Roger stood his ground, turning to follow the whirling horse, waiting for the moment when the rider would swing the beast straight at him.
"Jump, sucker, jump! or I'll ride you into the ground."
Roger jumped as the horse came thundering at him, easily carrying himself out of danger from the animal's hoofs as well as from the heavy quirt which the rider swung at him.
"Pretty nimble, eh? You sucker, you're going under the hoofs if it takes all day!"
Roger looked round. They were alone on the bare prairie, out of sight and hearing of any possible assistance. Higgins would grow curious at lunch time if Roger failed to appear and possibly come out to search for him, but previous to that there was no hope that any one would know the grim game that was being played out there in the desolate waste.
Three hundred yards away lay an island of palmetto shrubs with a few pines sprinkled among them. If he could reach that without being ridden down he could equalize somewhat the advantage which a mounted man holds over a man afoot in the open country, but he calculated the danger of turning his back to the maddened horse and rider and gave it up. A sense of outrage, deeper than his anger, began to grow in him as he considered the spectacle of being forced to hop about like a harlequin, at the mercy of a stranger, and on his own land. The instinct of the landowner with his two feet planted upon his own soil welled up in him, and he whisked up the long-handed digger and took a stand to defend himself.
His attitude was that of a man defying the other to ride him down, and the rider, accepting the challenge with a yell, drove at him like a Fury. Roger saw the outstretched nostrils, the bared teeth and pounding hoofs hurtling at him and realized the folly of his impulse. As the steed came upon him he leaped suddenly to one side and struck furiously at the figure in the saddle. He missed his aim, but the horse, with his nose still throbbing from the blow from the steel, swerved widely, and Roger's quick eyes saw that which gave him hope.
"Come on, you cur!" he shouted. "Try it again."
A volley of sneers, defiance, threats, rolled from his lips as he backed slowly over to where he had been at work. All the facility of his invention and all his vocabulary were called upon to drive the rider frantic with rage and to forbid his powers of observation the opportunity to function. The rider saw no danger, failed to notice the little mound of dirt near which Roger was standing, considered nothing but the act of driving full speed at the man who taunted him. Twice he rode at his agile enemy, twice Roger struck at the horse to make him swerve; and at the third charge the animal's foreleg went into the posthole round which Roger had maneuvered, and the rider shot like a sprawling puppet from the saddle onto the ground. He was up in an instant, bewildered but unharmed, and as his eyes ranged from the struggling horse to Roger, the latter said grimly: "Now we'll talk business."
A curse hissed from the other's stiff, open lips, and insane with rage, head down, he threw himself forward. Roger met the rush with a straight left, which cut through an eyebrow like a knife, and went home with a crack on a high cheek bone; but no blow could stop the rush of rage and in another moment the man was on him, grappling for a hold. The fight for the nonce became a scuffle. The stranger fought as Roger had never seen a white man fight before; his hard brown fingers were fixed rigidly like iron claws with which he struck and clutched spasmodically for a grip on the flesh of face or neck.