ed took their breaths and kept them speechless. The
first touch of his rider's weight sent the stallion mad, not blind with
fear as most horses go, but raging with a devilish cunning like that of
an insane man, a thing that made the blood run cold to watch. He stood a
moment shuddering, as if the strange truth were slowly dawning on his
brute mind; then he bolted straight for the barriers. Woodbury braced
himself and lunged back on the reins, but he might as well have tugged
at the mooring cable of a great ship; the bit was in the monster's
teeth.

Then a whisper reached the rider, a universal hushing of drawn breath,
for the thousands were tasting the first thrill and terror of the
combat. They saw a picture of horse and man crushed against the barrier.
But there was no such stupid rage in the mind of the stallion.

At the last moment he swerved and raced close beside the fence; some
projecting edge caught the trousers of Woodbury and ripped away the
stout cloth from hip to heel. He swung far to the other side and
wrenched back the reins. With stiff-braced legs the stallion slid to a
halt that flung his unbalanced rider forward along his neck. Before he
could straighten himself in the saddle, the horse roared and came down
on rigid forelegs, yet by a miracle Woodbury clung, sprawled down the
side of the monster, to be sure, but was not quite dismounted.

Another pitch of the same nature would have freed the stallion from his
rider beyond doubt, but he elected to gallop full speed ahead the length
of the arena, and during that time, Woodbury, stunned though he was,
managed to drag himself back into the saddle. The end of the race was a
leap into the air that would have cleared a five-bar fence, and down
pitched the fighting horse on braced legs again. Woodbury's chin snapped
down against his breast as though he had been struck behind the head
with a heavy bar, but though his brain was stunned, the fighting
instinct remained strong in him and when the stallion reared and toppled
back the rider slipped from the saddle in the nick of time.

Fourteen hundred pounds of raging horseflesh crashed into the sawdust;
he rolled like a cat to his feet, but at the same instant a flying
weight leaped through the air and landed in the saddle. The audience
awoke to sound--to a dull roar of noise; a thin trickle of blood ran
from Woodbury's mouth and it seemed that the mob knew it and was yelling
for a death.

There followed a bewi