The Boss of the Lazy Y

by Charles Alden Seltzer

Betty dismounted and the change was made. She had admired Blackleg—she was in love with him now that he belonged to her, but she was afflicted with a sudden speechlessness over the abruptness with which he had made the gift. She wanted to thank him, but she felt it was not time. Besides, he had not waited for her thanks. He had placed the halter on the horse she had ridden to the Diamond K, had looked on saturninely while Kelton had helped her into the saddle, and had then carried his own saddle to a point near the outside of the corral fence, laying the bridle beside it. Then he uncoiled the braided hair lariat that hung at the pommel of the saddle and walked to the corral gate.

With a little pulse of joy over her possession of the splendid animal under her, and an impulse of curiosity, she urged him to the corral fence and sat in the saddle, a little white of face, watching Calumet.

The black horse was alone in the corral and as Calumet entered and closed the gate behind him, not fastening it, the black came toward him with mincing steps, its ears laid back.

Calumet continued to approach him. The black backed away slowly until Calumet was within fifty feet of him—it seemed to Betty that the horse knew from previous experience the length of a rope—and then with a snort of defiance it wheeled and raced to the opposite end of the corral.

"Watch the gate!" called Calumet to Kelton.

He continued to approach the black. The beast retreated along the fence, stepping high, watching Calumet over its shoulder. Plainly, it divined Calumet's intention—which was to crowd it into a corner—and when almost there it halted suddenly, made a feint to pass to Calumet's left, wheeled just as suddenly and plunged back to his right.

The ruse did not work. Calumet had been holding his rope low, with seeming carelessness, but as the black whipped past he gave the rope a quick flirt. Like a sudden snake it darted sinuously out, the loop opened, rose, settled around the black's neck, tightened; the end in Calumet's hand was flipped in a half hitch around a snubbing post nearby, and the black tumbled headlong into the dust of the corral, striking with a force that brought a grunt from him.

For an instant he lay still. And in that instant Calumet was at his side. While advancing toward the black, he had taken off his neckerchief, and now he deftly knotted it around the black's head, covering its eyes. A moment later he was leading it, unprotesting, out of the corral gate.

He halted near the fence and looked at Betty, who was watching critically, though with a tenseness in her attitude that brought a fugitive smile to Calumet's lips.

"I reckon you'd better move a way an' give this here animal plenty of room," he said. "If he's as much horse as Kelton says he is he'll want a heap of it."