Overland Red Part 34

Collie, leaning forward, patted her neck. "Come on, sis. Come on, Yuma girl. You're just a little hummingbird. You ain't a real horse."

With a leap the pony reared. Still there came no sting of spur or quirt.

She dropped to her feet. Collie had cleverly consumed a minute of the allotted time.

"One minute!" called Williams, holding the watch.

"Why, that ain't ridin'," grumbled an Oro man.

"See you later," said Williams, and several of his companions looked at him strangely. The foreman's eyes were fixed on the watch.

Collie had also heard, and he dug his unspurred heels into the pony's sides. She leaped straight for the corral gate and freedom. With a patter of hoofs, stiff-legged, she jolted toward the plain. The men dropped from the bars and ran toward the gate, all, except Williams, who turned, blinking in the sun, his watch in his hand.

A few short jumps, a fish-like swirl sideways, and still Collie held his seat. He eased the hackamore a little. He was breathing hard. The horse took up the slack with a vicious plunge, head downward. The boy's face grew white. He felt something warm trickling down his mouth and chin. He threw back his head and gripped with his knees.

"They're off!" halloed a puncher.

"Only one of 'em--so far," said Williams. "One minute and thirty seconds."

Then, like a bolt of copper light, the pony shot forward at a run.

On the ranch-house veranda sat Walter Stone conversing with his host, where several girls, bright-faced and gowned in cool white, were talking and laughing.

The pony headed straight for the veranda. The laughing group jumped to their feet. Collie, using both hands, swung the hackamore across the outlaw's neck and tugged.

She stopped with a jolt that all but unseated him. Walter Stone rose.

"It's one of my boys," he said. And he noticed that a little stream of red was trickling from Collie's mouth and nostrils.

His head was snapped back and then forward at every plunge. Still he gripped the saddle with rigid knees. The outlaw bucked again, and flung herself viciously sideways, turning completely round. Collie pitched drunkenly as the horse came down again and again. His eyes were blurred and his brain grew numb. Faintly he heard Brand Williams cry, "Two minutes! Moonstone wins!" Then came a cheer. His gripping knees relaxed.

He reeled and all around him the air grew streaked with slivers of piercing fire. He pitched headforemost at the feet of the group on the veranda.

In a flash Louise Lacharme was beside him, kneeling and supporting his head. "Water!" she cried, wiping his face with her handkerchief.

Boot-heels gritted on the parched earth and spurs jingled as the men came running.

The pony, with hackamore dangling, raced across the plain toward the hills.

"This'll do jest as well," said Williams, pouring a mouthful of whiskey between Collie's lips. Then the taciturn foreman lifted the youth to his feet. Collie dragged along, stepping shakily. "Dam' little fool!" said Williams affectionately. "You ain't satisfied to get killed where you belong, but you got to go and splatter yourself all over the front yard in front of the ladies. You with your b.l.o.o.d.y nose and your face shot plumb full of gravel. If you knowed how you looked when she piled you--"

"I know how she looked," said Collie. "That's good enough for me. Did I make it?"

"The bronc' is yours," said Williams. "Bud and Miguel just rode out after her."

Then Williams did an unaccountable thing. He hunted among the crowd till he found the man who had said, "Why, that ain't ridin'." He asked the man quietly if he had made such a remark. The other replied that he had.

Then Williams promptly knocked him down, with all the wiry strength of his six feet of bone and muscle. "Take that home and look at it," he remarked, walking away.

Through the dusk of the evening the Moonstone boys jingled homeward, the horses climbing the trail briskly. Two of them worked the outlaw up the hill, each with a rope on her and each exceedingly busy. Collie was too stiff and sore to help them.

Miguel, hilarious in that he had ridden Boyar to second place, and so upheld the Moonstone honor, sang many strange and wonderful songs and baited Collie between-whiles. Proud of their companion's conquest of the outlaw colt, the Moonstone boys made light of it proportionately.

"Did you see him reclinin' on that Yuma gra.s.shopper," said Bud Light, "and pertendin' he was ridin' a hoss?"

"And then," added Billy Dime, "he gets so het up and proud that he rides right over to the ladies, and 'flop' he goes like swattin' a frog with a shingle. He rides about five rods on the cayuse and then five more on his map. Collie's sure tough. How's your mug, kid?"

"It never felt so bad as yours looks naturally," responded Collie, puffing at a cigarette with swollen lips. "But I ain't jealous."

"Now, ain't you?" queried Williams, who had ridden silently beside him.

"Well, now, I was plumb mistook! I kind of thought you was."

CHAPTER XXIII

SILENT SAUNDERS SPEAKS

Meanwhile Collie kept a vigilant eye on Silent Saunders. The other, somewhat sullenly but efficiently, attended to his work. Collie's vigilance was rewarded unexpectedly and rather disagreeably.

One day, as he stood stroking Black Boyar's neck, he happened to glance across the yard. Saunders was saddling one of the horses in the corral.

Louise, astride Boyar, spoke to Collie of some detail of the ranch work, purposely prolonging the conversation. Something of the Collie of the Oro barbecue had vanished. In its stead was an inexplicable but positive quality of masterfulness, apparent in poise and manner.

Louise, because she knew him so well, was puzzled and curious. She could not account for the change. She was frankly interested in him in spite of, or perhaps because of, his early misfortunes. Instinctively she felt that he had gained a moral confidence in himself. His physical excellence and ability had always been manifest. This morning, his grave, dark eyes, upturned to her face as he caressed Boyar, were disconcertingly straightforward. He seemed to be drinking his fill of her beauty. His quick smile, still boyish, and altogether irresistible, flashed as she spoke humorously of his conquest of the outlaw colt Yuma.

"I learned more--ridin' that cayuse for two minutes--than I ever expect to learn again in that time."

Remembering that she had been first to reach him when he was thrown, the fresh bloom of her cheeks deepened. Her eyelids drooped for an instant.

"One can learn a great deal quickly, sometimes," she said. Then added, for he had smiled again,--"About horses."

"And folks." He spoke quietly and lifted her gauntleted hand, touching it lightly with his lips. So swift, so unexpected had been his homage that she did not realize it until it was irrevocably paid.

"Why, Collie!"

"Because you wasn't ashamed to help a guy in front of the others."

"Please don't say 'guy.' And why should I be ashamed to help any of our boys?" she said, laughing. She had quite recovered herself.

"'Course you wouldn't be. But this is a kind of 'good-bye,' too. I was going to ask you to mail this letter to Overland Red. I told him in it that I was coming."

"We are sorry that you are leaving," said Louise. "Uncle Walter said you had spoken to him."

"It isn't the money. I could wait. But I don't feel like taking all that money and not doing anything for it. I guess Red needs me, too. Brand says I'm a fool to quit here now. Mebby I am. I like it here; the work and everything."

Saunders, watching them, saw Collie give Louise a letter. He saw her tuck it in her waist and rein Boyar round toward the gate.

As Collie came toward the corrals he noticed that Saunders had saddled the pinto Rally. He was a little surprised. Rally was Walter Stone's favorite saddle-horse and used by none but him. He knew his employer was absent. Perhaps Saunders had instructions to bring Rally to the station.

Collie paid no further attention to Saunders until the latter came from his quarters with a coat and a blanket-roll which he tied to the saddle.

Then Collie became interested. He left the road and climbed the hill back of the corrals. He watched Saunders astride the pinto as he opened the gate and spurred through without closing it. That was a little unusual.