t, and was now about to show
them that their faith in him was not misplaced.

The horse had come to a sudden stop, legs stretched so wide that it
seemed as if he surely must break in the middle. But he gathered his
feet together so quickly that the next view presented him with his back
arched like a fighting cat's. And there on top of him rode the Duke, his
small brown hat in place, his gay shirt ruffling in the wind.

After that there came, so quickly that it made the mind and eye hasten
to follow, all the tricks that Whetstone ever had tried in his past
triumphs over men; and through all of them, sharp, shrewd, unexpected,
startling as some of them were, that little brown hat rode untroubled on
top. Old Whetstone was as wet at the end of ten minutes as if he had
swum a river. He grunted with anger as he heaved and lashed, he squealed
in his resentful passion as he swerved, lunged, pitched, and clawed the
air.

The little band of spectators cheered the Duke, calling loudly to inform
him that he was the only man who ever had stuck that long. The Duke
waved his hat in acknowledgement, and put it back on with deliberation
and exactness, while old Whetstone, as mad as a wet hen, tried to roll
down suddenly and crush his legs.

Nothing to be accomplished by that old trick. The Duke pulled him up
with a wrench that made him squeal, and Whetstone, lifted off his
forelegs, attempted to complete the backward turn and catch his
tormentor under the saddle. But that was another trick so old that the
simplest horseman knew how to meet it. The next thing he knew, Whetstone
was galloping along like a gentleman, just wind enough in him to carry
him, not an ounce to spare.

Jim Wilder was swearing himself blue. It was a trick, an imposition, he
declared. No circus-rider could come there and abuse old Whetstone that
way and live to eat his dinner. Nobody appeared to share his view of it.
They were a unit in declaring that the Duke beat any man handling a
horse they ever saw. If Whetstone didn't get him off pretty soon, he
would be whipped and conquered, his belly on the ground.

"If he hurts that horse I'll blow a hole in him as big as a can of
salmon!" Jim declared.

"Take your medicine like a man, Jim," Siwash advised. "You might know
somebody'd come along that'd ride him, in time."

"Yes, _come_ along!" said Jim with a sneer.

Whetstone had begun to collect himself out on the flat among the
sagebrush a quarter of a mile aw