their way, Bob was aware of subdued hilarity among
the bronzed wearers of chaps. He attended strictly to business.

Just before he pulled himself to the saddle Bob felt a momentary qualm at
the solar plexus. He did not give this time to let it deter him. His feet
settled into the stirrups. An instant violent earthquake disturbed his
equilibrium. A shock jarred him from the base of the spine to the neck.
Urgently he flew through space.

Details of the landscape gathered themselves together again. From a
corner of the corral Bob looked out upon a world full of grinning faces.
A sick dismay rose in him and began to submerge his heart. They were glad
he had been thrown. The earth was inhabited by a race of brutal and
truculent savages. What was the use of trying? He could never hold out
against them.

Out of the mists of memory he heard a wheezy voice issuing from a great
bulk of a man--"... yore red haid's covered with glory. Snap it up!" The
words came so clear that for an instant he was startled. He looked round
half expecting to see Blister.

Stiffly he gathered himself out of the snow slush. A pain jumped in the
left shoulder. He limped to the rope and coiled it. The first cast
captured the sorrel.

His limbs were trembling when he dropped into the saddle. With both hands
he clung to the horn. Up went the bronco on its hind legs. It pitched,
bucked, sun-fished. In sheer terror Bob clung like a leech. The animal
left the ground and jolted down stiff-legged on all fours. The impact was
terrific. He felt as though a piledriver had fallen on his head and
propelled his vital organs together like a concertina. Before he could
set himself the sorrel went up again with a weaving, humpbacked twist.
The rider shot from the saddle.

When the scenery had steadied itself for Dillon he noticed languidly a
change in one aspect of it. The faces turned toward him were no longer
grinning. They were watching him expectantly. What would he do now?

They need not look at him like that. He was through. If he got on the
back of that brute again it would kill him. Already he was bleeding at
the nose and ears. Sometimes men died just from the shock of being tossed
about so furiously.

The sorrel was standing by itself at the other end of the corral. Its
head was drooping languidly. The bronco was a picture of injured
innocence.

Bob discovered that he hated it with an impotent lust to destroy. If he
had a gun with him--Out of the a