behind him, his ears flattened, his beautiful vicious head outstretched
in an effort to tug the reins out of the hands of the rider. Failing in
that effort, he leaped into the air like a steeplechaser and pitched down
upon stiffened forelegs.

The shock rippled through the body of the rider and came to his head with
a snap that jerked his chin down against his breast. The stallion rocked
back on his hind legs, whirled, and then flung himself deliberately on
his back. A sufficiently cunning maneuver--first stunning the enemy with
a blow and then crushing him before his senses returned. But he landed on
nothing save hard gravel. The rider had whipped out of the saddle and
stood poised, strong as the trunk of a silver spruce.

The fighting horse, a little shaken by the impact of his fall,
nevertheless whirled with catlike agility to his feet--a beautiful thing
to watch. As he brought his forequarters off the earth, he lunged at the
rider with open mouth. A sidestep that would have done credit to a
pugilist sent the youngster swerving past that danger. He leaped to the
saddle at the same time that the blood-bay came to his four feet.

The chorus in full cry was around the horse, four or five excited cow-
punchers waving their sombreros and yelling for horse or rider, according
to the gallantry of the fight.

The bay was in the air more than he was on the ground, eleven or twelve
hundred pounds of might, writhing, snapping, bolting, halting, sunfishing
with devilish cunning, dropping out of the air on one stiff foreleg with
an accompanying sway to one side that gave the rider the effect of a
cudgel blow at the back of the head and then a whip-snap to part the
vertebrae. Whirling on his hind legs, and again flinging himself