THE YUMA COLT
The Oro Rancho sent out word that the fiftieth year of its existence
would be celebrated with an old-fashioned Spanish barbecue. The
invitation was general, including every one within a radius of fifty
miles.
Added to the natural interest in good things to eat and drink was that
of witnessing the pony races. Each rancher would bring, casually, almost
accidentally, as it were, one pony that represented its owner's idea of
speed and quality. No set programme offered, which made the races all
the more interesting in that they were genuine.
The Oro Ranch had long ago established and proudly maintained a
reputation for breeding the best saddle-and work-stock in Southern
California. In fact, the ranch survived the competition of the
automobile chiefly because it was the only important stock-raising ranch
in the southland.
Good feeling went even so far as to include the sheep-ranchers of the
old Spanish Grant, by special invitation.
It was the delight and pride of native Californians to ride their best
saddle-horses on such occasions. True, motor-cars came from the city and
from the farthest homes, but locally saddle-horses of all sizes and
kinds were in evidence. Sleek bays with "Kentucky" written in every
rippling muscle, single-footed in beside heavy mountain ponies, well
boned, broad of knee, strong of flank, and docile; lean mustangs of the
valley, short-coupled buckskins with the endurance of live rawhide;
Mexican pintos, restless and gay in carved leather, and silver
trappings; scrawny stolid cayuses that looked half-starved, but that
could out-eat and out-last many a better-built horse; they all came, and
their riders were immediately made welcome.
Under the trees, along the corrals and fences, in and around the
stables, stood the ponies, heads tossing, bits jingling, stamping,
thoroughly alive to the importance of the festive occasion, and filling
the eye with an unforgettable picture--a living vignette of the old days
of the range and riata.
Mrs. Stone, Mrs. Marshall, Louise, Dr. Marshall, and Walter Stone were
among the earlier arrivals. A half-dozen men sprang to take their horses
as they rode up, but Collie gathered the bridle-reins and led the ponies
to the shade of the pepper trees. Then he wandered over to the corrals.
His eyes glowed as he watched the sleek ponies dodging, wheeling,
circling like a battalion, and led by a smooth-coated, copper-hued mare,
young, lithe, straight-limbed, and as beautifully rounded as a Grecian
bronze. He moistened his lips as he watched her. He pushed back his hat,
felt for tobacco and papers, and rolled a cigarette. This was the
renowned "Yuma colt," the outlaw. He wanted her. She was a horse in a
thousand.
In some strange way he was conscious that Louise stood beside him,
before he turned and raised his sombrero.
"More beautiful than strong men or beautiful women," said Louise.
"That's so, Miss Louise. Because they just live natural and act natural.
And that copper-colored mare,--she's only a colt yet,--there's a horse a
man would be willing to work seven years for like the man in the Bible
did for his wife."
Louise smiled. "Would you work seven years for her?" she asked.
"I would, if I had to," he said enthusiastically.
"Of course, because you really love horses, don't you?"
"Better than anything else. Of course, there are mean ones. But a real
good horse comes close to making an ordinary man feel ashamed of
himself. Why, see what a horse will do! He will go anywhere--work all
day and all night if he has to--run till he breaks his heart to save a
fellow's life, and always be a friend. A horse never acts like eight
hours was his day's work. He is willing at any time and all the
time--and self-respectin' and clean. I reckon a knowin' horse just plumb
loves a man that is good to him."
Louise, her gray eyes wide and pensive, gazed at the young cowboy. "How
old is the colt?" she asked.
"They say three years. But she's older than that in brains. She is
leading older horses than her."
"Then if you worked seven years for her, she would be ten years old
before you owned her."
"You caught me there. I didn't think of that."
"Uncle Walter says she is outlaw. I believe she could be tamed. Boyar
was pretty wild before he was broken to ride."
"If you want that pony, Miss Louise, she's yours. I guess I could break
her."
"They won't sell her. No, I was only romancing. Isn't she beautiful! She
seems to be almost listening to us. What a head and what a quick,
intelligent eye! Oh, you wonderful horse!" And laughing, Louise threw a
kiss to the Yuma colt. "I must go. I came over to see the horses before
the crowd arrived."
Collie stood hat in hand watching Louise as she strolled toward the
ranch-house. He saw her stop and pat Boyar.
"I kind of wish I was a horse myself," he said whimsically. "Either the
black or the outlaw. She treats them both fine."
Brand Williams, Bud Light, Parson Long, Billy Dime, and Miguel rode up,
talking, joking, laughing.
"Fall to the kid!" said Miguel, indicating Collie. "I guess I'm scalded
if he ain't nailed to the fence. He's just eating his head off thinking
about the Yuma horse he dassent ride. No? Eh, Collie?"
"Hello, Miguel. Nope. I'm taking lessons in tendin' to my own
business--like them." And Collie nodded toward the horses.
"Ain't he purty?" said Billy Dime. "All fussed up and walkin' round like
a new rooster introducin' hisself to a set of strange hens. Oh, pshaw!"
"And you're making a noise like one of the hens trying to get the notice
of the new rooster, I guess."
"Well, seem' I got the notice, come on over and I'll show you where they
keep the ice--with things on it," said Billy Dime.
The Moonstone riders dismounted, slapped the dust from their shirts and
trousers, and ambled over toward the refreshments.
The little group, happy, talkative, pledged each other and the Moonstone
Ranch generously.
Brand Williams, close to Collie, nudged him. "If you are thinkin' of
takin' a fall out of the outlaw cayuse, don't hit this stuff much," he
said. And Collie nodded.
The Moonstoners would one and all back Boyar for a place in the finals
of the pony races, despite the Mexican "outfit" that already mingled
with them making bets on their favorite pinto.
"Who's ridin' Boyar?" queried Bud Light.
"In the races? Why, Miguel here," said Williams, slapping the Mexican on
the shoulder. "He don't weigh much, but he's some glue-on-a-sliver when
it comes to racin' tricks. The other Mexicans are after our pesos this
time. Last year we skinned 'em so bad with Boyar takin' first that some
of 'em had to wait till dark to go home."
Collie, listening, felt his heart pump faster. He turned away for an
instant that his fellows might not see the disappointment in his face.
He had hoped to ride Boyar to victory.
"Miss Louise could get more out of Boyar in a race than even Miguel
here," said Billy Dime.
"I dunno," said Williams. "She give me orders that Miguel was to ride
Boyar if they was any racin'."
So Louise herself had chosen Miguel to ride the pony. Collie grew
unreasonably jealous. Once more and again he pledged the Moonstone
Rancho in a brimming cup. Then he wandered over to the Mexican ponies,
inspecting them casually.
A Mexican youth, handsome, dark, smiling, offered to bet with him on the
result of the races. Collie declined, but gained his point. He learned
the Mexican's choice for first place, a lean, wiry buckskin with a goat
head and a wicked eye, but with wonderful flanks and withers. Collie
meditated. As a result he placed something like fifty dollars in bets
with various ranchers, naming the Mexican horse for first place. Word
went round that the Moonstone Kid was betting against his own horse.
Later Brand Williams accosted him. "What you fell up against?" he asked
sternly. "What made you jar yourself loose like that?"
"It's horses with me to-day--not home-sweet-home, Brand. Bet you a pair
of specs--and you need 'em--to a bag of peanuts that the Chola cayuse
runs first."
"Your brains is afloat, son. You better cut out the booze."
Unexpectedly Collie encountered Louise as he went to look after his own
horses.
"I hear that you intend to ride the outlaw Yuma. Is it so?"
Collie nodded.
"I had rather you didn't," said Louise.
"Why?" asked Collie, tactlessly.
Louise did not answer, and Collie strode off feeling angry with himself
and more than ever determined to risk breaking his neck to win the
outlaw.
Boyar, the Moonstone pony, ran second in the finals. The buckskin of the
Mexicans won first place. Collie collected his winnings indifferently.
He grew ashamed of himself, realizing that a foolish and unwarrantable
jealousy had led him into a species of disloyalty. He was a Moonstone
rider. He had bet against the Moonstone pony, and _her_ pony. He was
about to ask one of the other boys to see to the horses when a tumult in
the corrals drew his attention. He strolled over to the crowd, finding a
place for himself on the corral bars.
Mat Gleason, superintendent of the Oro Ranch, loafed, his back against a
post. Two men with ropes were following the roan pony round the corral.
Presently a riata flipped out and fell. Inch by inch the outlaw was
worked to the snubbing-post. One of the Oro riders seized the pony's ear
in his teeth and, flinging his legs round her neck, hung, weighing her
head down. There was the flash of teeth, a grunting tug at the cinchas,
a cloud of dust, and Jasper Lane, foreman of the Oro outfit, was in the
saddle. The cloud of dust, following the roan pony, grew denser. Above
the dun cloud a sombrero swung to and fro fanning the outlaw's ears.
Jasper Lane had essayed to ride the Yuma colt once before. His broken
shoulder had set nicely, in fact, better than Bull O'Toole's leg which
had been broken when the outlaw fell on him. Billy Squires, a young
Montana puncher working for the Oro people, still carried his arm in a
sling. All in all, the assembled company, as Brand Williams mildly put
it, "were beginning to take notice of that copper-colored she-son of a
cyclone."
Jasper Lane plied spurs and quirt. The visiting cowmen shrilled their
delight. The pony was broncho from the end of her long, switching tail
to the tip of her pink muzzle.
Following a quick tattoo of hoofs on the baked earth came a flash like
the trout's leap for the fly--a curving plunge--the sound as of a
breaking willow branch, and then palpitating silence.
The dun cloud of dust settled, disclosing the foam-flecked,
sweat-blackened colt, oddly beautiful in her poised immobility. Near her
lay Jasper Lane, face downward. The pony sniffed at his crumpled
sombrero.
"That horse is plumb gentle," said Collie. "Look at her!"
"Crazy with the heat," commented Billy Dime, jerking his thumb toward
Collie.
Tall, slim, slow of movement, Collie slipped from the corral bars and
secured the dangling reins. Across the utter silence came the whistle of
a viewless hawk. The cowmen awakened from their momentary apathy. Two of
them carried Jasper Lane toward the ranch-house. Some one laughed.
Gleason, the superintendent, gazed at the outlaw pony and fingered his
belt. "That's the fourth!" he said slowly and distinctly. "She ain't
worth it."
"The fourth Oro rider," said a voice. "You ain't countin' any Moonstone
riders."
"Ain't seen any to count," retorted Gleason, and there was a general
laugh.
Strangely enough, the outlaw pony followed Collie quietly as he led her
toward Gleason, "The boys say there's a bet up that nobody can stick on
her two minutes. She's the bet. Is that right?" said Collie.
"What you goin' to do?" queried Gleason, and some of the Oro boys
laughed.
"I don't know yet," said Collie. "Maybe I'll take her back to the
Moonstone with me."
Miguel of the Moonstone removed his sombrero and gravely passed it.
"Flowers for the Collie kid," he said solemnly.
Collie, grave, alert, a little white beneath his tan, called for
Williams to hold the pony. Then the younger man, talking to her
meanwhile, slipped off the bridle and adjusted a hackamore in its place.
He tightened the cinchas. The men had ceased joking. Evidently the kid
meant business. Next he removed his spurs and flung them, with his
quirt, in a corner.
"Just defending yourself, eh, Yuma girl?" he said. "They cut all the
sense out of you with a horse-killin' bit and rip you with the spurs,
and expect you to behave."
"He'll be teachin' her to say her prayers next," observed Bud Light.
"He's gettin' a spell on her now."
"He'll need all _his_ for himself," said Pars Long.
The pony, still nervously resenting the memory of the mouth-crushing
spade-bit, and the tearing rowels, flinched and sidled away as Collie
tried to mount. Her glossy ears were flattened and the rims of her eyes
showed white.
"Jump!" whispered Williams. "And don't rough her. Mebby you'll win out."
And even as Collie's hand touched the saddle-horn, Williams sprang back
and climbed the corral bars.
With a leap the Moonstone rider was in the saddle. The pony shook her
head as he reined her round toward the corral gate. The men stared.
Gleason swore. Billy Dime began to croon a range ditty about "Picking
little Posies on the Golden Shore." The roan's sleek, sweating sides
quivered.
"Here's where she goes to it," said Williams.
"Whoop! Let 'er buck!" shouted the crowd.
Rebellion swelled in the pony's rippling muscles. She waited, fore feet
braced, for the first sting of the quirt, the first rip of the spurs, to
turn herself into a hellish thing of plunging destruction.
Collie, leaning forward, patted her neck. "Come on, sis. Come on, Yuma
girl. You're just a little hummingbird. You ain't a real horse."
With a leap the pony reared. Still there came no sting of spur or quirt.
She dropped to her feet. Collie had cleverly consumed a minute of the
allotted time.
"One minute!" called Williams, holding the watch.
"Why, that ain't ridin'," grumbled an Oro man.
"See you later," said Williams, and several of his companions looked at
him strangely. The foreman's eyes were fixed on the watch.
Collie had also heard, and he dug his unspurred heels into the pony's
sides. She leaped straight for the corral gate and freedom. With a
patter of hoofs, stiff-legged, she jolted toward the plain. The men
dropped from the bars and ran toward the gate, all, except Williams, who
turned, blinking in the sun, his watch in his hand.
A few short jumps, a fish-like swirl sideways, and still Collie held his
seat. He eased the hackamore a little. He was breathing hard. The horse
took up the slack with a vicious plunge, head downward. The boy's face
grew white. He felt something warm trickling down his mouth and chin. He
threw back his head and gripped with his knees.
"They're off!" halloed a puncher.
"Only one of 'em--so far," said Williams. "One minute and thirty
seconds."
Then, like a bolt of copper light, the pony shot forward at a run.
On the ranch-house veranda sat Walter Stone conversing with his host,
where several girls, bright-faced and gowned in cool white, were talking
and laughing.
The pony headed straight for the veranda. The laughing group jumped to
their feet. Collie, using both hands, swung the hackamore across the
outlaw's neck and tugged.
She stopped with a jolt that all but unseated him. Walter Stone rose.
"It's one of my boys," he said. And he noticed that a little stream of
red was trickling from Collie's mouth and nostrils.
His head was snapped back and then forward at every plunge. Still he
gripped the saddle with rigid knees. The outlaw bucked again, and flung
herself viciously sideways, turning completely round. Collie pitched
drunkenly as the horse came down again and again. His eyes were blurred
and his brain grew numb. Faintly he heard Brand Williams cry, "Two
minutes! Moonstone wins!" Then came a cheer. His gripping knees relaxed.
He reeled and all around him the air grew streaked with slivers of
piercing fire. He pitched headforemost at the feet of the group on the
veranda.
In a flash Louise Lacharme was beside him, kneeling and supporting his
head. "Water!" she cried, wiping his face with her handkerchief.
Boot-heels gritted on the parched earth and spurs jingled as the men
came running.
The pony, with hackamore dangling, raced across the plain toward the
hills.
"This'll do jest as well," said Williams, pouring a mouthful of whiskey
between Collie's lips. Then the taciturn foreman lifted the youth to his
feet. Collie dragged along, stepping shakily. "Dam' little fool!" said
Williams affectionately. "You ain't satisfied to get killed where you
belong, but you got to go and splatter yourself all over the front yard
in front of the ladies. You with your bloody nose and your face shot
plumb full of gravel. If you knowed how you looked when she piled you--"
"I know how she looked," said Collie. "That's good enough for me. Did I
make it?"
"The bronc' is yours," said Williams. "Bud and Miguel just rode out
after her."
Then Williams did an unaccountable thing. He hunted among the crowd till
he found the man who had said, "Why, that ain't ridin'." He asked the
man quietly if he had made such a remark. The other replied that he had.
Then Williams promptly knocked him down, with all the wiry strength of
his six feet of bone and muscle. "Take that home and look at it," he
remarked, walking away.
Through the dusk of the evening the Moonstone boys jingled homeward, the
horses climbing the trail briskly. Two of them worked the outlaw up the
hill, each with a rope on her and each exceedingly busy. Collie was too
stiff and sore to help them.
Miguel, hilarious in that he had ridden Boyar to second place, and so
upheld the Moonstone honor, sang many strange and wonderful songs and
baited Collie between-whiles. Proud of their companion's conquest of the
outlaw colt, the Moonstone boys made light of it proportionately.
"Did you see him reclinin' on that Yuma grasshopper," said Bud Light,
"and pertendin' he was ridin' a hoss?"
"And then," added Billy Dime, "he gets so het up and proud that he rides
right over to the ladies, and 'flop' he goes like swattin' a frog with a
shingle. He rides about five rods on the cayuse and then five more on
his map. Collie's sure tough. How's your mug, kid?"
"It never felt so bad as yours looks naturally," responded Collie,
puffing at a cigarette with swollen lips. "But I ain't jealous."
"Now, ain't you?" queried Williams, who had ridden silently beside him.
"Well, now, I was plumb mistook! I kind of thought you was."