One from the Heart for... My wife Pat, my number one critic, who also suffered safely through all those long decades of my taking notes, thinking and… - Max Evans

When I was still a teenager, I acquired a small, well-watered (with springs) ranch in northeastern New Mexico. It was located fourteen miles east of the village of Des Moines—which I would later call "Hi-Lo" in my many writings and a major film. ...In those poor struggling days, coyote hides would bring from five to fifteen dollars—a ton of money at the time.

I could see... that there was healed-over spur marks in that old pony's shoulder. That could mean just one thing. Trouble. I had worked for outfits that gave spoiled horses like that one away just to keep from crippling up good cowboys.

I was having more trouble putting a rein, a stop, and instilling "rope and cow sense" in this horse than ever before. ...She literally loved and lived to run after the dogs as they ran down one of the smartest creatures ever born. She must have had the ancient genes of some great general's best war horse for she had a true blood lust. Molly loved to watch the dogs' fangs still a freshly caught coyote.