Chris Hibben had gone into action. As soon as the hard-ridden pony had brought him within range, he had opened fire. His first bullet found its mark; but—as he himself knew—more by luck than by skill. For, only in motion pictures and in Buffalo Bill shows can a man hope to take any sort of accurate aim from the back of a jerkily running pony.
Moreover, this pinto of Hibben’s was but half-broke. At sound of the shot, the pony swerved, spun about on the pivot of his own bunched hindlegs; and then sought to get the bit between his teeth and run away. Failing, he resented curb and spur by a really brilliant exhibition of bucking.
Enraged, and by no means intending that his prey should escape or that the wizened old Fenno should complete his rheumatic run across the corner of the field in time to save the collie, Hibben sprang to earth, flinging the reins over his pinto’s head.
A trained cow-pony will stand for hours if the rein is thus flung. But the pinto was not yet well trained. Also, he had been bewildered by the shot and by the spurring, into a forgetfulness of all he had learned. He set off at a panicky canter, the loose rein catching in his forefoot and snapping.
Unheeding, Chris Hibben ran forward to the niche where Treve was standing in grieved amaze above the body of the slain sheep. Halting just within the outer opening of the alcove, Hibben leveled his gun, using his left forearm as a rest; and pulled the trigger.
He was not twenty feet from the motionless dog; and he was a good shot. Yet he missed Treve by at least six feet. This by reason of a fragile old body that hurled itself against him from behind.
Joel Fenno had made the last few rods of the distance between the gap and the indented niche in something like record time; his stiff muscles stirred to incredible power by the imminent danger of his chum. The others from the Dos Hermanos ranch, Royce Mack among them, were still standing stupefied and inert. Joel struck up the pistol arm and in the same move banged his own full weight against the broad back of the cattleman. The result was a lamentable miss; and the saving of the collie’s life.
The impact and the heavy-caliber pistol’s own recoil, knocked the gun from Hibben’s hand. Chris turned, cursing. His left elbow caught Fenno in the chest and knocked the little old rancher flat. Then Hibben stooped to regain the pistol.
But he was met and driven backward by a flamingly wrathful mass of fur and whalebone strength that smote him amidships, in an effort to seize his throat. Treve, seeing his loved master knocked down, had left his post beside the dead sheep and launched himself like a vengeful avalanche upon Joel’s assailant. Here lay his first duty; and he wasted no time in fulfilling it.
Hibben staggered backward, clawing at the furious brute which sought to rend his throat. In the same instant, a scream of mortal terror from Joel Fenno was taken up by the far-off group at the gap. At the sound, Treve forsook his prey and spun about to face the slowly rising Joel. Hibben, too, forgot his own danger, in the stress of that shriek; and turned to look.