"Will you shut up?" Wallie looked at him with steely eyes, and there was a glint in them that silenced Pink.
He waited, wonderingly, to see what it all meant. The battle between man and horse continued while they watched from the high bank. In terrified protest the animal snorted, reared, whirled, while the rider plied the quirt mercilessly and spurred. Finally the sting of leather, the pain of sharp steel, and the stronger will won out, and the trembling horse commenced to take the water.
Pinkey muttered, as, fascinated, he looked on: "I've no idea that he knows enough to quit his horse on the down-stream side. He'll wash under, tangle up, and be drowned before we get a chanst to snake him out. He's a gone goslin' right now."
Cautiously, a few inches to a step, the horse advanced.
"There! He's in the boulders! Watch him flounder! Look at him slip--he's hit the current! Good-night--he's down--no, he's goin' to ketch himself! Watch him fight! Good ol' horse--good ol' horse!" Pinkey was beside himself with excitement now. "He's lost his feet--he's swimmin'--strikin' out for the shore--too swift, and the fool don't know enough to give him his head!"
They followed along the bank as the current swept horse and rider down.
"He swims too high--he's playin' out--there's so much mud he'll choke up quick. It'll soon be over now." Pinkey's face wore a queer, half-frightened grin. "Fifty yards more and----"
Wallie commenced to uncoil his saddle rope.
"You goin' to drag him out?"
Wallie made no answer but touched his horse and galloped until he was ahead of Canby and the drowning horse. Making a megaphone of his hands he yelled.
Canby lifted his wild eyes to the bank.
"Throw me a rope!" he shrieked.
A slow, tantalizing smile came to Wallie's face. Very distinctly he called back: "How much damages will you give me for driving your cattle into my wheat?"
"Not a damn cent!"
The rope Wallie had been swinging about his head to test the loop promptly dropped.
The horse was swimming lower at every stroke.
"Five hundred!" Fear and rage were in Canby's choking voice.
"Put another cipher on that to cover my mental anguish!" Wallie mocked.
The horse was exhausting itself rapidly with its efforts merely to keep its nose out, making no further attempt to swim toward the bank. Canby slapped water in its face in the hope of turning it, but it was too late. Its breathing could be heard plainly and its distended nostrils were blood-red.
Many things passed swiftly through Canby's calculating mind in the few seconds that remained for him to decide.