The Eagle's Heart Part 31

"All right," called the judge. The rope was slackened and the calf leaped up. Dan then successively picked up any foot designated by the marshal. "Left hind foot! Right fore foot!" and so on with almost unerring accuracy. His horse, calm and swift, obeyed every word and every s.h.i.+ft of his rider's body. The crowd cheered, and those who came after added nothing to the contest.

Mose rode into the inclosure with impa.s.sive face. He could only duplicate the deeds of those who had gone before so long as his work was governed by the marshal--but when, as in the case of others, he was free to "put on frills," he did so. Tackling the heaviest and wildest steer, he dropped his rope over one horn and caught up one foot, then taking a loose turn about his pommel he spoke to Kintuck. The steer reached the end of the rope with terrible force. It seemed as if the saddle must give way--but the strain was cunningly met, and the brute tumbled and laid flat with a wild bawl. While Kintuck held him Mose took a cigar from his pocket, bit the end off, struck a match and puffed carelessly and lazily. It was an old trick, but well done, and the spectators cheered heartily.

After a few casts of almost equal brilliancy, Mose leaped to the ground with the rope in his hand, and while Kintuck looked on curiously, he began a series of movements which one of Delmar's Mexicans had taught him. With the noose spread wide he kept it whirling in the air as if it were a hoop. He threw it into the air and sprang through it, he lowered it to the ground, and leaping into it, flung it far above his head. In his hand this inert thing developed snakelike action. It took on loops and scallops and retained them, apparently in defiance of all known laws of physics--controlled and governed by the easy, almost imperceptible motions of his steel-like wrist.

"Forty-five dollars more to the good," said Mose grimly as the decision came in his favor.

"See here--going to take all the prizes?" asked one of the judges.

"So long as you keep to my line of business," replied he.

The races came next. Kintuck took first money on the straightaway dash, but lost on the long race around the pole. It nearly broke his heart, but he came in second to Denver Dan's sorrel twice in succession.

Mose patted the old horse and said: "Never mind, old boy, you pulled in forty dollars more for me."

Reynolds had tears in his eyes as he came up.

"The old hoss cain't compete on the long stretches. He's like a middle-aged man--all right for a short dash--but the youngsters have the best wind--they get him on the mile course."

In the trained pony contest the old horse redeemed himself. He knelt at command, laid out flat while Mose crouched behind, and at the word "Up!"

sprang to his feet and waited--then with his master clinging to his mane he ran in a circle or turned to right or left at signal. All the tricks which the cavalry had taught their horses, Mose, in years on the trail, had taught Kintuck. He galloped on three legs and waltzed like a circus horse. He seemed to know exactly what his master said to him.

A man with a big red beard came up to Mose as he rode off the track and said:

"What'll you take for that horse?"

Mose gave him a savage glance. "He ain't for sale."

The broncho-busting contest Mose declined.

"How's that?" inquired Haney, who hated to see his favorite "gig back"

at a point where his courage could be tested.

"I've busted all the bronchos for fun I'm going to," Mose replied.

Dan called in a sneering tone: "Bring on your varmints. I'm not dodgin'

mean cayuses to-day."

Mose could not explain that for Mary's sake he was avoiding all danger.

There was risk in the contest and he knew it, and he couldn't afford to take it.

"That's all right!" he sullenly replied. "I'll be with you later in the game."

A wall-eyed roan pony, looking dull and stupid, was led before the stand. Saddled and bridled he stood dozing while the crowd hooted with derision.

"Don't make no mistake!" shouted Haney; "he's the meanest critter on the upper fork."

A young lad named Jimmy Kincaid first tackled the job, and as he ran alongside and tried the cinch, the roan dropped an ear back--the ear toward Jimmy, and the knowing ones giggled with glee. "He's wakin'up!

Look out, Jim!"

The lad gathered the reins in his left hand, seized the pommel with his right, and then the roan disclosed his true nature. He was an old rebel.

He did not waste his energies on common means. He plunged at once into the most complicated, furious, and effective bucking he could devise, almost without moving out of his tracks--and when the boy, stunned and bleeding at the nose, sprawled in the dust, the roan moved away a few steps and dozed, panting and tense, apparently neither angry nor frightened.

One of the Reynolds gang tried him next and "stayed with him" till he threw himself. When he arose the rider failed to secure his stirrups and was thrown after having sat the beast superbly. The miners were warming to the old roan. Many of them had never seen a pitching broncho before, and their delight led to loud whoops and jovial outcries.

"Bully boy, roan! Shake 'em off!"

Denver Dan tried him next and sat him, haughtily contemptuous, till he stopped, quivering with fatigue and reeking with sweat.

"Oh, well!" yelled a big miner, "that ain't a fair shake for the pony; you should have took him when he was fresh." And the crowd sustained him in it.

"Here comes one that is fresh," called the marshal, and into the arena came a wicked-eyed, superbly-fas.h.i.+oned black roan horse, plainly wild and unbroken, led by two cowboys, one on either side.

Joe Gra.s.si shook a handfull of bills down at the crowd. "Here's a hundred dollars to the man who'll set that pony three minutes by the watch."

"This is no place to tackle such a brute as that," said Reynolds.

Mose was looking straight ahead with a musing look in his eyes.

Denver Dan walked out. "I need that hundred dollars; nail it to a post for a few minutes, will ye?"

This was no tricky old cow pony, but a natively vicious, powerful, and cunning young horse. While the cowboys held him Dan threw off his coat and hat and bound a bandanna over the bronchos's head and pulled it down over his eyes. Laying the saddle on swiftly, but gently, he cinched it strongly. With determined and vigorous movement, he thrust the bit into his mouth.

"Slack away!" he called to the ropers. The horse, nearly dead for lack of breath, drew a deep sigh.

Haney called out: "Stand clear, everybody, clear the road!"

And casting one rope to the ground, Dan swung into the saddle.

For just an instant the horse crouched low and waited--then shot into the air with a tigerish bound and fell stiff-legged. Again and again he flung his head down, humped his back, and sprang into the air grunting and squealing with rage and fear. Dan sat him, but the punishment made him swear. Suddenly the horse dropped and rolled, hoping to catch his rider unawares. Dan escaped by stepping to the ground, but he was white, and the blood was oozing slowly from his nose. As the brute arose, Dan was in the saddle. With two or three tremendous bounds, the horse flung himself into the air like a high-vaulting acrobat, landing so near the fence that Dan, swerving far to the left, was unseated, and sprawled low in the dust while the squealing broncho went down the track bucking and las.h.i.+ng out with undiminished vigor.

Dan staggered to his feet, stunned and bleeding. He swore most terrible oaths that he would ride that wall-eyed brute if it took a year.

"You've had your turn. It was a fair fight," called Kelly.

"Who's the next ambitious man?" shouted Haney.

"I don't want no truck with that," said the cowboys among themselves.

"Not in a place like this," said Jimmy. "A feller's liable to get mashed agin a fence."

Mose stood with hands gripping a post, his eyes thoughtful. Suddenly he threw off his coat.

"I'll try him," he said.

"Oh, I don't think you'd better; it'll bung you all up," cautioned Reynolds.

Mose said in a low voice: "I'm good for him, and I need that money."