“Oh, Ruth! that man is hurt,” cried Helen, as the chums rode as hard as they dared after the flying bunch of cattle punchers.
Jimsey lay on the ground, it was true; but when they came nearer they saw that he was shaking both fists in the air and spouting language that was the very reverse of elegant. Jimsey wasn’t hurt; but he was awfully angry.
“Come on! come on, girls!” called Tom. “That old steer is running like a dog with a can tied to its tail! Did you ever see the beat of that?”
“And Nita is right in with the crowd. How they ride!” gasped Madge Steele. “She’ll be killed!”
“I hope not,” her brother shouted back. “But she’s just about the pluckiest girl I ever heard of.”
“She’s swinging her rope now!” gasped Heavy. “Do you suppose she intends to try and catch that steer?”
That was what Jane Ann Hicks seemed determined to do. She had ridden so that she was ahead of the troop of other riders. Bashful Ike, the foreman, put spurs to his own mount and tried to catch the boss’s niece. If anything happened to Jane Ann he knew that Old Bill would call him to account for it.
“Have a care there, Jinny!” he bawled “Look out that saddle don’t give ye a crack.”
The saddle bounded high in the air—sometimes higher than Jane Ann’s head—and if she ran her mount in too close to the mad steer the saddle might knock her off her pony. Nor did she pay the least attention to Bashful Ike’s advice. She was using the quirt on her mount and he was jumping ahead like a streak of light.
Jane Ann had coiled her rope again and it hung from her saddle. She had evidently formed a new plan of action since having the field to herself. The others—all but Ike—were now far behind.