"Get up, old fellow!" he shouted.
As the lashes fell, Wa-ha-lote made one mighty plunge—and stopped. Then, as the crowd scattered, he shook out his mane and charged straight at the high, pole gate. A shout went up, and a cry of warning, and as the cowboys who draped the bars scrambled down to escape the crash Bowles was seen to lean forward; he struck with his quirt, and Wa-ha-lote vaulted the bars like a hunter. But even then he was not satisfied. Two panel gates stood between him and the open, and he took them both like a bird; then the dust rose up in his wake and the Bat Wing outfit stood goggle-eyed and blasphemous.
"W'y, the blankety-blank!" crooned Hardy Atkins.
"Too skeered to pitch!" lamented Buck.
"You hit 'im too hard!" shouted Happy Jack.
"But that feller kin ride!" put in Brigham stoutly.
"Aw, listen to the Mormon-faced dastard!" raved Hardy Atkins; and as the conversation rose mountain high, the white dresses up on the hill fluttered back inside the house. But when Bowles came riding back on Wa-ha-lote not even the outraged Hardy could deny that the Bat Wing had a new hand.