“Hurrah ’tis!” said Gerrian.
The herd dashed by in a huddle, making for the corral.
Just behind, aloof from the rush and scamper of his less noble brethren, came the black, my purchase, my old friend.
“Ef you ever ride or back that curwolyow,” says Gerrian, “I’ll eat a six-shooter, loaded and capped.”
“You’d better begin, then, at once,” rejoined I, “whetting your teeth on Derringers. I mean to ride him, and you shall be by when I do it.”
It was grand to see a horse that understood and respected himself so perfectly. One, too, that meant the world should know that he was the very chiefest chief of his race, proud with the blood of a thousand kings. How masterly he looked! How untamably he stepped! The herd was galloping furiously. He disdained to break into a gallop. He trotted after, a hundred feet behind the hindmost, with large and liberal action. And even at this half speed easily overtaking his slower comrades, he from time to time paused, bounded in the air, tossed his head, flung out his legs, and then strode on again, writhing all over with suppressed power.
There was not a white spot upon him, except where a flake of foam from his indignant nostril had caught upon his flank. A thorough-bred horse, with the perfect tail and silky mane of a noble race. His coat glistened, as if the best groom in England had just given him the final touches of his toilette for a canter in Rotten Row. But it seems a sin to compare such a free rover of the prairie with any less favored brother, who needs a groom, and has felt a currycomb.
Hard after the riderless horses came José, the vaquero, on a fast mustang. As he rode, he whirled his lasso with easy turn of the wrist.
The black, trotting still, and halting still to curvet and caracole, turned back his head contemptuously at his pursuer. “Mexicans may chase their own ponies and break their spirit by brutality; but an American horse is no more to be touched by a Mexican than an American man. Bah! make your cast! Dont trifle with your lasso! I challenge you. Jerk away, Señor Greaser! I give you as fair a chance as you could wish.”
So the black seemed to say, with his provoking backward glance and his whinny of disdain.