"He's going to win out sure as shooting," Sue cried, again clapping her hands.
"He's a plucky kid, all right," Spike, who had joined them, declared.
"And some rider," Fats agreed. "I shore never saw anything pruttier than the way he sidestepped him when he went over back."
It was nearly an hour later when Bob returned riding a thoroughly subdued horse. Out on the broad prairie they had fought the last of the battle and finally, covered with sweat and with sides heaving as he painfully expelled the breath from his nostrils. Satan had realized that he had found his master. After that Bob had dismounted and, standing at his head, had talked soothingly the while he stroked the beautifully shaped head.
"Now, then, old boy, you and I are going to be chums," he told him as he gave him a lump of sugar which he had slipped into his pocket that morning. "And there'll be no more spur work," he added.
Although beaten Satan was not yet entirely ready to acknowledge full allegiance to his new master, but Bob continued patiently to talk and little by little the trembling lessened and at the end of fifteen minutes after he had dismounted, Satan was nosing his shoulder in complete surrender. Then Bob rode him slowly back to the house.
"You did it! You did it!" Sue cried as he came within speaking distance. "Oh, it was wonderful and now he'll always love you."
"I reckon we'll get along all right now," Bob said modestly as he slipped to the ground. "And isn't lie a beauty? And run, why that horse can almost fly."
"Well, son, you did a good job and he's your personal property as long as you stay here," Jeb, who had come from the barn as Bob rode up, declared.
"Thank you, sir. I wouldn't ask anything better," Bob assured him.