once towards the kitchen.

Van was replacing the blindfold on the broncho's eyes. The animal was
panting, sweating, quivering in every muscle. His ears went backward
and forward rapidly. The blindfold shut out a wild, unreasoning
challenge and defiance that burned like a torch in his eyes.

Algy came running with a big bottle, filled and corked.

"Fer God's sake, leave me kill him!" Gettysburg was repeating
automatically. "Van, if you ain't got no respect fer yourself, ain't
you got none left fer us old doggone cusses?"

"Give me the bottle, Algy," Van replied. "You're the only game sport
on the ranch."

Still he did not discover Beth. His attentions were engrossed by the
horse. He was dizzy, dazed, but a dogged master still of his forces.
Up he mounted to the saddle again, the bottle held firmly in his grasp.

"Slip off the blinder," he said to his friends, and Algy it was who
obeyed.

"Damn you, now you buck!" cried Van wildly, and his heels ignited the
volcano.

For five solid minutes the broncho redoubled his scheme of demoniac
fury. Then he poised, let out a shrill scream of challenge, and
abruptly raised to repeat the backward fall.