The next instant the little broncho rose at the fence. The bars rose in front like an impassable wall.
"He'll never make it," was the thought that flashed through Rob's head.
But even as the fear of a direful crash flashed through his mind, the active little animal he bestrode had cleared the barrier, its hind hoofs just splintering the upper edge of the top rail. The buckskin alighted on the other side, trembling and sweating, with expanded nostrils and heaving flanks, but its ears were no longer back, nor did its eyes show white. The broncho seemed to have realized that it had played its trump card and lost.
"Get up!" cried Rob, kicking the shivering pony in the sides.
Meekly the little buckskin obeyed the rein, and Rob rode it back toward the corral gate—a conquered animal. From that time on the buckskin owned Rob as its master, and a better animal never bore saddle. As the cow-punchers burst into a loud chorus of admiring yells, wrung from them by the plucky exhibition, Rob took off his hat and waved it three times round his head. For the life of him, he could not have abstained from this little bit of braggadocio.
"Yip-ee!" he yelled.
"Good for you!" shouted Harry. "It was a mean trick of Blinky, and I was going to get him in a lot of trouble for it, but—all's well that ends well."
"Say, you were fooling all of us. You must have been out with a Wild West show," exclaimed Blinky admiringly, as Rob patted the wet shoulder of the conquered buckskin.
"I'm glad I could stick on," declared Rob modestly.
"Stick on!" echoed another cow-puncher. "Why, you're a broncho buster, boy!"