, cruel head
upflung, nostrils dilated, but still the man upon his back clung with
maddening persistence. Then he stopped so suddenly that the man was
almost flung over his lowered head and the girls held their breath, but
Andy recovered himself and touching the spurs to the beast's belly, sent
it flying round the corral once more. There was sweat on its body and
the flaring nostrils were blood red with the effort, but the spirit of
the beast was still unbroken.

Around and around the ring he plunged, the other horses galloping wildly
from his path, then suddenly as though the thing on his back had
maddened him past bearing, he began to buck and to plunge and to rear
himself on his hind legs in a desperate effort to throw himself
backward, until it seemed to the fascinated, terrified girls that Andy
Rawlinson surely must be killed.

[Illustration: HE CLUNG TO THE HORSE'S BACK AS THOUGH HE HAD BEEN A PART
OF HIM.

_The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle._ _Page 64_]

But Andy Rawlinson had not spent his twenty-eight years in the saddle
for nothing. He clung to that horse's back as though he had been a part
of him, and when the outraged beast tried to throw himself over backward
for the second time, Andy evidently decided that he had played enough.

A cruel blow of his spurred heel brought the beast almost to its knees
with a whinny of pain. Then it jumped high in the air, and once more
began its furious race with this mysterious and horrible being that
clung so tenaciously to his back.

Andy rode him hard, cruelly hard, and when the beast, panting, sweating,
beaten, would have stopped he dug the spurs in and drove him on, on,
until the broncho's breath came in sobbing gasps and his legs trembled
under him.

Betty, who could never bear to see anything hurt, shouted to Andy
Rawlinson as man and beast came abreast of her:

"Isn't that enough?" she cried. "You've beaten him. Stop! Please
stop!"

And Andy Rawlinson, flashing his pleasant smile, flung himself from his
mount, while the beautiful horse stood there, quivering, head hung in
shame----

"Game hoss, that," said Andy, as he vaulted the low railing and
approached the girls. "Fought like a thoroughbred."

"And you were wonderful," cried Betty, with her warm impulsiveness. "I
never saw finer riding. We were all afraid you were going to be killed."

Andy was pleased, but he looked at Betty rather quizzically.

"Strange," he drawled, with a smile on his face, "st