er increased by
what Dick, Nort and their companions, perched up there like rail birds,
did and said. For the punchers, old and young, yelled and yipped at
the steed.

"Come on there, you boneyard bait!" shouted Snake Purdee.

"Faster there, you spavin-eyed son of a Chinaman!" roared Yellin' Kid.

Nort gave vent to a shrill whistle, while Dick, drawing his big
revolver, fired several shots in the air.

All this had the effect of further alarming the already startled pony
and when it neared the place where Bud was perched on the top rail,
ready to make a flying leap, the animal was, as Old Billee had said,
"all a-lather."

"Bud is crazy to try anything like that!" exclaimed Nell in a low
voice. Nevertheless she did not call out to stop him, and her cheeks
showed rosy pink and her eyes were sparkling in the excitement of the
moment.

"Go on, now! Ride 'im, cowboy!" came in stentorian tones from Yellin'
Kid.

"Oh, I hope he makes it!" voiced Nell, clenching her hands so tightly
that the nails bit into her palms.

A moment later, as the pony rushed around the confused bunch of its
fellows in the center of the corral, Bud leaped for its back, for the
animal was now opposite him. The pony carried only a blanket strapped
around its middle. And there was nothing for the venturesome rider, or
would-be rider, to cling to but this strap or blanket.

"If there was a saddle, Bud could make it!" whispered Nell in her
excitement. "I guess that's why he must have fallen the other times."

For upon his clothes and person Bud Merkel bore unmistakable signs and
evidences of having fallen not once but several times in the corral
dust.

"Wow!" yelled Dick Shannon.

"He's on!" cried his brother Nort.

"And off ag'in!" roared Yellin' Kid.

Bud had made the leap from the fence, his hands, for a moment, had
grasped the strap around the pony and then his fingers had slipped off.
Likewise the one leg he managed to throw over the steed's back seemed
to be about to slide off.

But just when it seemed that Bud would fall to the ground, his fingers,
in a last, despairing grip, caught a fold of the blanket. By a supreme
effort he pulled himself up, managed to get one leg over the ridge-like
backbone of the pony and, a moment later, he was sitting upright on the
saddle blanket, both hands under the strap, while his heels played a
tattoo on the sides of the steed, urging him forward at even faster
speed.

"By golly, he done