The Boss of the Lazy Y

by Charles Alden Seltzer

Kelton reddened; she did not see his face though, for she was watching Calumet and the black.

The outlaw had not ceased his efforts. On the contrary, it appeared that he was just beginning to warm to his work. Screaming with rage and hate he sprang forward at a dead run, propelling himself with the speed of a bullet for a hundred yards, only to come to a dizzying, terrifying stop; standing on his hind legs; pawing furiously at the air with his forehoofs; tearing impotently at the bit with his teeth, slashing with terrific force in the fury of his endeavor.

Calumet's hat had come off during the first series of bucks. The grin that had been on his face when he had got into the saddle back near the corral fence was gone, had been superseded by a grimness that Betty could see even from the distance from which she watched. He was a rider though, she saw that—had seen it from the first. She had seen many cowboy breakers of wild horses; she knew the confident bearing of them; the quickness with which they adjusted their muscles to the eccentric movements of the horse under them, anticipating their every action, so far as anyone was able to anticipate the actions of a rage-maddened demon who has only one desire, to kill or maim its rider, and she knew that Calumet was an expert. He was cool, first of all, in spite of his grimness; he kept his temper, he was absolutely without fear; he was implacable, inexorable in his determination to conquer. Somehow the battle between horse and man, as it raged up and down before her, sometimes shifting to the far end of the level, sometimes coming so near that she could see the expression of Calumet's face plainly, seemed to be a contest between kindred spirits. The analogy, perhaps, might not have been perceived by anyone less intimately acquainted with Calumet, or by anyone who understood a horse less, but she saw it, and knowing Calumet's innate savagery, his primal stubbornness, his passions, the naked soul of the man, she began to feel that the black was waging a hopeless struggle. He could never win unless some accident happened.

And they were very near her when it seemed that an accident did happen.

The black, his tongue now hanging out, the foam that issued from his mouth flecked with blood; his sides in a lather; his flanks moist and torn from the cruel spur-points: seemed to be losing his cunning and to be trusting entirely to his strength and yielding to his rage. She could hear his breath coming shrilly as he tore past her; the whites of his eyes white no longer, but red with the murder lust. It seemed to her that he must divine that defeat was imminent, and in a transport of despair he was determined to stake all on a last reckless move.

As he flashed past her she looked at Calumet also. His face was pale; there was a splotch of blood on his lips which told of an internal hemorrhage brought on by the terrific jarring that he had received, but in his eyes was an expression of unalterable resolve; the grim, cold, immutable calm of purpose. Oh, he would win, she knew. Nothing but death could defeat him. That was his nature—his character. There was no alternative. He saw none, would admit none. He found time, as he went past her, to grin at her, and the grin, though a trifle wan, contained much of its old mockery and contempt of her judgment of him.

The black raced on for a hundred yards, and what ensued might have been an accident, or it might have been the deliberate result of the black's latest trick. He came to a sudden stop, rose on his hind legs and threw himself backward, toppling, rigid, upon his back to the ground.

As he rose for the fall Calumet slipped out of the saddle and leaped sideways to escape being crushed. He succeeded in this effort, but as he leaped the spur on his right heel caught in the hollow of the black's hip near the flank, the foot refused to come free, it caught, jammed, and Calumet fell heavily beside the horse, luckily a little to one side, so that the black lay prone beside him.

Betty's scream was sharp and shrill. But no one heard it—at least Kelton seemed not to hear, for he was watching Calumet, his eyes wide, his face white; nor did Calumet seem to hear, for he was sitting on the ground, trying to work his foot out of the stirrup. Twice, as he worked with the foot, Betty saw the black strike at him with its hoofs, and once a hoof missed his head by the narrowest of margins.

But the foot was free at last, and Calumet rose. He still held the reins in his hands, and now, as he got to his feet, he jerked out the quirt that he wore at his waist and lashed the black, vigorously, savagely.