new york city maybe youve heard of him maybe youve seen him ride horses he does it pretty regularly now but ill bet youve never seen anything half as good as that first bronco back excursion duke ever took out in kalispell Kal mont in july 1912 it was this way duke was twenty years old and fed up with the big city the old adventurers blood was pumping in his veins and his feet were itching to go places so he invested most of his money in a railroad ticket and headed west he know what he was going to do when he got there but that was soon settled for him on the train duke met up tip with a bird in a big 10 gallon allon hat he got to talking with him and told him he was going west to see if lie he could get a bob ob on a ranch can you ride a horse the big fellow wanted to know riding a horse one of dukes accomplishments well duke ride a horse any more than he could walk a tight rope but he going to let that stand in his way of getting a job sure I 1 can he said and right there its his troubles started the big fellow told duke he was a rodeo rider hed just finished up working for a wild west show and was on his way to join another one in california he told duke hed fix him up with a cowboy outfit and see if he work him into a job somewhere that was more than duke had figured on I 1 mean he might have bluffed his way through the business of riding a tame horse but getting aboard one of those bucking bronchus bron chos they ride in the circus was abot avot another he r t thing hing altogether the more h he e heard about that job the less he liked it but be before fore hed finally made up his mind the bi big fellow had staked him to a lot of cowboy clothes and duke owed him so much money that he just had to have a job to pay it back the reward for bluffing Is usually a showdown show down duke began hoping turn him down when he applied for a job but they the ba big f fellow ellow saw to that ne he went to work at seventy five bucks 17 A 1 A I M rearing and snorting the horse plunged up and down i almonth a month and his keep and since it was the oft off season and the show was in winter quarters he managed to bluff his way through the first couple of weeks on the job dukes method was simple but it had its kickback he just brag bragged ged so much about what a good broncho buster he was that everybody took idlor it tor granted that he knew his horses but all that talk was just going 0 to make things worse for him when the big showdown came duke fooled the rest of the show but he kid the big fellow when he found out duke ride a horse he started teaching him as much as he could but you cant teach a man to bust bronchus bron chos in two weeks and about all the time they had before the show went on the road again duke had a streak of luck the first week or two the show was on the road they forgot about him or something anyway nobody asked him to ride a horse then in kalispell Kall Kal spell mont the blow fell and a tough blow it was too dynamite was a tough specimen of horse flesh kalispell Kall Kal spell was a great ranching town A cowman in the neighborhood brought in a bad horse that went by the pretty name of dynamite and dynamites reputation was so bad around that neck of the woods that the show offered a prize of a hundred bucks to the f first cowboy that stayed on his back and the first name drawn to ride dynamite was you guessed gues sied it duke edwards 1 I say anything says duke but I 1 felt myself going into a faint by this time I 1 knew how to mount a horse and ride it around the lot but id never been on a bucker it took six cowboys to saddle that brute and hold him so I 1 could mount but I 1 had to act as if I 1 afraid I 1 climbed into the saddle and then with a yell we were off 1 the horse rearing and snorting went down almost to his knees and bounced up again I 1 thought my head bead would snap off my neck I 1 felt myself fainting but I 1 stuck to the horse until we reached the bandstand 0 duke played a solo on the big bass drum it took duke and dynamite just about forty seconds to reach that ban bandstand d but remember quite a while to be on a bucking horse it was at the bandstand that it happened there dynamite put on an extra pound or two of reserve steam ile he gave a last leap 1 kicked up his heels and duke went flying 0 ing over his head straight into the bandstand duke flew he could see the big bass drum coming up at him felt his nose flatten out as it hit the drumhead then everything went black until he awoke in the hospital with a busted head and a big cut in his forehead and dill did they fire duke after that well teats the funny part of it everybody said hed given that dynamite horse one heck of a good ride duke stayed with that outfit for three years and rode plenty more tough gh horses horse S then he went into the movies and rode in western pictures so youve e probably seen duke at one time or another on the screen and that one experience e he says has given him the only rule of success he knows first throw w your bluff says duke and then make it good 11 0 service |