Frances got down off the fence.
“Oh! don’t you try it, Frances!” cried one nervous girl. “That pony looks wicked!”
“Let her break her neck, if she wants to make a fool of herself!” snapped Sue, sotto voce.
Nobody heard her. All were watching too closely the range girl approach the buckskin pony. She had accepted Fred’s lariat and the coil of it began to whirl about her head.
“There it goes!” cried Tom Gallup.
The buckskin started on a long, swinging lope; but it could not get out from under the coil of the lariat. The noose fell and the plunging pony went head and forefeet into it. Frances leaped with both feet upon the rope, just as it snapped taut. Bucky went on his head, kicking all four feet in the air.
“Got him! got him!” shrieked the excited Tom, and the girls cheered likewise.
And then the lariat snapped in two!
Muddied and scratched, the buckskin scrambled to his feet, his eyes blazing, nostrils distended, and as wild a horse as ever came off the range.
“Look out, Miss Frances!” yelled Mack Hinkman, who had just come upon the scene. “That thar buckskin hawse is a bad actor.”