“Don’t think much of any of them,” Mr. Ramsey said, after making a careful survey of the bunch. “They are all either skates or outlaws.”
Scott had been perfectly truthful when he had said that he did not know much about horses. In fact he did not know anything at all about these bronchos. None of the signs which any plainsman could read like a book meant anything to him. But he did have an eye for beauty and there was one horse in that drove which had fascinated him at first glance.
Coal black, with a shiny velvet coat which glistened in the sunshine, his shapely head held high on a gracefully arching neck, he seemed the very essence of grace. He kept a little apart from the drove but was evidently their acknowledged leader. He kept almost continually on the go except when he paused momentarily to scan some movement outside the fence. There was a certain royal dignity in all his graceful movements, and a scorn of man in his every glance. Scott knew at once that he would have that horse regardless of cost or expert advice to the contrary. He had been surprised at the supervisor’s comment but supposed it was just part of the horse dealer’s stock in trade.
“Isn’t that black a beauty?” he whispered.
“Keep off of him,” the supervisor warned. “He belongs to Jed Clark and is the wildest in the bunch. Nobody has ever ridden him and Jed would not sell him for a thousand dollars. He only put him in here to try to kill you. He certainly is a beauty, though.”
“Why haven’t they ridden him?” Scott asked, curious but not discouraged.
“Well, Jed just keeps him for breeding and he is so wild that even the cowboys are half afraid of him. He killed a man once. That sorrel over there looks like the best buy to me.”
“How much do they want for him?” Scott asked absently.
“How much for the sorrel, Mose?” the supervisor asked of the man who was in charge of the corral.
“Sixty dollars,” Mose grunted indifferently. A general look of disappointment passed over the crowd, for if Scott bought the sorrel there would be no show for them.