Its delicately pointed ears were pressed close back to its shapely head, while its eye gleamed whitely. As the big silver-mounted bit of the barbarous Mexican pattern cut and gored its sensitive mouth, the animal champed and snapped,—like a rabid dog,—till its great chest was flecked with blood and foam. But it was unsubdued, as unconquered as its master.
“By George, what a rider!” was the involuntary exclamation of admiration forced from Jack as he watched.
And the next moment.
“Gracious, what a horse!”
Suddenly the black reared straight upward, beating the air with its forelegs. For a breath it swayed and balanced perfectly, and then, losing its equilibrium—perhaps purposely—it fell backward.
A cry of alarm broke, against his will, from Jack’s whitened lips. Ramon’s death seemed certain. But instead of the black crushing his body in its fall, the agile Mexican was out of the saddle with the agility of an eel, and as the black leaped erect once more its master was back in the saddle breathing fresh maledictions and flogging and rowelling more unmercifully than ever.
But from that time on, there was no question but that the animal realized that it had met its match. Its bucks were no longer great, animated, splendid leaps, driven by the force of its powerful muscles. Instead, they were limp and dispirited.
But Ramon seemed bent on thoroughly humiliating the animal. Jack’s blood began to boil as he saw the brutal punishment increasing in violence as the black grew more and more subjugated. Its sunken flanks heaved, its limbs trembled and actual tears rolled down its cheeks; but Ramon still flogged and beat and spurred as furiously as ever.
“Oh, that such a rider should be such a brute!” thought Jack, watching the scene from his place of concealment.