I used to hold the pony for you to get on?" she said. "You always
would scare me, Nate!" And he replied, fluently, Yes, yes; did she see
that horse there, near the fence? He was a four-year-old, an outlaw, and
she would find no one had tried getting on his back since he had been
absent. This was the first question he asked on reaching the cabin,
where various neighbors were waiting the mail-rider; and, finding he was
right, he turned in pride to Jessamine.

"They don't know how to handle that horse," said he. "I told you so.
Give me a rope."

Did she notice the cold greeting Nate received? I think not. Not only
was their welcome to her the kinder, but any one is glad to witness bold
riding, and this chance made a stir which the sister may have taken for
cordiality. But Lin gave me a look; for it was the same here as it had
been in the Buffalo saloon.

"The trick is easy enough," said Nate, arriving with his outlaw, and
liking an audience. "You don't want a bridle, but a rope hackamore like
this--Spanish style. Then let them run as hard as they want, and on a
sudden reach down your arm and catch the hackamore short, close up by
the mouth, and jerk them round quick and heavy at full speed. They quit
their fooling after one or two doses. Now watch your outlaw!"

He went into the saddle so swift and secure that the animal, amazed,
trembled stock-still, then sprang headlong. It stopped, vicious and
knowing, and plunged in a rage, but could do nothing with the man, and
bolted again, and away in a straight blind line over the meadow, when
the rider leaned forward to his trick. The horse veered in a jagged
swerve, rolled over and over with its twisted impetus, and up on its
feet and on without a stop, the man still seated and upright in the
saddle. How we cheered to see it! But the figure now tilted strangely,
and something awful and nameless came over us and chilled our noise
to silence. The horse, dazed and tamed by the fall, brought its burden
towards us, a wobbling thing, falling by small shakes backward, until
the head sank on the horse's rump.

"Come away," said Lin McLean to Jessamine and at his voice she obeyed
and went, leaning on his arm.

Jessamine sat by her brother until he died, twelve hours afterwards,
having spoken and known nothing. The whole weight of the horse
had crushed him internally. He must have become almost instantly
unconscious, being held in the saddle by his spurs, which had caught in
the hai