impson's Bar. Enough that in another moment, as it seemed
to Dick, she was splashing on the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek.
As Dick expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the
point of balking, and, holding her well together for a mighty leap, they
dashed into the middle of the swiftly flowing current. A few moments
of kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the
opposite bank.

The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was tolerably level.
Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire,
or the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of
her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton
conceits. Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she
shied, but it was from a new freshly painted meeting-house at the
crossing of the county road. Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits,
patches of freshly springing grasses, flew from beneath her rattling
hoofs. She began to smell unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed
slightly, but there was no abatement of her strength or speed. By two
o'clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to the plain.
Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and
passed by a "man on a Pinto hoss,"--an event sufficiently notable for
remark. At half past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout.
Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him, out of
the plain, rose two spires, a flagstaff, and a straggling line of black
objects. Dick jingled his spurs and swung his riata, Jovita bounded
forward, and in another moment they swept into Tuttleville and drew up
before the wooden piazza of "The Hotel of All Nations."

What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a part of this
record. Briefly I may state, however, that after Jovita had been
handed over to a sleepy ostler, whom she at once kicked into unpleasant
consciousness, Dick sallied out with the bar-keeper for a tour of
the sleeping town. Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and
gambling-houses; but, avoiding these, they stopped before several
closed shops, and by persistent tapping and judicious outcry roused
the proprietors from their beds, and made them unbar the doors of their
magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes they were met by curses, but
oftener by interest and some concern in their needs, and the interview
was invariably concluded by a drink. It