A RACE FOR LIFE.
"JACK, don't you think we are going too near the corrals?" Olive
inquired timidly.
It was high noon. The cattle had been brought by the cowboys into the
open field and each ranchman had divided his own stock from the herds.
The animals had been driven into the corrals, separate enclosures made
of fence rails, one belonging to each of the neighboring ranches. In the
afternoon the branding of the cattle took place, but most of the cowboys
had now gone off to get something to eat before the real business of the
day began. Only a dozen men guarded the entire stockade.
"Oh, no, Olive," Jack answered lightly. "I believe, if we ride a little
closer, we may get some news of Jim. I would like to see him to ask him
some questions, before we start back home." Jack rode gaily ahead,
forgetting her disagreeable scene with Dan Norton. The swarming hundreds
of cows and calves, the bright sunshine, the brilliantly blue sky
overhead, the noise and splendid action of the scene interested her
tremendously.
"I think Miss Olive is right, Miss Ralston," Frank insisted gravely. "We
must not ride too near the stock, for fear of a stampede."
"Just a few feet more," Jack begged, turning half way around in her
saddle to glance back at Olive and Frank.
At this moment an immense bull burst out of one of the corrals and made
a wild dash across an open field. He was not headed toward Jack, or
Olive, or Frank, and there did not appear to be the least danger.
Two of the cowboys made a rush to cut off the bull's charge but turned
back a moment later to their companions. It was more important for the
men to keep the other animals from following their leader, than to
recapture the one infuriated beast.
Jim Colter had warned Jacqueline, when he first gave her the new pony,
that "Tricks" was well named. He had told her that she would have to
watch the little animal pretty closely, but Jack was a trained rider and
so far the mare had not given her any trouble. She had not realized,
when she came to the round-up, that "Tricks" was one of the ponies that
had been formerly used by the cow-punchers at the round-ups.
Tricks saw the bull break away from the stockade and make its plunge for
freedom at the moment that Jack turned her head and slightly relaxed her
hold on the broncho's bridle.
The pony's fighting blood was up. She did not intend to see a bull
escape when it was her business as a cowboy's pony, to head him off and
turn him back toward the herd. She made a leap forward, running
diagonally across the plain, in order to cross in front of the bull at
the shortest possible distance. For the first time in her experience,
Jack Ralston completely lost control of the horse she was riding; the
pony's headlong rush had been too unexpected. Tricks was a good-sized
broncho with a will of her own and was convinced that she was doing her
duty.
Jack had unfortunately taken off her gloves. People in the West never
ride the hard-mouthed little Western ponies, without thick leather
gauntlets. She pulled on her reins until they cut into her flesh, but
the pony ran on. Still Jack had no idea of not being able to control
her before she got into danger.
No one, except Frank and Olive, saw Jack's wild dash. The cowboys were
riding in and out among the corrals, swinging their long ropes and
forcing the excited cattle back into their enclosures.
"Get back out of the way," Frank commanded Olive quickly. Almost before
she realized what had taken place, Frank Kent was off like a shot after
the flying Jack.
His horse pounded along, but Jack was yards ahead. Frank did not know
what he could do, if he reached Jack. He could only grasp her bridle and
try to stop both of their ponies. At best, if he got ahead of her, he
might be able to shut off the bull's mad charge. There would be only one
way to do it and that would be to let the animal rush upon his horse. He
knew nothing of the cowboys' methods. He had no lasso. He had seen
pictures of Spanish toreadors with their flaming scarlet scarfs. If he
only had as much as a red handkerchief, perhaps he might divert the
bull's course. Of course Frank realized that this would have been a
forlorn hope. But nothing really mattered. Jack's pony continued to
gain on his; he had not a fighting chance of overtaking her.
Frank hardly dared look at Jack. He could see so clearly what would
happen: the range-bred pony would take her straight in front of the
furious bull, not knowing that her rider was not a cowboy and would be
unequal to the task of turning the great brute aside. She would do her
part and expected Jack to do the rest. Jack did not have so much as a
small riding whip in her hand, having lost it in her pony's first plunge
ahead. But she now realized her peril; one glimpse of her face would
have revealed this. It was white as marble save for the flying, bronze
gold of her hair. Her eyes were wide open and almost black and her lips
were parted. But there was no give-up in her expression; determination
marked every fine cut line.
Jack had considered but two alternatives. Either she must stop her wild
pony or drive back the maddened bull. Now she knew she could do neither.
She was only a few yards from the bull and understood that an animal in
a wild rush for liberty, never turns aside unless he is driven.
Half unconsciously Frank Kent closed his eyes. Jacqueline Ralston had
seemed to him so splendid, typifying to him the free, outdoor life of
the great West. He realized that Jack had lots of faults, but that she
was the kind of girl who would make a wonderful woman. She was a true
American girl, brave, generous and gay. The thought of her being
injured, or killed, was horrible. She was the very spirit of youth and
energy.
Frank looked again. Jack was going to face death squarely, or else to
drive her pony across the bull's course, before it reached her. Yet the
last method seemed hopeless, because the pony was master of the race,
not Jack. The girl had stooped low in her saddle. Her feet were out of
the stirrups and she lay almost flat across the pony's back. She seemed
to slip to one side. Frank watched for another horrified second. Jack
and her horse were not a hundred feet from the bull.
Then something slid along the ground on the right side of the pony, ran
a few feet, let go of the bridle and sat down limply in the brown grass.
Frank shouted as he had never thought it in him to shout. The trick of
dropping from her horse that Jack had just effected, he had seen
accomplished once in a Buffalo Bill show in London. The vision of a girl
doing it for her own safety was the most thrilling sight he had ever
seen in his life.
Tricks, deserted by her rider, and uncertain what she should do alone,
sprang to one side as the bull lunged at her, and the danger was all
over in an instant.
Frank found Jack shaking like one in a chill. But she smiled at him
bravely and put out her hand to let him pull her off the ground.
"Perhaps, Frank," she said, forgetting formalities in her thankfulness,
"if I live long enough, I may some day learn to do what I am told.
Please take me back to Olive."
Tricks, exhausted by her wild run, was led back to Jack, a weary and
repentant pony.
Jack was silent and shaken. She followed Frank back to the spot where
they had left Olive, without a word.
The cowboys were returning to the work of branding the cattle and it was
high time the ranch girls started for home. But neither Jack nor Frank
could find a trace of Olive. She had completely disappeared. They rode
over to the spot where they had lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, but
the automobile party had left for their ranch. Frank inquired of a dozen
cowboys. No one of them had seen Olive.
Jack tried not to cry, but the day's experiences had been too much for
her. She had never been so utterly wretched before.
"Don't worry, Miss Ralston," Frank urged. "I'll bet you anything that
Miss Olive has run across your overseer, Jim Colter, and has returned to
Rainbow Ranch with him."
Jack shook her head despairingly. "Olive would not go away without
telling me, for anything in the world," she insisted. "Besides, Jim
would not leave me here. He is somewhere around, won't you find him?"
Frank insisted that Jack wait in a place of safety a mile farther along
the trail toward their ranch. For an hour Jack walked up and down a few
yards of barren ground, her pony resting near her. The time seemed an
eternity.
By and by Frank arrived with Jim Colter. Jim looked sternly at Jack, but
she was past caring what he said or thought of her.
"Can't you find Olive, Jim?" Jack pleaded.
"I'll do my best," Jim returned. "Mr. Kent will take you home to the
ranch."
"But I can't go without Olive, Jim. I'll stay here until you find her.
She has probably just lost her way," Jack entreated.
"Hope so," Jim repeated shortly. "But in any case, your place is at
home."
Jack hesitated.
"Haven't you made enough trouble for yourself and other people already
to-day, Jack?" Jim questioned keenly. And Jack submissively bowed her
head.