nds' expense, but was in no mood to receive amiably jests directed
against himself.

"Whar's you-all's horse?" he shouted, in exasperation, to one of his
tormentors. "Ah reckon no one would len' you anythin' mo' vallyble 'n a
billy-goat. Now dry up. Pete, start this thing."

He rode to the end of the passage where the horsemen were gathering.
Alf Lance, Melissa's father, whose horses Bud and Pink were riding,
scanned them both to make sure that they were not too drunk to be
trusted with his animals.

Pete fussed about nervously.

"Which o' you gents will begin dis pullin'?" he called. "Now, sahs,
come on."

Pink pushed his horse towards the edge of the crowd, but he was hailed
with dissuasive cries.

"Aw, hold on, Pink."

"Don' be so bigoty."

"Who you-all think ye are?"

"Where's Bob Morgan?"

"Yes, Bob's the feller!"

"O-oh, Bob!"

It was their tribute to the Doctor, this giving precedence to his son,
and Bob so understood it. It was, therefore, irritating to have Pink
thrust forward his red face and look him over sneeringly.

"Aw, gwan," he cried, "lessee what you-all c'n do."

The bunch of horsemen fell to one side, and Bob started Gray Eagle from
well back in the field near the deserted wagons. He passed the mounted
men and thundered through the lines of standing howlers. The gray had
been his master's coadjutor in so many situations of excitement and
even peril, that the cheering mob did not provoke him unduly. He
galloped, unswervingly, up to the hanging goose, though his ears were
pricked forward, and he shuddered as the instinctive repulsion from
death pulsed through him. Bob's outstretched hand grasped the long and
slippery neck, while the inarticulate yell with which the Southern
farmer calls his dogs and chases his cows and terrifies his enemies
went up from the onlookers. Tightly he clutched the greasy thing, and
tried to give a sharp twist that should break the vertebrae. But his
hand slipped swiftly down to the flat head, which offered no hold for
his grasp, the beak ripped through his fingers, and the sapling, which
had bent and followed him as Gray Eagle dashed on, snapped back, waving
triumphantly its unharmed burden.

"Hard lines, old man, but the fun lasts longer so," cried Wendell, as
Bob pulled up beside him after circling the spectators.

"Who's that?" the New Yorker asked, as a lank country horse plunged
down the lane, shied violently at the feathered horror, threw his rider