have been reeling with hideous motion and jolt, the chestnut quickly
reared on high, to drop himself clean over backwards. It was thus that
once he had crushed the life from a rider.

"Oh!" screamed Both, and she sank beside the tree.

The men all yelled. They were furious and afraid.

With hoofs wildly flaying the air, while he loomed tall and unreal in
such an attitude, the broncho hung for a moment in mid-poise, then
dropped over sheer--as if to be shattered into fragments.

But a mass of the bronze-like group was detached, and fell to one side,
on its thigh. It was Van. He had seen what was coming in time.

Instantly up, as the brute rolled quickly to arise, he leaped in the
saddle, the horn of which had snapped, and he and the chestnut came
erect together, as if miraculously the equestrian group had been
restored.

"Yi! Yi!" he yelled, like the madman he was--mad with the heat of the
fight--and he dug in his spurs with vicious might.

Back to it wildly, with fury increased, the broncho leaped responsively.

Here, there, all the field over, the demon thrashed, catapulting
incredibly. He tried new tricks, invented new volcanics of motion,
developed new whirlwinds of violence.

Once more, then, as he had on the first occasion, the beast reared up