own again with two ropes on his legs.

Haig, dusty but uninjured, was on his feet in a jiffy, and leaning
over the thwarted outlaw.

"You didn't really think you could do it again, did you?" he said.

"But he's a hellyun, though, ain't he!" ejaculated Curly, bracing
himself on his rope.

The horse was allowed to rise; Haig climbed cautiously into the saddle
once more; and the same tense silence as the first ensued, while
Sunnysides waited, as if for inspiration.

Then it was on as before, but with accentuated fury. The horse, for
his opening demonstration, bucked with his back curved like a steel
bow. Haig was almost propelled into the air, but hung on desperately;
and as the outlaw came down on stiffened legs Haig jabbed the spurs
viciously into his flanks. For Sunnysides had been too calculating in
his measures; it was desirable to stir him up, to anger him, to
torment him until he should wear himself out with his furious
struggles.

The spurs did it. In an instant Sunnysides was a demon. All that he
had done was like the antics of a colt compared with what followed. No
eye in the corral could follow and record all his movements. He was in
every part of the enclosure at once, it seemed. There were instants,
too, when he appeared to have disassociated himself from the earth,
and to have taken to the air as his element. And then the earth rang
again with the clatter of his hoofs; his four legs became a hundred,
and then were four again, pounding like piledrivers, like steel
drills. He flung himself against the fence until it swayed and
creaked, and Haig's legs were bruised by the violent contact. Clouds
of dust rose and hung above the enclosure, and settled on the outlaw's
wet shoulders, on Haig's sweating face, in his eyes and nostrils, and
in his throat until he was fairly choking. But though half-blinded,
dizzy, and aching in all his body, Haig hung on, and dug the spurs
ceaselessly into the horse's flanks.

"God! He's got him!" cried Farrish.

"Your game's up!" yelled Curly tauntingly, dancing with joy in his
corner of the corral.

But the game was not up. Curly's words were barely out of his mouth
when something went wrong with Haig. Just what happened none could be
quite sure of, then or afterward; but in the midst of Sunnysides'
plungings, there came a windmill kind of movement, rather like the
whirling of a dervish, out of which the horse lunged swiftly forward,
and halted violently, with his head do