While they were standing in a group and talking, there came a yell from the branding pen. A section of rail fence went down with a crash. Through the fence came a little black steer that had escaped several “branding soirées.”
Blackwater, as the Bar-T boys called him, was a notorious rebel. He was originally a maverick–a stray from some passing herd–and had joined the Bar-T cattle unasked. That was more than two years before. He had remained on the Bar-T ranges, but was evidently determined in his dogged mind not to submit to the humiliation of the branding-iron.
He had been rounded up with a bunch of yearlings and calves a dozen times; but on each occasion had escaped before they got him into the corral. It was better to let the black rebel go than to lose a dozen or more of the others while chasing him.
This time, however, Silent Sam had insisted upon riding the rebel down and hauling him, bawling, into the corral.
But the rope broke, and before the searing-iron could touch the black steer’s rump he went through the fence like a battering-ram.
“Look out for that ornery critter, Miss Frances!” yelled the foreman of the Bar-T Ranch.
Frances saw him coming, headed for the group of visitors. She touched Molly with the spur, and the intelligent cow-pony jumped aside into the clear-way. Frances seized the rope hanging at her saddle.
Pratt had shouted a warning, too. The visitors scattered. But for once Sue Latrop did not manage her mount to the best advantage.
“Look out, Sue!”
“Quick! He’ll have you!”