ue; and the test of a rider was, "Can he ride a horse to
death?" The thirty-pound saddle used was an evidence of the intent and a
guarantee of the result. As soon as he could afford it, Jim sent back to
Chicago for an English pad, the kind he was used to, and thus he cut his
riding weight down by nearly twenty pounds. Then there arrived at Fort
Ryan a travelling inspector, who spent a month teaching the men the
latest ideas in the care of horses. Among the tricks was the "flat
ambush." This is how it is done: With reins in the left hand, and that
hand in the mane at the withers, you stand at the nigh shoulder; lift
the nigh front foot in your right hand till the hoof is near the horse's
elbow; pull the horse toward you with the left hand in the mane; talk
gently; pull, and press. If your horse trusts you, he will gradually
bend over toward you; lower his body to the ground; and at last lie
flat, head and all, with the animal's legs away from you. Behind the
horse's body the rifleman may squat, shoot from cover, and have an ample
breastwork if the animal is trained to "stand the gun." It is a pretty
trick, though of less practical use than was expected. It is, however, a
quick measure of the horse's confidence in the rider; and it speaks well
for the 99th Cavalry that more than half the horses learned it in a
week. This was a new game to Hartigan, and he found a fresh joy in it as
an excuse for fussing around the stable and playing with his horse.

October came in with glory on the hills. The plains were golden in their
autumn grass, and on a wonderful day in the early part of the month
Hartigan and Belle went riding down the canyon.

Belle had a scheme for cooerdinating their church work with that of the
Baptists and Presbyterians, both represented now in their town of
fifteen hundred inhabitants. But before she could get it laid before
Jim, he was extolling the quick responsiveness of Blazing Star, and must
needs demonstrate the latest accomplishment the horse had learned. That
over, Belle resurrected her plan; but a gunshot at Fort Ryan switched
the current of his thoughts to the eventful race.

Belle changed the subject and unfolded a scheme for getting all the
Bylow children into the Cedar Mountain school the coming winter. They
had just come to a little twelve-foot cut-bank gully, and Jim exclaimed:
"Now, Belle, just watch him take it," and over they sailed, the
perfection of grace. "I tell you, Belle," he went on