"Something doing back of the corral, Mr. Gordon."
Yeager, the horse-wrangler at Corbett's, stopped in front of the porch, and jerked his head, with a twisted grin, in the direction indicated.
Everything about the little stableman was crooked. From the slope of his legs to the set of his bullet head on the narrow shoulders, he was awry. But he had an instinct about horses that was worth more than the beauty of any slim, tanned vaquero of the lot.
Only one horse had he failed to subdue. That was Teddy, a rakish sorrel that had never yet been ridden. Many had tried it, but none had stuck to the saddle to the finish; and some had been carried from the corral to the hospital.
Dick got up and strolled back, with his hands in his pockets.
A dozen vaqueros and loungers sat and stood around the mouth of the corral, from which a slim young Mexican was leading the sorrel.
"So, it's you, Master Pedro," thought the young American. "I didn't expect to see you here."
The lad met his eyes quietly as he passed, giving him a sullen nod of greeting; evidently he hoped he had not been recognized as the previous day's ambusher.
"Is Pedro going to ride the outcast?" Dick asked of Yeager, in surprise.
Yeager grinned.
"He's going to try. The boy's slap-up rider, but he ain't got it in him to break Teddy--no, nor any man in New Mexico ain't."
Dick looked the horse over carefully, as it stood there while the boy tightened the girths--feet wide apart, small head low, and red eyes gleaming wickedly. Deep-chested, with mighty shoulders, barrel-bodied like an Indian pony, Teddy showed power in every line of him. It was easy to guess him for the unbroken outlaw he was.
There was a swift scatter backward of the onlookers as Pedro swung to the saddle. Before his right foot was in the stirrup, the bronco bucked.
The young Mexican, light and graceful, settled to the saddle with a delighted laugh, and drove the spurs home. The animal humped like a camel, head and tail down, went into the air and back to earth, with four feet set like pile-drivers. It was a shock to drive a man's spine together like a concertina; but Pedro took it limply, giving to the jar of the impact as the pony came down again and again.
Teddy tasted the quirt along his quarters, and the pain made him frantic. He went screaming straight into the air, hung there a long instant, and fell over backward. The lad was out of the saddle in time and no more, and back in his seat before the outlaw had scrambled to his feet.