"Ready?" asked Yellin' Kid.
"All ready! Come a running!" shouted Four Eyes, and even here he did not drop a "g."
In an instant the four horses were in motion, coming together, in line, down the stretch which the newcomer faced. In another moment Four Eyes had ridden across the path of the oncoming steeds, and on the ground he spread out his lasso in a great loop, leaning over in his saddle to do this. He retained hold of the rope end that was fastened to his saddle, and then, having spread the net, as it were, he pulled up on the opposite side of the course down which the four were now thundering in a cloud of dust.
"Can he do it?" asked Nort.
"He can that way—yes," Bud said. "It's a trick! I thought he was going to make a throw."
"It's a good trick, though, if he does it," declared Dick.
In another instant all four horses ridden by the cowboys and the Indian were within the spread-out loop of Four Eyes as it lay on the ground. And then something happened.
With a mere twist of his wrist, as it seemed, Henry Mellon snapped the outspread rope upward and, reining back his horse, he suddenly pulled the lasso taut.
It was completely around the sixteen legs of the four horses, holding them together, the rope itself being half way down from the shoulder of each animal.
"He did it! By the great rattler and all the little rattlers, he did it!" shouted Yellin' Kid, as he pulled his horse to a stop, an example followed by the others. For though they might all (save one, perhaps) have pulled out of the encircling rope, there possibly would have been an accident. One, or more, of the horses would have stumbled, or been pulled to the ground. And there was no need of that in what was only a friendly contest.