Part 22 (1/2)
The Colonel growled something about ”a lot of fools to let up on the training after that Yellowbank trial.”
Hartigan was standing near; gloomy, but not so gloomy as the rest; and when there came a chance to be heard, he said: ”Colonel, once I see a horse close to, in fair daylight, I can always remember him afterward.
I've been looking over their buckskin cayuse, and it's _not the same one_ we raced in the Yellowbank.”
The Colonel turned quickly around. ”Are you sure?”
”Absolutely certain,” was the answer.
”My goodness--you are right. I distrusted the whole business from the start. You are right; they fooled us on a stool-pigeon; this whole thing was a put-up job. The simple Red man!”
The ”perchers” were gathered at the blacksmith shop next afternoon.
”Well,” said s.h.i.+ves, ”I've done fifteen dollars' worth of work to-day and haven't taken in a cent.” The audience grunted and he went on.
”Every tap of it was for broken-down b.u.ms trying to get out of town--skinned by the simple Red man. Horses shod, tires set, bolts fixed, all kinds of cripplements. All they want is help to get out, get out; at any price get out. Well, it'll do you good, the whole caboodle of ye. Ye started out to do, and got done--everlastingly soaked.” The blacksmith chuckled. ”Serve you all right. I'm glad ye got it.”
As Hartigan appeared, swinging a big stick and singing ”The Wearing of the Green,” s.h.i.+ves asked: ”Well, Jim, how much did you lose?”
”Nothing,” sang Hartigan cheerfully; ”I don't bet”; and he went on singing, ”'Tis the most distressful country this that ever yet was seen.”
”Lucky dog! All the sports round this neck o' the woods are ruined. They say no gentleman will bet on a sure thing. H'm, maybe not. Well, fellows, cheer up; no man ever yet was made, until he had been ruined a couple of times; and all I hope is that the Reds will get up another race and soak ye to the limit. Then maybe some o' ye will brace up and be men; but I dunno.”
”Guess they've soaked us to the limit now,” was the general voice of those a.s.sembled.
Poor Higginbotham had gone in rather strong for him, in spite of his wife, and there was no blue sky in his world, or prospect of it.
Then they turned on Hartigan, who was going through the movements of singlestick, on the open floor. ”Was he white, or wasn't he? How could he stand by and see the whole settlement skinned alive by Red Injins when he had the game in his own hands? Why didn't he enter Blazing Star?
He didn't seem to take much interest in the affair, probably he wanted the Red skins to win.” The jibe stung Jim to the quick; he ceased his exuberant exercise; the song died on his lips, and he strode away in silence.
CHAPTER XXIX
The Riders
It is the continual boast of the cowboys that they are the best riders on earth. It is the continual boast also of Cossack, Boer, Australian, Gaucho, and all who live on and by the horse. And when we sift the claim of each of those named we find that it is founded wholly on this, that they can sit on the back of any steed, however wild, and defy all its efforts to dislodge them. All their standards are designed to show the power of the man to overpower the horse. But there is one very large consideration that seems not to enter their consciousness at all, and that is how to get the best out of the horse--to develop and utilize, not crush its power. We undoubtedly find this idea best established in the riding schools of Europe. In these grammar schools violence is forbidden, almost unknown. For a man to fight with his horse would be a disgrace; to abuse or over-ride him--a shame; to lade him with a three-pound bit and a thirty-pound saddle--a confession of inability to control or stay on. In every part of the world where the horse has been developed, it has been in exact ratio with the creed of the riding schools. No one that has seen both cla.s.ses of riders can have a doubt that the best hors.e.m.e.n in the world are those of Europe, who control the horse with skill--not brute force. The cowboys are mere broncho-busters.
Hartigan had gathered not a little of true horse learning in his early days, and he was disgusted now to see how lightly and cheaply the westerner held his horse. ”Break him down and get another” was the method in vogue; and the test of a rider was, ”Can he ride a horse to death?” The thirty-pound saddle used was an evidence of the intent and a guarantee of the result. As soon as he could afford it, Jim sent back to Chicago for an English pad, the kind he was used to, and thus he cut his riding weight down by nearly twenty pounds. Then there arrived at Fort Ryan a travelling inspector, who spent a month teaching the men the latest ideas in the care of horses. Among the tricks was the ”flat ambush.” This is how it is done: With reins in the left hand, and that hand in the mane at the withers, you stand at the nigh shoulder; lift the nigh front foot in your right hand till the hoof is near the horse's elbow; pull the horse toward you with the left hand in the mane; talk gently; pull, and press. If your horse trusts you, he will gradually bend over toward you; lower his body to the ground; and at last lie flat, head and all, with the animal's legs away from you. Behind the horse's body the rifleman may squat, shoot from cover, and have an ample breastwork if the animal is trained to ”stand the gun.” It is a pretty trick, though of less practical use than was expected. It is, however, a quick measure of the horse's confidence in the rider; and it speaks well for the 99th Cavalry that more than half the horses learned it in a week. This was a new game to Hartigan, and he found a fresh joy in it as an excuse for fussing around the stable and playing with his horse.
October came in with glory on the hills. The plains were golden in their autumn gra.s.s, and on a wonderful day in the early part of the month Hartigan and Belle went riding down the canyon.
Belle had a scheme for coordinating their church work with that of the Baptists and Presbyterians, both represented now in their town of fifteen hundred inhabitants. But before she could get it laid before Jim, he was extolling the quick responsiveness of Blazing Star, and must needs demonstrate the latest accomplishment the horse had learned. That over, Belle resurrected her plan; but a gunshot at Fort Ryan switched the current of his thoughts to the eventful race.
Belle changed the subject and unfolded a scheme for getting all the Bylow children into the Cedar Mountain school the coming winter. They had just come to a little twelve-foot cut-bank gully, and Jim exclaimed: ”Now, Belle, just watch him take it,” and over they sailed, the perfection of grace. ”I tell you, Belle,” he went on, ”it was a great idea to get that eastern pad. I've cut down my riding weight nearly twenty pounds by dropping all that gear. Blazing Star can clear six inches higher and go a foot farther in a jump, and I'll bet it gives him one hundred feet in a mile run.”
Again Belle harked back to the school project. ”It could be done for half the teacher's salary and every one of the neglected children might get a chance. It all depends on the att.i.tude that School Trustee Higginbotham takes. My idea is to approach him through Hannah. She has a mighty level head, and if you and Dr. Jebb----”
”Oh! look at this coyote!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hartigan. ”I must give him a run”; and away he went. For half a mile there was an open flat, and the superior speed of the horse reduced the distance, at a very rapid rate.
But the coyote reached a gully and disappeared with the quickness and cleverness of its race. Hartigan came galloping back.