Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

by G. A. Henty

"Not at all. But if he is to race you had better ride him instead of me. I shouldn't say you were much above nine stone and a half."

"I don't know what you mean by your stone," Harry said. "We don't reckon that way out here. I was a hundred and thirty-five pounds last time I weighed at the head-station."

"That is two pounds more than I said. Well, I am certainly twenty pounds heavier—I should say twenty-five, and that makes a lot of difference."

"I should think so. Still we had best have a trial, Hugh, before we try to make a match. That is a good horse of yours. I mean the one you first mounted and who played such tricks with you. I should like some day to try him against my best, and see how they go. I daresay you will get him again before the round-up is over."

"What length do you run your races here, Broncho?"

"In general they are short dashes, not above half a mile at the outside, but sometimes a match is made for some distance. Well, when we have had dinner we will trot out into the plain. We must go off a goodish bit, and make sure that none of the boys of the other ranches are within sight."

Accordingly, when dinner was over, Broncho Harry and Hugh went out to the horses. Prince come trotting out as soon as he heard Hugh's whistle, and Broncho Harry soon dropped his noose over the neck of his own horse. They then put on the saddles and bridles which they had brought with them, and went off at a canter across the plains. They ran three or four trials. The result showed that Broncho's horse was quicker in getting off, and that in a quarter of a mile dash there was little to choose between them, but at longer distances than this Prince was, in spite of the greater weight he carried, much the faster.

"That horse can go," the cow-boy said admiringly. "I shouldn't mind if there were a pack of Redskins coming behind me if I was on his back. The worst of him is he is so good-looking. If he was ugly to look at we might clean out all the camps, but he looks so good that I am afraid we sha'n't be able to get much money out of him. Well, now, we won't race him this evening. There are sure to be some matches on, and I will ride my horse. That way I shall find what there is in the camp, and whether there is anything that can beat him as much as your horse can do. Don't you go cavorting about on him; just let him run with the rest of the mob. Then he won't be noticed. There is too much to be got through in this camp for men to take stock of the horses. Then if we keep him dark we can get someone to set up his horse against the best of ours. We will put the boys up to it when we get back, or someone may be blowing about your horse."

There were, as the cow-boy anticipated, a number of races run that evening. Broncho Harry beat two other horses, but lost his winnings and more in the third race, when he was beaten somewhat easily by an animal which in point of looks was greatly the inferior of his own.

"That is just what I told you, Hugh," he said, when, after unsaddling his horse and sending it off to join its companions on the plains, he returned to the waggon. "I am a blessed fool, for I ought to have known that when that cross T's man offered to back that ugly-looking brute against mine, he wur a sight better than he looked. He just shot off like an arrow at starting. I didn't loose anything afterwards, but I couldn't pick up them three lengths he got in the first forty yards. If we make a match against him we must see that it ain't less than half a mile."