Between Cadillac and Kalaska he spent several lively weeks with farmers. Most of them tried various taming processes. Some escaped with bruises and some suffered serious injury. At Alpena he found an owner who, having read something very convincing in a horse-trainer's book, elaborately strapped the roan's legs according to diagram, and then went into the stall to wreak vengeance with a riding-whip. Blue Blazes accepted one cut, after which he crushed the avenger against the plank partition until three of the man's ribs were broken. The Alpena man was fished from under the roan's hoofs just in time to save his life.
This incident earned Blue Blazes the name of "man-killer," and it stuck. He even figured in the newspaper dispatches. "Blue Blazes, the Michigan Man-Killer," "The Ugliest Horse Alive," "Alpena's Equine Outlaw"; these were some of the head-lines. The Perkins method had borne fruit.
When purchasers for a four-legged hurricane could no longer be found, Blue Blazes was sent up the lake to an obscure little port where they have only a Tuesday and Friday steamer, and where the blue roan's record was unknown. Horses were in demand there. In fact, Blue Blazes was sold almost before he had been led down the gang-plank.
"Look out for him," warned the steam-boat man; "he's a wicked brute."
"Oh, I've got a little job that'll soon take the cussedness out of him," said the purchaser, with a laugh.
Blue Blazes was taken down into the gloomy fore-hold of a three-masted lake schooner, harnessed securely between two long capstan bars, and set to walking in an aimless circle while a creaking cable was wound about a drum. At the other end of the cable were fastened, from time to time, squared pine-logs weighing half a ton each. It was the business of Blue Blazes to draw these timbers into the hold through a trap-door opening in the stern. There was nothing to kick save the stout bar, and there was no one to bite. Well out of reach stood a man who cracked a whip and, when not swearing forcefully, shouted "Ged-a-a-ap!"
For several uneventful days he was forced to endure this exasperating condition of affairs with but a single break in the monotony. This came on the first evening, when they tried to unhook him. The experiment ended with half a blue-flannel shirt in the teeth of Blue Blazes and a badly scared lumber-shover hiding in the fore-peak. After that they put grain and water in buckets, which they cautiously shoved within his reach.