“Then you know what kind of riffraff we are,” he said.
IV
Dunne driving, the car carried us out of Corkscrew at the street’s southern end, and then west along the sandy and rocky bottom of a shallow draw. The sand was deep and the rocks were numerous; we didn’t make very good time. An hour and a half of jolting, sweltering and smothering in this draw, and we climbed up out of it and crossed to a larger and greener draw, where the mesquite grew in small trees and bees zizzed among wild flowers.
Around a bend in this draw the Circle H.A.R. buildings sat. We got out of the automobile under a low shed, where another car already stood. A heavily muscled, heavily boned man came around a whitewashed building toward us. His face was square and dark. His close-clipped mustache and deep-set small eyes were dark.
This, I learned, was Peery, who bossed the ranch for the owner, who lived in the East.
“He wants a nice, mild horse,” Milk River told Peery, “and we thought maybe you might sell him that Rollo horse of yours. That’s the nicest, mildest horse I ever heard tell of.”
Peery tilted his high-crowned sombrero back on his head and rocked on his heels.
“What was you figuring on paying for this here horse?”
“If it suits me,” I said, “I’m willing to pay what it takes to buy him.”
“That ain’t so bad,” he said. “S’pose one of you boys dab a rope on that buckskin and bring him around for the gent to look at.”
Smith and Dunne set out together, pretending they weren’t going eagerly.
“Where’s Red and Slim?” Peery asked.
“Stayin’ in a while,” Small told him. “Slim’s a million ahead in a poker game.”
Presently the two cowhands came back, riding, with the buckskin between them, already saddled and bridled. I noticed each of them had a rope on him. He was a loose-jointed pony of an unripe lemon color, with a sad, drooping, Roman-nosed head.
“There he is,” Peery said. “Try him out and we’ll talk dinero. I warn you, I ain’t so damned anxious to get rid of him that I’ll let him go for nothing. But you try him first—trot him down the draw a little ways and back. He’s downright sweet.”
I chucked away my cigarette and went over to the buckskin. He cocked one mournful eye at me, twitched one ear, and went on looking sadly at the ground. Dunne and Smith took their lines off him, and I got into the saddle.
Rollo stood still under me until the other horses had left his side.
Then he showed me what he had.
He went straight up in the air—and hung there long enough to turn around before he came down. He stood on his front feet and then on his hind ones, and then he got off all of them again.
I didn’t like this, but it wasn’t a surprise. I had known I was a lamb being led to the slaughter. This was the third time it had happened to me. I might as well get it over with. A city man in range country is bound to find himself sitting on a disagreeable bone sooner or later. I’m a city man. I can sit any street car or taxicab in the world, and I can even ride a horse if he’ll cooperate. But when the horse doesn’t want to stay under me—the horse wins.
Rollo was going to win. I wasn’t foolish enough to waste strength fighting him.
So the next time he traded ends, I went away from him, holding myself limp, so the tumble wouldn’t ruin me.
Smith had caught the yellow pony, and was holding its head, when I took my knees off my forehead and stood up.
Peery, squatting on his heels, was frowning at me. Milk River was looking at Rollo with what was supposed to be a look of utter amazement.
“Now whatever did you do to Rollo to make him act thataway?” Peery asked me.
“Maybe he was only fooling,” I suggested. “I’ll try him again.”
Once more Rollo stood still and sad until I was securely up on him. Then he went into convulsions under me—convulsions that lasted until I piled on my neck and one shoulder in a clump of brush.
I stood up, rubbing my left shoulder, which had hit a rock. Smith was holding the buckskin. The faces of all five men were serious and solemn—too serious and solemn.
“Maybe he don’t like you,” Buck Small gave his opinion.
“Might be,” I admitted as I climbed into the saddle for the third time.
The lemon-tinted devil was getting warmed up by now, was beginning to take pride in his work. He let me stay aboard longer than before, so he could slam me off harder.
I was sick when I hit the ground in front of Peery and Milk River. It took me a little while to get up, and I had to stand still for a moment, until I could feel the ground under my feet.
“Hold him a couple of seconds—” I began.
Peery’s big frame stood in front of me.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I ain’t going to have you killed on my hands.”
I shook my head violently, trying to clear it, so I could see him better.
“Get out of my way,” I growled. “I like this. I want more of it.”
“You don’t top my pony no more,” he growled back at me. “He ain’t used to playing so rough. You’re liable to hurt him, falling off carelessly like that.”
I tried to get past him. He barred my way with a thick arm. I drove my right fist at his dark face.
He went back, busy trying to keep his feet under him.
I went over and hoisted myself up on Rollo.
I had the buckskin’s confidence by this time. We were old friends. He didn’t mind showing me his secret stuff. He did things no horse could possibly do. Looking down, I was surprised not to see his kidneys and liver—because
