Frank Merriwell's Athletes Part 56

In the meantime, while this conversation was taking place, Comet had been doing his best to unseat Merriwell, but had not succeeded. At last he stopped and stood still, seeming played out and completely disgusted by failure.

Frank laughed.

"It's easier than I thought," he said.

"That broncho was trained to buck," said Indian Charlie, speaking loudly enough for Frank to hear. "He isn't much like a natural bucker. The tenderfoot couldn't stay on the back of a natural bucker a second."

Again Frank laughed, and it was far more expressive than words. That laugh distinctly said that the foreman of the Lone Star was making a fool of himself.

Bart Hodge was angry.

"I'll bet Frank Merriwell can ride any broncho on this ranch!" he cried, addressing no one in particular.

That was exactly what Indian Charlie wanted.

"What will you bet, sir?" he instantly asked.

"A hundred dollars!" cried Hodge, recklessly.

"Done!" exclaimed Charlie. "Put up the money in Rodney's hands. Here is my william."

He produced a crisp new hundred-dollar bill and flourished it at Bart.

Hodge turned pale, for he suddenly realized that he did not have a hundred dollars to his name.

"I-I haven't the money," he stammered. "I spoke too quick. If I had it I would put it up."

"Bah!" sneered Indian Charlie. "You are a bluff! You know he can't ride an unbroken broncho. Back down, but keep your mouth closed after this."

"Mr. Hodge need not back down," said the cool voice of Frank, who had dismounted. "I will let him have a hundred dollars, or two hundred, if he wishes it."

And Frank produced "a roll."

Charlie's eyes snapped. The game was coming all right, after all.

"Hodge has made betting talk, and I have my money ready to put up," he said. "Let him cover it-if he dares!"

Bart seized the money Frank offered, and Bill Rodney was called forward.

As soon as he understood the terms of the bet the rancher protested.

"Mr. Merriwell is a rider, as I will allow," he said; "but he can't ride one critter there is on the ranch. No one yere can ride him, an' Pecos Pete, what is a reg'ler broncho breaker, is goin' to break him as part of the fun ter-day."

"I presume that is the horse Indian Charlie will expect me to ride?"

said Frank, his lips hardening a bit and a determined look coming to his handsome face.

"To be course it is."

Charlie was standing near enough to hear this talk, and a sneer curled the red lips beneath his dark mustache.

"There isn't any blood in those tenderfeet," he said, speaking to one of the men, but meaning that Frank and Bart should hear. "I've driven them into their holes."

Hodge looked as if he longed to fly at the sneering man.

"Here is the money!" he cried. "If Merry says so, up she goes!"

Frank nodded a bit, and Bart thrust the money into Rodney's hand. The rancher did not want to take it, but Indian Charlie was not letting any time go to waste.

"Here's mine!" he exclaimed, quickly covering the amount.

"Say," broke in Pecos Pete, stepping forward quickly; "this don't go none whatever. I cotton to this yar tenderfoot, an' I don't want ter see him murdered."

"There can't be any backing out now!" came triumphantly from the foreman of the Lone Star. "The money is up. I reckon n.o.body here wants to chip into this game."

He glanced around in a way that usually served as a warning to those who knew him, but, to his surprise and anger, he suddenly discovered that to a certain extent his former prestige was gone. The men who had known and feared him did not seem to fear him as in former times.

"Ef this wuz a squar deal fer ther tenderfoot it'd be all right," said Hank Kildare; "but it ain't that none at all. Ther youngster don't know what he is goin' up against."

"Thank you," said Frank, quietly. "If I am caught, I'll stand it, that is all. It will be my funeral, as you say out here."

"Ther boy's got sand," muttered Kildare, as he turned away, "but it's a shame to run him up against such a game as this. He'll be killed ef Charlie says he's ter try ter ride Firebrand."

"And that is what I do say!" cried Indian Charlie. "I said there was a horse on this ranch he couldn't ride, and I meant Firebrand."

"Bring out Firebrand," directed Merriwell, grimly.

CHAPTER x.x.xI-FRANK MERRIWELL'S RIDE

Frank Merriwell was a natural horseman, and he had often taken pleasure in breaking some obstinate and vicious animal. At the same time he knew well enough that a bucking broncho is about as much like an ordinary unbroken horse as dynamite is like baking powder.

But he had encountered vicious horses in the West. He remembered how, on the ranch of Miles Morgan, in Kansas, he had successfully ridden a man-killing stallion, to the unutterable astonishment of everybody about the place.

From choice Frank would not have attempted to ride a bucker, but he was aroused by the sneering words of Indian Charlie and the manner in which the coward had sought to make him the b.u.t.t of ridicule.

"I'll ride the beast if I live!" Frank mentally vowed.

It was useless to try to dissuade him, as the cowboys soon found out.

When Inza learned what he meant to do, she came out and cautioned him, but she had the utmost confidence in his ability.

Sadie Rodney, however, did not think Frank could ride the broncho.

"Don't try it, Mr. Merriwell!" she entreated. "You will be killed!"

"I hardly think so," smiled Frank, quietly.