Part 52 (1/2)

Charlie came, heard the plan of the wager, accepted the money, and watched Van throw on the saddle.

”I didn't know you wanted to sell,” he said. ”You know I want that animal.”

”If he goes he sells himself,” said Van. ”If he doesn't, you're next, same terms.”

”Let me have that pair of spurs,” said the stranger, denoting a pair that hung upon a nail. ”I guess they'll fit.”

He adjusted the spurs as one accustomed to their use. Van merely glanced around. Nevertheless, he felt a sinking of the heart. Five hundred dollars, much as he needed money, would not have purchased his horse. And inasmuch as luck had been against him, he suddenly feared he might be on the point of losing Suvy now for a price he would have scorned.

”Boy,” he said in a murmur to the broncho, ”if I thought you'd let any bleached-out anthropoid like that remain on deck, I wouldn't want you anyway--savvy that?”

Suvy's ears were playing back and forth in excessive nervousness and questioning. He had turned his head to look at Van with evident joy at the thought of bearing him away to the hills--they two afar off together. Then came a disappointment.

”There you are,” said Van, and swinging the bridle reins towards the waiting man, he walked to a feed-trough and leaned against it carelessly.

”Thanks,” said the stranger. He threw away a cigarette, caught up the reins, adjusted them over Suvy's neck, rocked the saddle to test its firmness, and mounted with a certain dexterity that lessened Van's confidence again. After all, Suvy was thoroughly broken. He had quietly submitted to be ridden by Beth. His war-like spirit might be gone--and all would be lost.

Indeed, it appeared that Suvy was indifferent--that a cow would have shown a manner no less docile or resigned. He did look at Van with a certain expression of surprise and hurt, or so, at least, the horseman hoped. Then the man on his back shook up the reins, gave a p.r.i.c.k with the spurs, and Suvy moved perhaps a yard.

The rider p.r.i.c.ked again, impatiently. Instantly Suvy's old-time fulminate was jarred into violent response. He went up in the air prodigiously, a rigid, distorted thing of hardened muscles and engine-like activities. He came down like a new device for breaking rocks--and the bucking he had always loved was on, in a fury of resentment.

”Good boy!” said Van, who stood up stiffly, craning and bending to watch the broncho's fight.

But the man in the saddle was a rider. He sat in the loose security of men who knew the game. He gave himself over to becoming part of the broncho's very self. He accepted Suvy's momentum, spine-disturbing jolts, and sudden gyrations with the calmness and art of a master.

All this Van beheld, as the pony bucked with warming enthusiasm, and again his heart descended to the depths. It was not the bucking he had hoped to see. It was not the best that lay in Suvy's thongs. The beating he himself had given the animal, on the day when their friends.h.i.+p was cemented, had doubtless reduced the pony's confidence of winning such a struggle, while increasing his awe of man. Some miners pa.s.sing saw the dust as the conflict waged in the yard. They hastened in to witness the show. Then from everywhere in town they appeared to pour upon the scene. The word went around that the thing was a bet--and more came running to the scene.

Meantime, Suvy was rocketing madly all over the place. Chasing a couple of cows that roamed at large, charging at a monster pile of household furnis.h.i.+ngs, barely avoiding the feed-trough, set in the center of the place, scattering men in all directions, and raising a dust like a concentrated storm, the broncho waxed more and more hot in the blood, more desperately wild to fling his rider headlong through the air. But still that rider clung.

Van had lost all sense save that of worry, love for his horse, and desire to see him win this vital struggle. A wild pa.s.sion for Suvy's response to himself--for a proving love in the broncho's being--possessed his nature. He leaned far forward, awkwardly, following Suvy about.

”I'm ashamed of you, Suvy!” he began to cry. ”Suvy! Suvy, where's your pride? Why don't you do him, boy? Why don't you show them?

Where's your pride? My boy! my boy!--don't you love me any more?

You're a baby, Suvy! You're a baby!” He paused for a moment, following still and watching narrowly. ”Suvy! Suvy! You're gone if you let him ride you, lad! If you love me, boy, don't break my heart with shame!”

Suvy and a hundred men heard his wild, impa.s.sioned appeal. The men responded as if in some pain of the heart they could not escape, thus to see Van Buren so completely wrapped up in his horse. Then some all but groaned to behold the bucking cease.

It seemed as if Suvy had quit. The man in the saddle eased.

”Boy!” yelled Van, in a shrill, startling cry that made the pony s.h.i.+ver. He had seen some sign that no one but himself could understand. ”Boy! not that! not that!”

Already Suvy had started to rise, to drop himself backwards on his rider.

He heard and obeyed. He went up no more than to half his height, then seemed to be struck by a cyclone. Had all the frightful dynamic of an earthquake abruptly focused in his being, the fearful convulsion of his muscles could scarcely have been greater. It was all so sudden, so swift and terrible, that no man beheld how it was done. It was simply a mad delirium of violence, begun and ended while one tumultuous shudder shook the crowd.

Everyone saw something loose and twisting detached from the pony's back. Everyone witnessed a blur upon the air and knew it was the man.

He was flung with catapultic force against a frightened cow. He struck with arms and legs extended. He clung like a bur to the bovine's side, for a moment before he dropped--and everyone roared unfeelingly, in relief of the tension on the nerves.