‘Why don’t you have a surcingle, Windsor?’ he said. ‘What’s a pair of girths to a colt like this? Call yourself a breaker? Where’s the crupper?’
‘I left them at home, Mr. Banks,’ exclaimed the rough-rider. ‘Ben Bolt (as I christened him) was getting on so nicely before you young gentlemen came in the way that I never thought of wanting the regular colts’ toggery. Besides, it don’t matter much.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ demanded the unappeased critic. ‘Suppose he sends the saddle over his withers? How’s a fellow to sit him with one leg on each side of his neck? However, here goes.’
Mr. Banks, having enunciated his sentiments, quickly slipped into the saddle, and putting his feet well home in the stirrups, cocking up his toes, squaring his shoulders, and leaning slightly back, with easy nonchalance commanded Mr. Windsor to let him go.
Freeing the tameless one on the instant, Mr. Windsor retired a few steps, and awaited for the next act in the performance. The colt seemed in no hurry to make use of his liberty. He stood in a cramped, awkward, half-asleep position. Mr. Banks touched him quietly, but he made no response.
‘Oh! hang it,’ said that young gentleman, ‘I did not bargain to sit here all day. I’ll move you.’
Suiting the action to the word, he ‘put the hooks on him,’ as a jock would have said—in other words, gave him the spurs so unreservedly that nothing less than the bronze horse of San Marco or the stone charger of the Duke would have borne then unmoved. Ben Bolt did not. It was the match to the powder-barrel. With one wild plunge and a desperate rear which nearly overbalanced him, the nervous but determined animal bounded into the air. After these feats, he appeared to settle down to practical, business-like buck-jumping, impromptu, certainly, but of the highest order of excellence. He certainly did ‘go to work,’ as Mr. Windsor afterwards expressed it. Every known and unknown device which Sathanas could have devised for the benefit of a demon disguised as a horse was tried—and tried in vain. Mr. Banks, swaying easily front or rear of his saddle, never lost head or seat for an instant. Brought up in a horse-loving, horse-breeding district, he was familiar from childhood with every known form of practical or theoretical contravention of equine illegality. He could ride as soon as he could talk, and ere he wrote himself indifferently man, had backed successfully scores of unbroken horses, and ridden for wagers the cannibal Cruisers of more than one stud.
His figure, slight, but very accurately proportioned, was just above the middle height; his features were delicate and regular, with an approximation in the hardly aquiline nose and short lip to the Greek type, by no means uncommon among Australians of the second or third generation. His strength was far greater than was apparent, arising more from the toughness of his muscles than from any great breadth or solidity; and he had astonished the Garrandilla population one day by the ease with which he walked off with successive heavy bags of lour upon his back, when all hands were unloading a dray from Orange.
It was a pretty sight in its way, interesting enough to those who love contests, far from unduly safe, between men and the inferior animals, to see the ease with which the boy’s figure followed each frantic movement of the infuriated animal, and with what perfect and apparently instinctive ease he retained his perilous seat. In vain the roused and desperate creature tried stopping, wheeling, sideway and forward, and indeed backward. Nearly blown was Ben Bolt, evidently relaxing the height and elasticity of his deerlike bounds. The victory was decided in favour of the imperturbable horseman, in Mr. Windsor’s characteristic speech.
‘By the holy poker! Mr. Banks, you’ve “monkeyed” him enough for one while. He won’t try it on with you again in a hurry.’