Scotty polished his glasses excitedly. He was wondering how the sleek young men with whom he would soon be mingling in the city would go at a job like that; and he smiled absently.
To "snub" the bronco up to the post so that he could scarcely turn his head was an easy matter. To exchange the bridle to the new mount was also comparatively simple. To adjust the great saddle, with the unwilling victim struggling like mad, was a more difficult task; but eventually all these came to pass, and Ben paused a moment to inspect his handiwork. To a tenderfoot observer it might have seemed that the battle was about over; but as a matter of fact it had scarcely begun. To chronicle on paper that a certain person on a certain day rode a certain bronco for the first time sounds commonplace; but to one who has seen the deviltry lurking in those wild prairie ponies' eyes, who knows their dogged fighting disposition, the reality is very different.
Only a moment Ben Blair paused. Almost before Scotty had got his spectacles back to his nose he saw the long figure spring into the saddle, observed that the lariat which had held the bronco helpless to the post had been removed, and knew that the fight was on in earnest.
And emphatically it was on. With his first leap the pony went straight into the air, to come down with a mighty jolt, stiff-legged; but Ben Blair sat through it apparently undisturbed. If ever an animal showed surprise it was the buckskin then. For an instant he paused, looked back at the motionless rider with eyes that seemed almost green, then suddenly started away at full speed around the corral as though Satan himself were in pursuit.
Instantly with the diminutive horse swift anger took the place of surprise. Scotty, the spectator, could read it in the tightening of the rippling muscles beneath the skin, in the toss of the sleek head. Fear had passed long ago, if the little beast had ever really known the sensation. It was now merely animal against animal, dogged obstinacy against dogged tenacity, a fight until one or the other gave in, no quarter asked or accepted.
As before, the bronco was the aggressor. One by one, so swiftly that they formed a continuous movement, he tried all the tricks which instinct or ingenuity suggested. He bucked, his hind-quarters in the air until it seemed he would reverse. He reared up until his front feet were on the level of a man's head, until Scotty held his breath for fear the animal would lose his balance backward; but when he resumed the normal he found the man, ever relentless, firmly in place, impassively awaiting the next move. He grew more furious with each failure. The sweat oozed out in drops that became trickling streams beneath the short hair. His breath came more quickly, whistling through the wide nostrils. A new light came into the gray-green eyes and flashed from them fiendishly. As suddenly as he had made his previous attacks he played his last trump. Like a ball of lead he dropped in his tracks and tried to roll; but the great saddle prevented, and when he sprang up again, there, as firmly seated as before, was the hated man upon his back.