When a man's a man

by Harold Bell Wright

She was half way to the spring, singing softly to herself, when a sound on the low ridge above the camp attracted her attention. Pausing, she looked and listened. The song died on her lips. It could not be Staford coming so noisily through the brush and from that direction. Even as the thought came, she heard the gun again, a little farther away down the narrow valley below the camp, and, in the same moment, the noise on the ridge grew louder, as though some heavy animal were crashing through the bushes. And then suddenly, as she stood there in frightened indecision, a long-horned, wild-eyed steer broke through the brush on the crest of the ridge and plunged down the steep slope toward the camp.

Weak and helpless with fear, Helen could neither scream nor run, but stood fascinated by the very danger that menaced her—powerless, even, to turn her eyes away from the frightful creature that had so rudely broken the quiet seclusion of the little glade. Behind the steer, even as the frenzied animal leaped from the brow of the hill, she saw a horseman, as wild in his appearance and in his reckless rushing haste as the creature he pursued. Curiously, as in a dream, she saw the horse's neck and shoulders dripping wet with sweat, as with ears flat, nose outstretched, and nostrils wide the animal strained every nerve in an effort to put his rider a few feet closer to the escaping quarry. She even noted the fringed leather chaps, the faded blue jumper, the broad hat of the rider, and that in his rein hand he held the coil of a riata high above the saddle horn, while in his right was the half-opened loop. The bridle reins were loose, as though he gave the horse no thought; and they took the steep, downward plunge from the summit of the ridge without an instant's pause, and apparently with all the ease and confidence that they would have felt on smooth and level ground.

The steer, catching sight of the woman, and seeing in her, perhaps, another enemy, swerved a little in his plunging course, and, with lowered head, charged straight at her.

The loop of that rawhide rope was whirling now above the cowboy's head, and his spurs drew blood from the heaving flanks of the straining horse, as every mad leap of the steer brought death a few feet nearer the helpless woman.

The situation must have broken with frightful suddenness upon the man, but he gave no sign—no startled shout, no excited movement. He even appeared, to Helen, to be as coolly deliberate as though no thought of her danger disturbed him; and she recognized, even in that awful moment, the cowboy whom she had watched through the field glasses, that day of the celebration at Prescott. She could not know that, in the same instant, as his horse plunged down from the summit of the ridge, Patches had recognized her; and that as his hand swung the riata with such cool and deliberate precision, the man was praying—praying as only a man who sees the woman he loves facing a dreadful death, with no hand but his to save her, could pray.

God help him if his training of nerve and hand should fail now! Christ pity him, if that whirling loop should miss its mark, or fall short!

His eye told him that the distance was still too great. He must—he must—lessen it; and again his spurs drew blood. He must be cool—cool and steady and sure—and he must act now—NOW!

Helen saw the racing horse make a desperate leap as the spurs tore his heaving sides; she saw that swiftly whirling loop leave the rider's hand, as the man leaned forward in his saddle. Curiously she watched the loop open with beautiful precision, as the coils were loosed and the long, thin line lengthened through the air. It seemed to move so slowly—those wickedly lowered horns were so near! Then she saw the rider's right hand move with flashlike quickness to the saddle horn, as he threw his weight back, and the horse, with legs braced and hoofs plowing the ground, stopped in half his own length, and set his weight against the weight of the steer. The flexible riata straightened as a rod of iron, the steer's head jerked sideways; his horns buried themselves in the ground; he fell, almost at her feet. And then, as the cowboy leaped from his horse, Helen felt herself sinking into a soft, thick darkness that, try as she might, she could not escape.

Still master of himself, but with a kind of fierce coolness, Patches ran to the fallen steer and securely tied the animal down. But when he turned to the woman who lay unconscious on the ground, a sob burst from his lips, and tears were streaming down his dust-grimed cheeks. And as he knelt beside her he called again and again that name which, a year before, he had whispered as he stood with empty, outstretched arms, alone, on the summit of the Divide.

Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the hammock, and finding water and a towel, wet her brow and face; and all the while, in an agony of fear, he talked to her with words of love.