k his ears and squealed as he
scored some other horse with his teeth, then lashed out with wicked
heels.

"I reckon that'll be Blue?" Harris asked of Evans and the lanky one
nodded. The men scattered round the corral and each watched his chance
to put his rope on some chosen horse. The roan kept others always
between himself and any man with a rope but at last he passed Harris
with but one horse between. Harris nipped his noose across the back of
the intervening horse and over the blue roan's head.

Blue stopped the instant the rope tightened on his neck.

"You've been busted and rope-burnt a time or two," Harris remarked, and
he led the horse out to saddle him. The big blue leaned back,
crouching on his haunches as the man put on the hackamore. His eyes
rolled wickedly as Harris smoothed the saddle blanket and he flinched
away with a whistling snort of fear, his nostrils flaring, as the heavy
saddle was thrown on his back.

Harris tightened the front cinch and the blue horse braced himself and
drew in a long, deep breath.

"That's right, Blue, you swell up and inflate yourself," Harris said.
"I'll have to squeeze it out of you." He fastened the hind cinch
loosely, then returned to the front and hauled on the latigo until the
pressure forced the horse to release the indrawn breath and it leaked
out of him with a groaning sigh.

"I wonder now why Morrow is whetting his tommyhawk for me," Harris
remarked as he inspected the big roan. "You're a hard one, Blue. I'll
let that saddle warm up on you before I top you off."

Every horse pitched a few jumps from force of habit when first mounted,
some of them indifferently, others viciously, then moved restlessly
around, anxious for the start.

"Well, step up on him and let's be going," Morrow ordered surlily.

Harris took a short hold on the rope reins of the hackamore with his
left hand, cramped the horse's head toward him and gripped the mane,
his right hand on the horn, and swung gently to the saddle, easing into
it without a jar.

"Easy, Blue!" he said, holding up the big roan's head. "Don't you hang
your head with me." He eased the horse to a jerky start and they were
off for Brill's at a shuffling trot. Three times in the first mile
Blue bunched himself nervously and made a few stiff jumps but each time
Harris held him steady. The pace was increased to a long, swinging
trot and he felt the play of powerful muscles under him as the blue
horse seemed