n the corral dust, where he lay still. The horse,
rid of his enemy, leaped again; then with catlike quickness and devilish
cunning whirled, and with wicked teeth bared and vicious, blazing eyes,
rushed for the helpless man on the ground.

With a yell Bob spurred to put himself between the bay and his victim,
but had there been time the move would have been useless, for no horse
could have withstood that mad charge. The vicious brute was within a
bound of his victim, and had reared to crush him with the weight of
heavy hoofs, when a rawhide rope tightened about those uplifted forefeet
and the bay himself crashed to earth. Leaving the cow-horse to hold the
riata tight, Phil sprang from his saddle and ran to the fallen man. The
Dean came with water in his felt hat from the trough, and presently the
stranger opened his eyes. For a moment he lay looking up into their
faces as though wondering where he was, and how he happened there.

"Are you hurt bad?" asked the Dean.

That brought him to his senses, and he got to his feet somewhat
unsteadily, and began brushing the dust from his clothes. Then he looked
curiously toward the horse that Curly was holding down by the simple
means of sitting on the animal's head. "I certainly thought my legs were
long enough to reach around him," he said reflectively. "How in the
world did he manage it? I seemed to be falling for a week."

Phil yelled and the Dean laughed until the tears ran down his red
cheeks, while Bob and Curly went wild.

Patches went to the horse, and gravely walked around him. Then, "Let him
up," he said to Curly.

The cowboy looked at Phil, who nodded.

As the bay regained his feet, Patches started toward him.

"Here," said the Dean peremptorily. "You come away from there."

"I'm going to see if he can do it again," declared Patches grimly.

"Not to-day, you ain't," returned the Dean. "You're workin' for me now,
an' you're too good a man to be killed tryin' any more crazy
experiments."

At the Dean's words the look of gratitude in the man's eyes was almost
pathetic.

"I wonder if I am," he said, so low that only the Dean and Phil heard.

"If you are what?" asked the Dean, puzzled by his manner.

"Worth anything--as a man--you know," came the strange reply.

The Dean chuckled. "You'll be all right when you get your growth. Come
on over here now, out of the way, while Phil takes some of the
cussedness out of that fool horse."

Together they watched Phil