Now, Ruth saw, he suddenly urged his pony in nearer the galloping steer. Standing suddenly in his stirrups, and swinging his lariat with a wide noose at the end, he dropped it at the moment when Old Trouble-Maker had just dodged another rope. The steer fairly ran into Jimsey’s noose. The puncher snubbed down on the rope instantly, and the steer, caught over the horns and with one foreleg in the noose, came to the hard plain like a ton of bricks falling.
“He’s down! he’s down!” shrieked Bob, vastly excited.
“Oh, the poor thing!” his sister observed. “That must have hurt him.”
“Well, after the way that brute tried to crawl into the automobile, I wouldn’t cry any if his neck was broken!” exclaimed Mary Cox, in sharp tones.
Jimsey’s horse was well broken and he swung his weight at the end of the rope in such a way that the huge steer could not get on his feet again. Jimsey vaulted out of the saddle and ran to the floundering steer with an agility that delighted the spectators from the East. How they cheered him! And his mates, too, urged him on with delight. It looked as though Jimsey had “called the trick” and would tie the struggling beast and so fulfill the requirements of the contest.
As the agile puncher sought to lay hold of the steer’s forefeet, however, Old Trouble-Maker flung his huge body around. The “yank” was too much for the pony and it was drawn forward perhaps a foot by the sheer weight of the big steer.
“Stand still, thar!” yelled Jimsey to the pony. “Wait till I get this yere critter tied up in a true lover’s knot! Whoa, Emma!”
Again the big steer had jerked; but the pony braced his feet and swung backward. It was then the unexpected happened! The girth of Jimsey’s saddle gave way, the taut rope pulling the saddle sideways. The pony naturally was startled and he jumped to one side. In an instant the big steer was nimbly on his feet, and flung Jimsey ten feet away! Bellowing with fear the brute tore off across the plain again, now with the wreck of Jimsey’s saddle bounding over the ground behind him and whacking him across the rump at every other jump.
If anything was needed to make Old Trouble-Maker mad he had it now. The steer sped across the plain faster than he had ever run before, and in a temper to attack anything or anybody who chanced to cross his trail.