wn after having sat the beast superbly. The miners were warming
to the old roan. Many of them had never seen a pitching broncho before,
and their delight led to loud whoops and jovial outcries.

"Bully boy, roan! Shake 'em off!"

Denver Dan tried him next and sat him, haughtily contemptuous, till he
stopped, quivering with fatigue and reeking with sweat.

"Oh, well!" yelled a big miner, "that ain't a fair shake for the pony;
you should have took him when he was fresh." And the crowd sustained him
in it.

"Here comes one that is fresh," called the marshal, and into the arena
came a wicked-eyed, superbly-fashioned black roan horse, plainly wild
and unbroken, led by two cowboys, one on either side.

Joe Grassi shook a handfull of bills down at the crowd. "Here's a
hundred dollars to the man who'll set that pony three minutes by the
watch."

"This is no place to tackle such a brute as that," said Reynolds.

Mose was looking straight ahead with a musing look in his eyes.

Denver Dan walked out. "I need that hundred dollars; nail it to a post
for a few minutes, will ye?"

This was no tricky old cow pony, but a natively vicious, powerful, and
cunning young horse. While the cowboys held him Dan threw off his coat
and hat and bound a bandanna over the bronchos's head and pulled it down
over his eyes. Laying the saddle on swiftly, but gently, he cinched it
strongly. With determined and vigorous movement, he thrust the bit into
his mouth.

"Slack away!" he called to the ropers. The horse, nearly dead for lack
of breath, drew a deep sigh.

Haney called out: "Stand clear, everybody, clear the road!"

And casting one rope to the ground, Dan swung into the saddle.

For just an instant the horse crouched low and waited--then shot into
the air with a tigerish bound and fell stiff-legged. Again and again he
flung his head down, humped his back, and sprang into the air grunting
and squealing with rage and fear. Dan sat him, but the punishment made
him swear. Suddenly the horse dropped and rolled, hoping to catch his
rider unawares. Dan escaped by stepping to the ground, but he was white,
and the blood was oozing slowly from his nose. As the brute arose, Dan
was in the saddle. With two or three tremendous bounds, the horse flung
himself into the air like a high-vaulting acrobat, landing so near the
fence that Dan, swerving far to the left, was unseated, and sprawled low
in the dust while the squealing broncho went down the t