t
seemed to have entered it. The sound of trampling hoofs thudded on the
hard, sun-baked earth as the bronco came down like a pile-driver,
camel-backed, with legs stiff and unjointed. Skyward it flung itself
again, whirled in the air, and jarred down at an angle. Wildly flapped
the arms of the cattleman. The quirt, wrong end to, danced up and down
clutched in his flying fist. Each moment it looked as if Mr. Dingwell
would take the dust.

The fat stomach of Fox shook with mirth. "Go it, you buckaroo," he
shouted. "You got him pulling leather. Sunfish, you pie-faced cayuse."

The horse in its lunges pounded closer. Fox backed away, momentarily
alarmed. "Here ---- you, hold your brute off. It'll be on top of me
in a minute," he screamed.

Apparently Dingwell had lost all control of the bucker. Somehow he
still stuck to the saddle, by luck rather than skill it appeared. His
arms, working like windmills, went up as Teddy shot into the air again.
The hump-backed weaver came down close to the other horse. At the same
instant Dingwell's loose arm grew rigid and the loaded end of the quirt
dropped on the head of Fox.

The body of Fox relaxed and the rifle slid from his nerveless fingers.
Teddy stopped bucking as if a spring had been touched. Dingwell was on
his own feet before the other knew what had happened. His long arm
plucked the little man from the saddle as if he had been a child.

Still jarred by the blow, Fox looked up with a ludicrous expression on
his fat face. His mind was not yet adjusted to what had taken place.

"I told you to keep the brute away," he complained querulously. "Now,
see what you've done."

Dave grinned. "Looks like I spilled your apple cart. No, don't bother
about that gun. I'll take care of it for you. Much obliged."

Chet's face registered complex emotion. Incredulity struggled with
resentment. "You made that horse buck on purpose," he charged.

"You're certainly a wiz, Chet," drawled the cattleman.

"And that business of being sore at yourself and ashamed was all a
bluff. You were laying back to trick me," went on Fox venomously.

"How did you guess it? Well, don't you care. We're born to trouble as
the sparks fly upward. As for man, his days are as grass. He diggeth
a pit and falleth into it his own self. Likewise he digs a hole and
buries gold, but beholds another guy finds it. See, Second Ananias,
fourteen, twelve."

"That's how you show your gratit