“I wonder how he would like it,” thought Bart, as he darted an indignant look at the Indian, who sat upon his swift pony like a group cut in bronze. “He might just as well have gone after Black Boy, for his pony looks as if it could go.”
Just then the Indian threw himself lightly from his nag and drew near to Bart, with the horse-hair rein in his hand. Then he made signs to the young fellow to mount.
“Do you mean that you will lend me the pony to go after my own?” said Bart eagerly.
The Indian did not understand his words, but evidently realised their meaning, for he smiled and nodded, and placed the rein in Bart’s hand, when he leaped into the saddle, or rather into the apology for a saddle, for it was only a piece of bison hide held on by a bandage, while a sort of knob or peg was in the place of the pommel, a contrivance invented by the Indians to hold on by when attacking a dangerous enemy, so as to lie as it were alongside of their horse, and fire or shoot arrows beneath its neck, their bodies being in this way thoroughly protected by their horses.
The Indian smiled and drew back when Bart touched the pony with his heel, the result being that, instead of going off at a gallop, the little restive beast reared up, pawing at the air with its hoofs, and nearly falling backwards upon its rider.
The Indian looked on intently as if ready to leap forward and seize the bridle should Bart be dismounted. But the lad kept his seat, and the pony went on all fours again, but only to begin kicking furiously, to dislodge the strange white-faced being upon its back. It was like an insult to an animal that had been accustomed to carry true-blooded Indians all its life, dressed in skins ornamented with feathers and neatly painted up for special occasions, to have a pale-faced, undersized human animal in strange clothes mounted upon it; and the proper thing seemed to be to kick him off as soon as it could.
These seemed to be the ideas of the Indian pony as exemplified by its acts; but the wildest of animals of the horse family cannot always do as they please, and it was evidently with something like astonishment that the little steed found Bart, still fixed firmly upon its back instead of flying over its head or slipping off backwards over the tail.
This being so, the pony began to what is called “buck,” that is to say, instead of letting its back remain in an agreeable hollow curve, one which seems to have been made by nature on purpose to hold a human being, it curved its spine in the opposite direction, arching it as a cat would, but of course in a modified way, and then began leaping up from the earth in a series of buck jumps, all four hoofs from the ground at once.
Still, in spite of this being the most difficult form of horse trouble to master, Bart kept his seat. He was jerked about a great deal, but he had been long used to riding restive horses, and he sat there as coolly as if in a chair.
Then the Indian pony uttered a few shrill snorts and squeaks, throwing up its head, and finally turning round, first on one side then upon the other, it tried to bite its rider’s legs—attacks which Bart met by a series of sharp blows, given with the lariat that was coiled by the horse’s neck.