His successor took the dust ignominiously in a clean tumble. He got up, looked ruefully at the bronco that had unseated him, and went his bowlegged way back to meet the derisive condolences of forty grinning punchers.
“Too bad the judges didn’t have the ground plowed up for you, Shorty. It would ’a’ been a heap softer,” murmured one.
“If I’d only remembered to ride on my spurs like you done, Wade, I needn’t have fallen at all,” came back Shorty with genial malice at his tormentor.
Whereat the laugh was on Wade, who had been detected earlier in the day digging his spurs into the cinch to help him stick to the saddle.
“Rowan McCoy on Tenderfoot,” announced the leather-lunged megaphone man.
A wave of interest swept through the grand stand. Everybody had wanted to see the champion ride. Now they were going to get the chance. The announcement caused a stir even among the hard-bitten riders at the entrance to the corral. For McCoy was not only a famous bronco buster; he was a man whose personality had won him many friends and some enemies.
The owner of the Circle Diamond rode like a centaur. He tried no tricks, no fancy business to win the applause of the spectators. But he held his seat with such ease and mastery that his long, lithe body might have been a part of the horse. His riding was characteristic of him—straight and strong and genuine.
The outlaw tried its wicked best, and no bronco in the Rockies was better known than Tenderfoot for the fighting devil that slumbered in its heart. Neither side bucking nor pitching, sunfishing nor weaving could shake the lean-loined, broad-shouldered figure from his seat. It was not merely that McCoy could not be unseated; there was never a moment when there was any doubt of whether man or beast was master. Even when the bronco flung itself backward, McCoy was in the saddle again before the animal was on its feet.
The eyes of Ruth never left the fighting pair. She leaned forward, fascinated, lost to everything in the world but the duel that was being fought out in front of her. They were a splendid pair of animals, each keyed to the highest notch of efficiency. But the one in the saddle was something more. His perfect poise was no doubt instinctive, born of long experience. His skill had become automatic. Yet back of this she sensed mind, a will that flashed along the reins to the brute beneath. Slowly Tenderfoot answered to its master, acknowledged the dominion of the man.
Its pitching became less violent, its bucking halfhearted. At a signal from one of the judges, McCoy slipped from the saddle. Without an instant’s delay, without a single glance at the storm-tossed grand stand, the rider strode across the arena and disappeared. He did not know that Ruth Trovillion was beating her gloved hands excitedly along with five thousand other cheering spectators. He could not guess how her heart had stood still when the bronco toppled backward, nor how it had raced when his toes found again the stirrups as the horse struggled to its feet.