ho pointed out ahead.

"There's Batty's place," said he, "an' there's Batty himself. Git up,
quick; git up, an' ride in like a gentleman. It's bad luck to walk."

Franklin laughed, and, taking the reins, swung himself into the saddle
with the ease of the cavalry mount, though with the old-fashioned grasp
at the cantle, with the ends of the reins in his right hand.

"Well, that's a d----d funny way gittin' on top of a hoss," said Curly.
"Are you 'fraid the saddle's goin' to git away from you? Better be
'fraid 'bout the hoss.--Git up, Bronch!"

He slapped the horse on the hip with his hat, and gave the latter a whirl
in the air with a shrill "Whoooop-eee!" which was all that remained
needful to set the horse off on a series of wild, stiff-legged
plunges--the "bucking" of which Franklin had heard so much; a manoeuvre
peculiar to the half-wild Western horses, and one which is at the first
experience a desperately difficult one for even a skilful horseman to
overcome. It perhaps did not occur to Curly that he was inflicting any
hardship upon the newcomer, and perhaps he did not really anticipate what
followed on the part either of the horse or its rider. Had Franklin not
been a good rider, and accustomed to keeping his head while sitting
half-broken mounts, he must have suffered almost instantaneous defeat in
this sudden encounter. The horse threw his head down far between his
fore legs at the start, and then went angling and zigzagging away over
the hard ground in a wild career of humpbacked antics, which jarred
Franklin to the marrow of his bones. The air became scintillant and
luminously red. His head seemed filled with loose liquid, his spine
turned into a column of mere gelatine. The thudding of the hoofs was so
rapid and so punishing to his senses that for a moment he did not realize
where he actually was. Yet with the sheer instinct of horsemanship he
clung to the saddle in some fashion, until finally he was fairly forced
to relax the muscular strain, and so by accident fell into the secret of
the seat--loose, yielding, not tense and strung.

"Go it, go it--whooop-e-e-e!" cried Curly, somewhere out in a dark world.
"Ee-eikee-hooo! Set him fair, pardner! Set him fair, now! Let go that
leather! Ride him straight up! That's right!"

Franklin had small notion of Curly's locality, but he heard his voice,
half taunting and half encouraging, and calling on all his pluck as he
saw some hope of a successful