"You go on back to the house!" he said, fixing her with his horse-taming eyes. "You go back where you belong! I'm doin' this!"
"You let go of me!" stormed Dixie Lee, making a savage pass at him with her quirt—and then a great shout drowned their quarrel and made them forget everything but Bowles.
The obsession of days of brooding had laid hold upon him and left him with a single, fixed idea—to ride Dunbar or die. And to him, no less than to Hardy Atkins, the coming of Dixie Lee was a disappointment. For a minute, he too had stood irresolute; then, with the simplicity of madness, he went straight to the blindfolded horse and began to lower his foot. As the quarrel sprang up, he gathered his reins; without looking back, he hooked his stirrup; and then, very gently, he rose to the saddle. Then the shout rang out, and he reached down and twitched up the blind.
Gazing out from beneath the band which had held him in utter darkness, the deep-set rattlesnake eye of Dunbar rolled hatefully at the man on his back. He crooked his neck and twisted his malformed head, and Bowles felt him swelling like a lizard between his knees—then, with a squeal, he bared his teeth and snapped at his leg like a dog. The next moment his head went down and he rose in a series of buck-jumps, whirling sideways, turning half-way round, and landing with a jolt. And at every jolt Bowles' head snapped back and his muscles grew stiff at the jar. But just as the world began to grow black, and he felt himself shaken in his seat, the trailing neck rope lapped Dunbar about the hind legs and he paused to kick himself free.
It was only a moment's respite, but it heartened the rider mightily. He caught the stirrup that he had lost, wiped the mist from his eyes, and settled himself deep in the saddle.
"Good boy! Stay with 'im!" yelled the maniacs on the fence-posts; and then old Dunbar broke loose. The man never lived that could ride him—Bowles realized that as he clutched for the horn—and then his pride rose in him and he sat limber and swung the quirt. One, two, three times, he felt himself jarred to the center, and the blood burst suddenly from his mouth and nose and splashed in a crimson flood. He had no knowledge of what was happening now, for he could not see; and then, with a heart-breaking wrench, he felt himself hurled from the saddle and sent tumbling heels over head. He struck, and the corral dirt rose in his face; there was a cloud before him, a mist; and then, as the dizziness vanished, he beheld the man-killer charging at him through the dust with all his teeth agleam.
