n
spite of the car windows, Blue Jeans would not permit it. Blue Jeans
had been quick to see where this might lead and spoke with malicious
calculation.

"I thought your horse wanted water?" he drawled, as the superintendent
paused to consider his course. "Pshaw! He ain't so plumb crazy for
it!"

That settled it. It grew instantly furious and cruel. The
superintendent no longer merely scratched with the rowels; he drove
them home. And the roan horse plunged and bucked and staggered.

It was hot and the sawing bit raised quickly a white slaver. The roan
wasn't a bad horse at heart; he was frightened at something he couldn't
understand. He tried to break and run. But at his bad heart the
superintendent wasn't even a man, and no damned bronco was going to
have his way with him. He rounded him back and sent him full at that
tinkling, dreadful drip once more. So the roan fought on, till tumult
rose within the cars.

This was real! This was regular! One wiser than the rest--one who
thought himself schooled in the vernacular, because he had once
witnessed a Frontier Week celebration at Cheyenne--seized upon this
opportunity to air his vocabulary.

The sashes had been left closed to exclude sand and cinders. He tugged
one open now and sent forth his voice.

"Hi yi yi-i-p," he shouted. "Ride him, cowboy!"

And the superintendent rode him! Rode him till the slaver turned red
and the spurs were a torture to the raw torn flanks. Rode him till his
eyes rolled white and crazed. For the superintendent had gone mad too,
mad with vain rage. He laid his rope across the roan's dripping
withers; it did not help; it was inadequate. With staring eyes he cast
about for a more efficient weapon. Then he drew his gun from its
holster.

"You won't, eh, you--?" he panted, foaming a little himself. "You
won't, eh? Try that! Maybe that'll persuade you!" And holding the
long blue sixshooter by its barrel, he struck the roan heavily with the
butt just behind the eyes. Immediately the roan stood stock-still and
slowly closed his eyes. A less strong-hearted horse would have sunk to
the ground. But the superintendent was blind now to the pass to which
he had brought his mount.

"Maybe that'll persuade you! Maybe that--" He mouthed the words
thickly and would have struck again.

But just then Blue Jeans struck him.

Blue Jeans took his gun away from him. How weak is that poor word!
Took? It would not have be