“Bah!” sneered Indian Charlie. “You are a bluff! You know he can’t ride an unbroken broncho. Back down, but keep your mouth closed after this.”
“Mr. Hodge need not back down,” said the cool voice of Frank, who had dismounted. “I will let him have a hundred dollars, or two hundred, if he wishes it.”
And Frank produced “a roll.”
Charlie’s eyes snapped. The game was coming all right, after all.
“Hodge has made betting talk, and I have my money ready to put up,” he said. “Let him cover it—if he dares!”
Bart seized the money Frank offered, and Bill Rodney was called forward. As soon as he understood the terms of the bet the rancher protested.
“Mr. Merriwell is a rider, as I will allow,” he said; “but he can’t ride one critter there is on the ranch. No one yere can ride him, an’ Pecos Pete, what is a reg’ler broncho breaker, is goin’ to break him as part of the fun ter-day.”
“I presume that is the horse Indian Charlie will expect me to ride?” said Frank, his lips hardening a bit and a determined look coming to his handsome face.
“To be course it is.”
Charlie was standing near enough to hear this talk, and a sneer curled the red lips beneath his dark mustache.