“Me?” The young puncher looked at him with a bland face of innocence. “Why, Blister, you sure do me wrong.”
Dud sauntered to the hitching-rack, easy, careless, graceful. He selected a horse and threw the rein over its head. The preacher was just abreast of the hotel.
The puncher swung to the saddle and brought the pony round. A wild whoop came from his throat. The roan, touched by a spur, leaped to a canter. For an instant it was side by side with Blue Streak. Then it shot down the road.
Blue Streak was off in an eyeflash. It jumped to a gallop and pounded after the roan. The Reverend Melancthon T. Browning was no rider. His feet lost the stirrups. A hymn-book went off at a wild tangent. Coat-tails flew into the air. The exponent of sweetness and light leaned forward and clung desperately to the mane, crying, “Whoa! Stop! Desist!”
But Blue Streak had no intention of desisting as long as the roan was in front. Tex Lindsay’s horse was a racer. No other animal was going to pass it. The legs of the dark horse stretched for the road. It flew past the cowpony as though the latter had been trotting. The Reverend Melancthon stuck to the saddle for dear life.
At the blacksmith shop Dud pulled up. He rode back at a road gait to the hotel. His companions greeted him with shouts of gayety.
“Where’s the parson?” some one asked.
“Between here an’ ’Frisco somewheres. He was travelin’ like he was in a hurry when I saw him last. Who pays for the drinks?”
“I do, you darned ol’ Piute,” shouted Reeves joyously. “I never will forget how the sky pilot’s coat-tails spread. You could ’a’ played checkers on ’em. D’you reckon we’d ought to send a wreckin’ crew after Melancthon T. Browning?”
“Why, no. The way he was clamped to that Blue Streak’s back you couldn’t pry him loose with a crowbar.”