a stealthy hand seize the dangling rope. At the touch he snorted protest,
and was off and away, upsetting Bandy-legs and the basin ignominiously into
a high-piled drift.

Bandy-legs sat up, scraped the snow out of his collar and his ears, and
swore. It was then that Rowdy appeared like an angel of deliverance.

"Want that horse caught?" he yelled cheerfully.

Bandy-legs lifted up his voice and bellowed things I should not like to
repeat verbatim. But Rowdy gathered that the man emphatically did want that
so-and-so-and-then-some horse caught, and that it couldn't be done a blessed
minute too soon. Whereat Rowdy smiled anew, with his face discreetly turned
away from Bandy-legs, and took down his rope and widened the loop. Also, he
turned Chub loose.

The stallion evidently sensed what new danger threatened his stolen freedom,
and circled the yard with high, springy strides. Rowdy circled after, saw
his chance, swirled the loop twice over his head, and hazarded a long throw.

Rowdy knew it for pure good luck that it landed right, but to this day
Bandy-legs looks upon him as a Wonder with a rope--and Bandy-legs would
insist upon the capital.

"Where shall I take him?" Rowdy asked, coming up with his captive, and with
nothing but his eyes to show how he was laughing inwardly.

Bandy-legs crawled from the drift, still scraping snow from inside his
collar, and gave many directions about going through a certain gate into
such-and-such a corral; from there into a stable; and by seeming devious