Straight into a startled ring of spectators plowed the enraged beast, sending horses whirling and pedestrians dodging for their lives. The petite Rosa’s mount got to dancing, and finally staged a petite runaway on his own account, but Rosa kept her head and a tight rein. A small boy scrambled into a low-branching tree. But three lassos and a dozen mounted men finally headed off the bull and got him into a smaller corral.
Ted looked inquiringly at Ace, but the Senator’s son evidently had his blood up. The white-faced bull, meantime, was again trying to thrust his massive shoulders beneath the lower bar.
Two mules came next on the program, one rider bringing his mount to terms so quickly that people were laying bets it was just a pack-mule, while the other stuck when his jumped the fence.
Ranger Radcliffe, galloping back beside Rosa’s now docile mount, waved a hand to the boys. Then a murmur rippled through the loungers that encircled the corral, as the white-faced bull was called for. Ace’s nerves began to tingle.
This bull had been kept in close confinement for several days past, and it had not improved his temper. They had to throw him to put on the straps.
“Hold him!—Hold him!” at intervals percolated through the hum of voices, as the great brute lay panting in the saddling pen, his eyes ringed with infuriated white, his snorting breath—audible thirty feet away—sending spirals of dust scudding before his nose.
“Well, what do you say? Say it quick! I’m betting on the bull,” King was challenging the Ranger, little dreaming who the rider was to be.
This bull was to be ridden with a saddle and one hand hold. The gate of the saddling pen cracked as its occupant tried to rise.
“You folks around the fence, you had better look out!” megaphoned the starter. “This ’ere bull may not look where he’s a-goin’!”
The gate cracked again. A woman nearby screamed. Two men with lassos ready waited on either side, their mounts aquiver. Ace’s ruddy face had grown strangely lined, but he stood his ground.