ll right for a short dash--but the youngsters have the
best wind--they get him on the mile course."

In the trained pony contest the old horse redeemed himself. He knelt at
command, laid out flat while Mose crouched behind, and at the word "Up!"
sprang to his feet and waited--then with his master clinging to his
mane he ran in a circle or turned to right or left at signal. All the
tricks which the cavalry had taught their horses, Mose, in years on the
trail, had taught Kintuck. He galloped on three legs and waltzed like a
circus horse. He seemed to know exactly what his master said to him.

A man with a big red beard came up to Mose as he rode off the track and
said:

"What'll you take for that horse?"

Mose gave him a savage glance. "He ain't for sale."

The broncho-busting contest Mose declined.

"How's that?" inquired Haney, who hated to see his favorite "gig back"
at a point where his courage could be tested.

"I've busted all the bronchos for fun I'm going to," Mose replied.

Dan called in a sneering tone: "Bring on your varmints. I'm not dodgin'
mean cayuses to-day."

Mose could not explain that for Mary's sake he was avoiding all danger.
There was risk in the contest and he knew it, and he couldn't afford to
take it.

"That's all right!" he sullenly replied. "I'll be with you later in the
game."

A wall-eyed roan pony, looking dull and stupid, was led before the
stand. Saddled and bridled he stood dozing while the crowd hooted with
derision.

"Don't make no mistake!" shouted Haney; "he's the meanest critter on the
upper fork."

A young lad named Jimmy Kincaid first tackled the job, and as he ran
alongside and tried the cinch, the roan dropped an ear back--the ear
toward Jimmy, and the knowing ones giggled with glee. "He's wakin'up!
Look out, Jim!"

The lad gathered the reins in his left hand, seized the pommel with his
right, and then the roan disclosed his true nature. He was an old rebel.
He did not waste his energies on common means. He plunged at once into
the most complicated, furious, and effective bucking he could devise,
almost without moving out of his tracks--and when the boy, stunned and
bleeding at the nose, sprawled in the dust, the roan moved away a few
steps and dozed, panting and tense, apparently neither angry nor
frightened.

One of the Reynolds gang tried him next and "stayed with him" till he
threw himself. When he arose the rider failed to secure his stirrups and
was thro