Part 64 (1/2)
”Go ahead”
”Look out now”----
”Right” But your voice is not what it ought to be, and the soles of your boots are rattling on the flat part of the stirrup-irons
The chap draws the handkerchief from the colt's eyes, and walks backward
The colt catches sight of your left foot, and skips three yards to the right
In doing so, he catches sight of the other foot, and skips to the left
Then everything disappears from in front of the saddle--the wicked ears, now laid level backward--the black, tangledcurve of a circular saw--the clean, oblique shoulders--they have all disappeared, and there is nothing in front of the saddle but a precipice There is soh
How distinctly you note the grunting of the colt, the thuratuitous counsel addressed to you in four calmly critical voices:--
”Lean back a bit ive with him”
”Don't ride so loose if you can help it, Tom”
”Hold yourself well doith the reins, and stick to him, Tom”
”Stick to him, Tom, whatever you do”
Ay! stick to him! Stick to the lever of a steaer! Stick to the two--of-war rope, when an Irish quarryman, named Bamey, has hold of the other end! Stick to him, quotha! Easier said than done--is it not? And yet you've been riding all nificance of that expression) since you were a ood solid sixty seconds; now, one of your knees has slipped over the pad, and your stirrup is swinging loose Good night, sweet prince
And away circles the colt, slapping at the bit with his front feet, whilst your historic saddle shi+nes in the sun, and the stirrup-irons occasionally o two of the chaps on their bits of stuff Meanwhile, you explain to the other two that the spill serves you right for riding so carelessly; and that, though your soul lusts to have it out with the colt, a stringent appointment in the townshi+p will force you to clear as soon as you can get your saddle Such is life
Satan approached, carrying his negatively gifted rider, at a free, flying canter; his gregarious instinct pro him to join my horses
His tawny skin was streaked with foahtly stained from the repeated puncture of Jack's spur Ten yards from where I had pulled up, he suddenly sulked, and stood
”Good , Jack”
”Well, I be dash!+ Did n't know you from a crow! Reckoned some member o' Parliament, or bishop, or somebody, had bin swappin' horses with you
You are coive me the letter, with the three notes in it; but I couldn't make head or tail of it about the saddle No more could n't Moriarty”
”I'll explain all that to you so on with Satan?”
”Bad,” replied Jack huh steady hiits a spell, you jist got to steady hiot so the horse's side with his spur--”he's goin' to laydown, an'backward, he reached down to grip the sensitivewith his body The maddened beast shot past me like a yellow streak for another ten yards; then, with a flaring bound and a snort that was between a whistle and a shriek, spun half-round in the air, and alighted rigidly on his front feet, his ears between his knees, and his neck and back describing a vertical semicircle, with the saddle and Jack on the centre of its forward curve
”Jist his style,” continued Jack dejectedly ”Never be worth a dash for general”----I lost the next word or two, for the young fellow's face was buried in the mass of silverpoint; and the next word, again, was dislocated by a blow from the crupper buckle, just below the speaker's shoulder-blade
”An' Magomery wants a person to make a lady's hack out o' sich an outlawr as him!” he continued, in hopeless protest, whilst the 'outlawr'
exerted his iron muscles to the utood horse, too; on'y spoiled with--Jist look at that!” Satan had suddenly gathered his lithe, powerful lie, spinning round, every thirty yards, in two or three terrific bucks ”I don't want to sawr his y--”I'll see you agen by-'n'-by----
”Away on the evergreen shore, probably,” I soliloquised, resu in the saddle, and pushi+ng upcontest I saw Jack wrench the horse aside from the timber; whereupon the animal reared rather too rashly, and just saved hi on his quarters and flapping down on one side When his broadside touched ground, Jack was standing beside him; and when he leaped to his feet, Jack was in the saddle Exeunt fighting