The latter gazed at him, sidelong, with humorous malice in his glance. Then he wheeled his pony, rode back toward the wagon, veered when almost to it and forced the pony to climb the slope, thus getting Masten between the rope and the mud. He pulled the rope taut again, swinging wagon tongue and wheels at a sharp angle toward him, drove the spurs into the flanks of the pony and headed it toward the mud level, swinging so that the rope described a quarter circle. It was a time-honored expedient which, he expected, would produce the jerk releasing the wagon.
If he expected the action would produce other results, the rider gave no indication of it. Only the girl, watching him closely and seeing a hard gleam in his eyes, sensed that he was determined to achieve a double result, and she cried out to Masten. The warning came too late. The taut rope, making its wide swing, struck Masten in the small of the back, lifted him, and bore him resistlessly out into the mud level, where he landed, face down, while the wagon, released, swished past him on its way to freedom.
The rider took the wagon far up the sloping trail before he brought it to a halt. Then, swinging it sideways so that it would not roll back into the mud, he turned and looked back at Masten. The latter had got to his feet, mud-bespattered, furious.
The rider looked from Masten to the girl, his expression one of hypocritical gravity. The girl’s face was flushed with indignation over the affront offered her friend. She had punished him for his jealousy, she had taken her part in mildly ridiculing him. But it was plain to the rider when he turned and saw her face, that she resented the indignity she had just witnessed. She was rigid; her hands were clenched, her arms stiff at her sides; her voice was icy, even, though husky with suppressed passion.
“I suppose I must thank you for getting the wagon out,” she said. “But that—that despicable trick—” Her self-control deserted her. “I wish I were a man; you would not go unpunished!”
There was contrition in his eyes. For an infinitesimal space he regretted the deed, and his active mind was already framing an excuse. And then out of the tail of his eye he saw Uncle Jepson winking violent applause at him, and a broad grin suffused his face. He made some effort to suppress it, but deepening wrinkles around his eyes contradicted the gravity of his lips.
“Why, I wasn’t reckonin’ to hurt him, ma’am,” he said. “You see, he was right in the way, an’ I reckon I was feelin’ a bit wild right at that minute, an’—” His gaze went to Masten, who was scraping mud from his garments with a small flat stone. The rider’s eyes grew wide; more wrinkles appeared around them.
“Why, I’ve spoiled his white shirt,” he said as though speaking to himself, his voice freighted with awe. And then, as Masten shook a threatening fist at him, he suddenly yielded to the mirth that was consuming him and he bowed his head.
It was Uncle Jepson’s warning shout that impelled him to raise his head. He saw Masten coming toward him, clawing at the foolish holster at his waist, his eyes flashing murder, his teeth bared in a snarl.
“You, Patches!” said the rider, his voice coming with a cold, quick snap. And the piebald pony, his muscles and thews alive with energy in an instant, lunged in answer to the quick knee-press, through the mud, straight at Masten.