“Never mind who I am or where I came from; I can ride, and that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
There was an instant’s pause, and then the boss bawled a stentorian order and grabbed him by the arm.
“Come on. I’ll give you a chance to show me what you can do, but if you’re takin’ up my time on a bluff I’ll break every bone in your ─ ─ body!”
He led Jim to an open space behind the tents where presently there appeared a living convulsion in the shape of a bucking, squealing bronco seemingly held down to earth by two sweating, shirtless men.
As Jim surveyed that wickedly lowered head with its small eyes rolling viciously, his heart misgave him for a moment. What if he should fail? It was long since he had practiced those rough-riding stunts that had made him in demand for those society circuses of the ante-bellum days, and longer yet since he had learned to break a bronco on the ranch, 61which had been Bill Hollis’s hobby for a season.
What if that devil of a pony should best him in the struggle, and he should be thrown ignominiously from the lot before the eyes of the girl who was waiting patiently for him?
The next instant he had vaulted lightly into the high, Western saddle, the two men had jumped back, and the fight was on. The bronco lashed out viciously with his heels, leaped sidewise, and then, after a running start, attempted to throw his rider over his head, but Jim clung to him like a burr; he flung himself down and rolled over, but the young man jumped clear and was back into the saddle as the enraged animal regained his feet.
The struggle was strenuous but brief, and Jim found himself rejoicing that none of the old tricks had failed him, and that the wicked little brute was realizing that he had at length been mastered.
When the bronco was thoroughly subjected, Jim rode quietly up to where the boss stood with the two other men.
62“Want me to pick up a handkerchief for you, or any other of the old stunts, now?” he asked. “Don’t want to tire this old plug too much for the show.”