The three men took a cross-ranch road for half a mile, turned up a wooded canyon where ran a spring-trickle of stream, and emerged on a wide rolling terrace rich in pasture. Graham’s first glimpse was of a background of many curious yearling and two-year-old colts, against which, in the middleground, he saw his hostess, on the back of the bright bay thoroughbred, The Fop, who, on hind legs, was striking his forefeet in the air and squealing shrilly. They reined in their mounts and watched.
“He’ll get her yet,” the veterinary muttered morosely. “That Fop isn’t safe.”
But at that moment Paula Forrest, unaware of her audience, with a sharp cry of command and a cavalier thrust of sharp spurs into The Fop’s silken sides, checked him down to four-footedness on the ground and a restless, champing quietness.
“Taking chances?” Dick mildly reproached her, as the three rode up.
“Oh, I can manage him,” she breathed between tight teeth, as, with ears back and vicious-gleaming eyes, The Fop bared his teeth in a bite that would have been perilously near to Graham’s leg had she not reined the brute abruptly away across the neck and driven both spurs solidly into his sides.
The Fop quivered, squealed, and for the moment stood still.
“It’s the old game, the white man’s game,” Dick laughed. “She’s not afraid of him, and he knows it. She outgames him, out-savages him, teaches him what savagery is in its intimate mood and tense.”
Three times, while they looked on, ready to whirl their own steeds away if he got out of hand, The Fop attempted to burst into rampage, and three times, solidly, with careful, delicate hand on the bitter bit, Paula Forrest dealt him double spurs in the ribs, till he stood, sweating, frothing, fretting, beaten, and in hand.
“It’s the way the white man has always done,” Dick moralized, while Graham suffered a fluttery, shivery sensation of admiration of the beast-conquering Little Lady. “He’s out-savaged the savage the world around,” Dick went on. “He’s out-endured him, out-filthed him, out-scalped him, out-tortured him, out-eaten him—yes, out-eaten him. It’s a fair wager that the white man, in extremis, has eaten more of the genus homo, than the savage, in extremis, has eaten.”
“Good afternoon,” Paula greeted her guest, the ranch veterinary, and her husband. “I think I’ve got him now. Let’s look over the colts. Just keep an eye, Mr. Graham, on his mouth. He’s a dreadful snapper. Ride free from him, and you’ll save your leg for old age.”