Unconsciously his tongue came out to wet the parched lips and his fingers plucked at the seams of the new overalls.
Why not? the insidious self argued, why not? All changes must come gradually. Nothing can be accomplished in a moment. Just one drink to cool his throat, to steady his nerves, and brace him for the fight he would make—later.
As he stood there listening to that inner voice, yet holding it off, he did not hear the fall of hoofs behind him or the jingle of spurs as a rider dismounted and approached.
But he did hear the voice—drawling, nasty, jeering:
"Was you considerin' havin' a bit o' refreshment, stranger?"
VB wheeled quickly and looked straight into the green glitter of Rhues's red-lidded eyes. The cruel mouth was stretched in an angular grin, and the whole countenance expressed the incarnate spirit of the bully.
Into Danny's mind leaped the idea that this thing before him, this evil-eyed, jeering, leering, daring being, typified all that was foul in his heart—just as the Captain typified all that was virtuous.
The intuitive repulsion surged to militant hate. He wanted to smother the breath which kept alive such a spirit, wanted to stamp into the dust the body that housed it—because it mocked him and tempted him! But Young VB only turned and brushed past the man without a word.
He heard Rhues's laughter behind him, and heard him call: "Ranger ain't no eastern Sunday school. Better have one an' be a man, like th' rest o' th' boys!"
However, when Rhues turned back to his pony the laugh was gone and he was puzzling over something. After he had mounted, he looked after the boy again maliciously.
VB was on the road in half an hour, driving the horses as fast as he dared. He wanted to be back in Jed's cabin, away from Ranger. This thing had followed him across the country to Colt; from Colt to the Anchor; and now It lurked for him in Ranger. The ranch was his haven.
The settlement by the river reached its claws after him as he drove, fastening them in his throat and shaking his will until it seemed as though it had reached the limit of its endurance.
It was dark when he reached home. A mile away he had seen the light and smiled weakly at thought of it, and the horses, more than willing, carried the wagon over the remaining distance with a bouncing that threatened its contents.
When VB pulled up before the outer gate Jed hurried from the cabin.
"VB," he called, "are you all right?"
"All right, Jed," he answered, dropping from the seat.
And the boy thought he heard the older man thank his God.
Without words, they unharnessed and went to the cabin. Kelly was sleeping loudly in the adjoining room. The table had been moved from its usual place nearer to the window, and the bottle with its burning candle was close against the pane. Jed looked at the candle, then at VB.
"I'm sorry," he said, seeing the strain about the boy's mouth. "I never thought about it until come night, Young VB. I never thought about it. I—I guess I'm an old fool, gettin' scared th' way I do. So I shoved this candle up against th' window—because I'm an old fool and thought—it might help a little."
And VB answered: "It does help, Jed! Every little thing helps. And oh, God, how I need it!"
He turned away.
Summer drew toward its close and the work became more exacting. Jed was sure that more of his colts ran the range without brands, and the two rode constantly, searching every gulch and break for the strays. One day they went far to the east, and at noon encountered three of Bob Thorpe's men building fence.
"It's his new drift fence," Jed explained. "He's goin' to have a lot of winter pasture, to be sure he is. It'll help us, too. When we come takin' these here willow tails off this ridge they'll find somethin' new. It's so close up to the foot of the rise that they can't jump it."
"Thorpe must be rich," remarked Young VB as they went on along the fence.
"Rich don't say it! He's rollin' in money, an' he sure knows how to enjoy it. Every winter, when things gets squared away, he takes his wife an' goes to California. I s'pose he'll be takin' his girl, too—now that she's quit goin' to school."
The boy wanted to ask questions about this daughter of Bob Thorpe's, but a diffidence, for which there was no accounting, held him back. He was curious as he had been whenever he heard of or thought of her, and as he had been when he had once seen her. But somehow he did not care to admit that curiosity even to Jed, and when he tried to analyze the reason for his reticence there was no doing so.
Now came more knowledge of the waste places with weeks of riding; more knowledge of the barren area in his own heart with self-study; more pertinent, that which the Captain typified.
And all the time that struggle continued, which at times seemed only the hopeless floundering of a man in quicksands—life on the river bank so close; death below, certain, mocking his efforts.
"He has faith in himself because he is physically equipped," VB murmured one day as he saw the Captain standing against the sky on a distant ridge. "His belief in himself is justified. But I—what do I know about my own capabilities?"
Yet a latent quality in the boy was the sort that offsets doubts, else why this emulation of the stallion, why this feeling that was almost love, constant, always growing, never hesitating?
Like most men, Young VB was unprepared for the big moments of his life. Could we only foresee them, is the plaint of men! Could we only know and go out to meet them in spirit proper! And yet that very state of preparation might take from the all-encompassing grandeur of those passages a potent element.
After all, this scheme of things has its compensations, and inability to foretell the future may be one of the greatest.
With fear in his heart and black discouragement and lack of faith, Young VB went out to meet what proved to be his first great moment.
Jed had gone to the railroad, bound for the Springs, to untangle a mess of red tape that had snarled about his filing on some land. VB was left alone, and for days the young fellow saw no one. In the natural loneliness that followed, the assault came upon him with manifold force. He could not sleep, could not eat, could not remain in one place or keep his mind on a fixed purpose.
He walked about, talking to himself in the silence, trying ineffectually to do the necessary work of the ranch, trying to stifle the loud voice that begged him to forego all the struggle and let his impulses carry him where they would.
But were not his impulses carrying him? Was it not his first impulse to go on with the fight? He did not think of that.
At times it was hard indeed to differentiate between the real and the unreal. The voice that wheedled was such a twister of words and terms, and its ally, the thirst, raged with such virility that he was forced to do something with his body. To remain an unresisting victim to the torture would only invite disaster.
Throwing a saddle on his "top" horse, Young VB set out, leaving the half-prepared dinner as it was, unable even to wait for food. He rode swiftly up the gulch to where it forked, and then to the right, letting the stanch animal under him cover the ground at a swinging trot. In three hours he was miles from the ranch, far back in the hills, and climbing to the top of a stretching ridge. He breathed through his mouth, to let the air on his burning throat, and twisted his bridle reins until the stout leather was misshapen, utterly lost in the conflict which went on within, heedless of all else.
Suddenly he realized that his horse had come a long distance without rest. He dismounted in a thicket of cedars, sharply repentant that his own torment had led him to forget the beast that served him, and even the distraction of that concern brought relief.
With the cinch eased the horse stood and breathed gratefully. But he was not fagged, he was still alert and eager. His ears were set stiffly forward, and he gazed upwind, sniffing softly now and then.
"What you see, cayuse?" VB asked, trying to make out the cause of that attentiveness.
Again the sniffing, and of a sudden the horse froze, stopped his breathing, and VB, a hand on the beast's hip, felt a quick tremor run through him.
Then the man saw that which had caused the animal to tremble, and the sight set him tingling just as it always did.
A hundred yards up the ridge, sharp against the sky, commanding, watchful, stood the Captain. He had not seen or scented VB, for he looked in other directions, moving his head from point to point, scanning every nook of the country below him. Something mannish there was about that beast, a comprehensive, planned vigilance. Down below him in a sag fed the mares.
As VB looked at that watcher he felt the lust to possess crawling up, surging through him, blotting out that other desire, that torment, making his breath congest, making his mouth dry. He tightened his cinch and mounted.
The Captain did not see VB until the rider came clear of the cover in which he had halted.
For the instant only, as the rushing horseman broke through the cedars, a scudding, fluttering object hurtling across the low brush, the black stallion stood as though his feet were imbedded in the rock under him, his head full toward the rushing rider, nose up, astonishment in the very angle of his stiff ears. Then those ears went flat; the sleek body pivoted on its dainty hind feet, and a scream of angered warning came from the long throat.
Even as the Captain's front hoofs clawed the ground in his first leap, the mares were running. They drew close together, frightened by the abruptness of the alarm, scuttling away from the punishment they knew would be coming from their master if they wasted seconds.
VB was possessed again. His reason told him that a single horseman had no chance in the world with that bunch, that he could not hope to keep up even long enough to scatter the band, that he would only run his mount down, good horse that he was. But the lust urged him on, tugging at his vitals, and he gave vent to his excitement in sharp screams of joy, the joy of the hunt—and the joy of honest attempt at supreme accomplishment.
The dust trailed behind the bunch, enveloping the rushing Captain in a dun mantle, finally to be whipped away by the breeze. They tore down stiff sagebrush in their flight; and so great was the strain that their bellies skimmed incredibly close to the ground.
VB's horse caught the spirit of the chase, as do all animals when they follow their kind. He extended himself to the last fiber, and with astonishment—a glad astonishment that brought a whoop of triumph—the boy saw that the mares were not drawing away—that he was crawling up on them!
But the Captain! Ah, he was running away from the man who gave chase, was putting more distance between them at every thundering leap, was drawing closer to his slower mares, lip stretched back over his gleaming teeth, jaws working as he strained to reach them and make that band go still faster.
VB's quirt commenced to sing its goading tune, slashing first on one side, then on the other. He hung far forward over the fork of his saddle, leaning low to offer the least possible resistance to the wind. Now and then he called aloud to his pony, swearing with glad savagery.
The Captain reached his bunch, closing in on them with a burst of speed that seemed beyond the abilities of blood and bone. The man behind thought he heard those long teeth pop as they caught the rump of a scurrying mare; surely he heard the stallion's scream of rage as, after nipping mare after mare, running to and fro behind them, he found that they had opened their hearts to the last limit and could go no faster. Theycould notdo it—and the rider behind was crawling up, jump for jump, gaining a yard, losing a foot, gaining again, steadily, relentlessly.
VB did not know that Kelly, the horse buyer, and one of Dick Worth's riders had given the outlaws a long, tedious race that morning as they were coming in from the dry country to the west for water and better feed. He did not know that the band had been filling their bellies with great quantities of water, crowding them still more with grasses, until there was no room left for the working of lungs, for the stretching of taxed muscles.
He saw only the one fact: that he was gaining on the Captain. He did not stop even to consider the obvious ending of such a chase. He might scatter the band, but what of it? When the last hope had been cast the Captain would strike out alone, would turn all the energy that now went to driving his mares to making good his own escape, and then there would be no more race—just a widening of a breach that could not be closed.
But VB did not think of anything beyond the next stride. His mind was possessed with the idea that every leap of the laboring beast under him must bring him closer to the huddle of frantic horses, nearer to the flying hindquarters of the jet leader who tried so hard to make his authority override circumstance.
The slashing of the quirt became more vicious. VB strained farther forward. His lips were parted, his eyes strained open with excitement, and the tears started by that rushing streamed over his cheeks.
"E-e-eyah!" he shrieked.
The buckskin mare found a hole. Her hind legs went into the air, sticking toward the sky above that thundering clump of tossing, rushing bodies with its fringes of fluttering hair. Her legs seemed to poise a moment; then they went down slowly. The Captain leaped her prostrate body, to sink his teeth into the flank of a sorrel that lagged half a length behind the others.
VB passed so near the buckskin as she gained her faltering feet that he could have slashed her with his quirt. Yet he had no eyes for her, had no heed for any of the mares. He was playing for the bigger game.
The sorrel quit, unable to respond to that punishment, fearful of her master. She angled off to the right, to be rid of him, and disappeared through a clump of trees. The stallion shrilled his anger and disgust, slowing his gallop a half-dozen jumps as though he wanted to follow and punish her cruelly.
Then he glanced backward, threw his nose in the air and, stretching to his own tremendous speed again, stormed on.
The huddle of mares became less compact, seemed to lose also its unity of purpose. The Captain had more to do. His trips from flank to flank of the band were longer. By the time he had spurred the gray at the left back into the lead the brown three-year-old on the other wing was a loiterer by a length. Then, when she was sent ahead, the gray was lagging again. And another by her side, perhaps.
"E-e-eyah!"
VB's throat was raw from the screaming, but he did not know it—no more than he knew that his hat was gone or that his nerves still yearned for their stinging stimulant.
The cry, coming again and again, worried the Captain. Each time it crackled from VB's lips the black nose was flung high and an eye which glared orange hate even at that distance rolled back to watch this yelling pursuer.
VB saw, and began to shout words at the animal, to cry his challenge, to curse.
The galloping gray quit, without an attempt to rally. The Captain brought to bear a terrific punishment, dropping back to within thirty yards of the man who pressed him, but it was useless, for she was spent. The water and luscious grass in her dammed up the reservoirs of her vitality, would not let her respond. When the stallion gave her up and tore on after the others she dropped even her floundering gallop, and as VB raced past her he heard the breath sob down her throat.
On and across they tore, dropping into sags of the ridge, climbing sharp little pitches, swinging now to the right and bending back to the left again in a sweeping curve. The uneven galloping of the horse under him, the gulps for breath the pony made as the footing fooled him and he jolted sharply, the shiftings and duckings and quick turnings as they stormed through groups of trees, the rattle of brush as it smote his boot toes and stirrups were all unheeded by VB.
Once his shoulder met a tough cedar bough, and the blow wrenched it from its trunk. His face was whipped to rawness by smaller branches, and one knee throbbed dully where it had skimmed a bowlder as they shot past. But he saw only that floundering band ahead.
The buckskin was gone, the sorrel, the gray; next, two mares quit together, and the Captain, seeing them go, did not slacken his speed, did not even scream his rage. Only four remained, and he gambled on them as against the slight chance of recovering any of those others; for that screaming rider was closing in on him all the time.
Oh, water and grass! How necessary both are to life, but how dangerous at a time like this! Pop-pop! The teeth closed on those running hips. The vainness of it all! They could go no faster. They had tried first from instinct, then from willingness; now they tried from fear as their lord tortured them. But though the will was there, the ability could not come, not even when the Captain pushed through them, and in a desperate maneuver set the pace, showing them his fine heels and clean limbs, demonstrating how easy it was to go on and on and draw away from that rider who tugged at his muffler that wind might find and cool his throat, burning now from unalloyed hope.
And so VB, the newest horse runner on the range, scattered the Captain's band, accomplishing all that the best of the men who rode that country had ever been able to boast.
The stallion tried once more to rally his mates into escape, but their hearts were bursting, their lungs clogged. They could do no more.
Then away he went alone, head high and turning from side to side, mane flaunting, tail trailing gracefully behind him, beauty in every regal line and curve, majestic superiority in each stride he took.
He raced off into the country that stretched eastward, the loser for the time of one set of conquests but free—free to go on and make himself more high, more powerful, more a thing to be emulated even by man.
He ran lightly, evenly, without effort, and the gap between him and the rider behind, narrowed by such tremendous exertion from that lathered pony, widened with scarce an added effort.
But VB went on, driving his reeking pony mercilessly. He had ceased yelling now. His face was set; blood that had been whipped into it by his frenzy, by the rushing of the wind, by the smiting of branches, left the skin. It became white, and from that visage two eyes glowed abnormally brilliant. For the Captain was taking off the ridge where it bent and struck into the north, was plunging down over the pitch into the shadows. He was going his best, in long, keen strides that would carry him to the bottom with a momentum so tremendous that on the flat he would be running himself into a blur. And VB's face was colorless, with eyes brilliant, because he knew that along the bottom of the drop ran the new drift fence that Bob Thorpe's men were erecting.
He began to plead with his pony, to talk to him childishly, to beg him to keep his feet, to coax him to last, to pray him to follow—and in control of himself, and on time! As they dropped off the ridge, down through the sliding shale and scattered brush, VB's right hand, upraised to keep his balance, held the loop of his rope, and the other, flung behind the cantle of his saddle, grasped the coils of the sturdy hemp.
Oh, Captain, your speed was against you! You took off that ridge with those ground-covering leaps, limbs flying, heart set on reaching the bottom with a swirl of speed that would dishearten your follower. But you did not reckon on an obstruction, on the thing your eyes encountered when halfway down that height and going with all the power within you. Those fresh posts and the wires strung between them! A fence! Men had invaded your territory with their barriers, and at such a time! You knew, too, that there was no jumping it; they had set the posts so far up on the pitch that no take-off had been left.
So the Captain tried to stop. With haunches far under him, front feet straight before, belly scrubbing the brush, he battled to overcome the awful impetus his body had received up above. Sprawling, sliding, feet shooting in any direction as the footing gave, he struggled to stop his progress. It was no simple matter; indeed, checking that flight was far more difficult than the attaining of that speed. In the midst of rolling, bounding stones, sliding dust, breaking brush, the great stallion gradually slowed his going. Slow and more slowly he went on toward the bottom; almost stopped, but still was unable to bring his muscles into play for a dash to right or left.
On behind, pony floundering in the wake of the Captain, rode VB, right hand high, snapping back and forth to hold him erect, rope dangling from it crazily. He breathed through his mouth, and at every exhalation his vocal chords vibrated.
Perhaps even then the Captain might have won. The odds of the game were all against him, it is true, for breaking down the pitch as he did, it required longer for him to reach the bottom in possession of his equilibrium than it did the slower-moving horse that bore VB. It would have been a tight squeeze for the horse, but the man was in a poor position to cast his loop with any degree of accuracy.
But a flat sliding stone discounted all other factors. Nothing else mattered. The Captain came to a stop, eyes wild, ears back. With a slow-starting, mighty lunge, he made as though to turn and race down along the line of fence before VB could get within striking distance. The great muscles contracted, his ragged hoofs sought a hold. The hind legs straightened, that mighty force bore on his footing—and the stone slipped! The Captain was outlucked.
His hind legs shot backward, staggering him. His hindquarters slipped downhill, throwing his head up to confront VB. His nostrils flared, that orange hate in his eyes met the glow from his pursuer's, who came down upon him—only half a dozen lengths away!
It does not take a horse that is bearing a rider downhill an appreciable length of time to take one more stride. Gravity does the work. The horse jerks his fore legs from under his body and then shoots them out again for fresh hold to keep his downward progress within reason.
VB's pony went down the drop with much more rapidity than safety, in short, jerky, stiff-legged plunges, hindquarters scrooged far under his body; alert, watching his footing, grunting in his care not to take too great risks.
When the Captain, fooled by false footing, was whirled about to face the down-coming rider, the pony's fore feet had just drawn themselves out of the way to let his body farther down the slope. And when the sturdy legs again shot out to strike rock and keep horse and VB upright, the black stallion had started to wheel. But in the split second which intervened between the beginning and ending of that floundering jump, eyes met eyes. The eyes of a man met the eyes of a beast, and heart read heart. The eyes of a man who had frittered his life, who had flaunted his heritage of strength in body and bone until he had become a weakling, a cringing, whining center of abnormal nervous activities, fearing himself, met the eyes of a beast that knew himself to be a paragon of his kind, the final achievement of his strain, a commanding force that had never been curbed, that had defied alike his own kingdom and the race from which had sprung the being now confronting him.
The eyes of him who had been a weakling met the eyes of that which had been superstrong and without a waver; they held, they penetrated, and, suddenly born from the purposeless life of Danny Lenox, flamed Young VB's soul. All the emulation, all the lust this beast before him had roused in his heart, became amalgamated with that part of him which subtly strove to drag him away from debauchery, and upon those blending elements of strength was set the lasting stamp of his individuality.
His purpose flamed in his eyes and its light was so great that the horse read, and, reading, set his ears forward and screamed—not so much a scream of anger as of wondering terror. For the beast caught the significance of that splendid determination which made for conquest with a power equal to his own strength, which was making for escape. The telepathic communication from the one to the other was the same force that sends a jungle king into antics at the pleasure of his trainer—the language that transcends species!
The pony's hoofs dug shale once more, and the upraised right arm whipped about the tousled head. The rope swished angrily as it slashed the air. Once it circled—and the Captain jumped, lunging off to the left. Twice it cut its disk—and the stallion's quivering flanks gathered for a second leap. It writhed; it stretched out waveringly, seekingly, feelingly as though uncertain, almost blindly, but swiftly—so swiftly! The loop flattened and spread and undulated, drawing the long stretch of hemp after it teasingly. It stopped, as though suddenly tired. It poised with uncanny deliberation. Then, as gently as a maiden's sigh, it settled—settled—drooped—and the Captain's nose, reaching out for liberty, to be free of this man whose eyes flamed a determination so stanch that it went down to his beast heart, thrust itself plumb through the middle.
The hoarse rip of the hard-twist coming through its hondu, the whistle of breath from the man's tight teeth, the rattle of stone on stone; then the squeal from the stallion as for the first time in his life a bond tightened on him!
He shook his head angrily, and even as he leaped a third time back toward his free hills one forefoot was raised to strike from him the snaring strand. The pawing hoof did not reach its mark, did not find the thin, lithe thing which throttled down on him, for the Captain's momentum carried him to the end of the rope.
They put the strain on the hemp, both going away, those horses. VB struggled with his mount to have him ready for the shock, but before he could bring about a full stop that shock arrived. It seemed as though it would tear the horn from the saddle. The pony, sturdy little beast, was yanked to his knees and swung half about, and VB recovered himself only by grabbing the saddle fork.
The black stallion again faced the man—faced him because his heels had been cracked in a semicircle through the air by the force of that burning thing about his neck. For ten long seconds the Captain stood braced against the rope, moving his head slowly from side to side for all the world as a refractory, gentled colt might do, with as much display of fight as would be shown by a mule that dissented at the idea of being led across a ditch. He just stood there stupidly, twisting his head.
The thick mane rumpled up under the tightening rope, some of the drenched hair of the neck was pulled out as the hemp rolled upward, drawing closer, shutting down and down. The depression in the flesh grew deeper. One hind foot lost its hold in the shale and shot out; the Captain lifted it and moved it forward again slowly, cautiously, for fresh, steady straining.
Then it came. The windpipe closed; he coughed, and like the sudden fury of a mountain thunderstorm the Captain turned loose his giant forces. The thing had jerked him back in his rush toward freedom. It held him where he did not want to be held! And it choked!
Forefeet clawing, rearing to his hind legs with a quivering strength of lift that dragged the bracing pony through the shale, the great, black horse-regal screamed and coughed his rage and beat upon that vibrating strand which made him prisoner—that web—that fragile thing!
Again and again he struck it, but it only danced—only danced, and tightened its clutch on his throat! He reached for it with his long teeth and clamped them on it, but the thing would not yield. He settled to all fours again, threw his head from side to side, and strove to move backward with a frenzied floundering that sent the pebbles rattling yards about him.
It was a noble effort. Into the attempt to drag away from that anchorage the Captain put his very spirit. He struggled and choked and strained. And all the time that man sat there on his horse, tense, watching silently, moving his free hand slightly to and fro, as though beating time to music. His lips were parted, his face still blanched. And in his eyes glowed that purpose which knows no defeat!
System departed. Like a hot blast wickedness came. Teeth bared, ears flat, with sounds like an angered child's ranting coming from his throat, the stallion charged his man enemy just as he had charged the powerful Percheron who had come to challenge him a month ago. The saddle horse, seeing it, avoided the brunt of the first blind rush, taking the Captain's shoulder on his rump as the black hurtler went past, striking thin air.
VB felt the Captain's breath, saw from close up the lurid flame in his eyes, sensed the power of those teeth, the sledge-hammer force behind those untrimmed hoofs. And he came alive, the blood shooting close under his skin again and making the gray face bronze, then deeper than bronze. His eyes puffed under the stress of that emotion, and he felt a primitive desire to growl as the Captain whirled and came again. It was man to beast, and somewhere down yonder through the generations a dead racial memory came back and Young VB, girded for the conflict, ached to have his forest foe in reach, to have the fight run high, to have his chance to dare and do in fleshly struggle!
It was not long in coming. The near hoof, striking down to crush his chest, fell short, and the hair of VB's chap leg went ripping from the leather, while along his thigh crept a dull, spreading ache.
He did not notice that, though, for he was raised in his stirrups, right hand lifted high, its fingers clutched about the lash of his loaded quirt. He felt the breath again, hot, wet, and a splatter of froth from the flapping lips struck his cheek. Then the right hand came down with a snap and a jerk, with all the vigor of muscular force that VB could summon.
His eye had been good, his judgment true. The Captain's teeth did not sink into his flesh, for the quirt-butt, a leaden slug, crunched on the horse's skull, right between the ears!
The fury of motion departed, like the going of a cyclone. The Captain dropped to all fours and hung his head, staggered a half-dozen short paces drunkenly, and then sighed deeply—
He reached the end of the rope. It came tight again, and with the tightening—the battle! Thrice more he charged the man with all the hate his wild heart could summon, but not once did those dreadful teeth find that which they sought. Again the front hoof met its mark and racked the flesh of VB's leg, but that did not matter. He could stand that punishment, for he was winning! He was countering the stallion's efforts, which made the contest an even break; and his rope was on and he had dealt one telling blow with his quirt. Two points! And the boy screamed his triumph as the missile he swung landed again, on the soft nose this time, the nose so wrinkled with hateful desire—and the Captain swung off to one side from the stinging force of it.
Not in delight at punishment was that cry. The blow on the skull, the slug at the nose stabbed VB to his tenderest depths. But he knew it must be so, and his shout was a shout of conquest—of the first man asserting primal authority, of the last man coming into his own!
The dust they stirred rose stiflingly. Down there under the hill no moving breath of air would carry it off. The pony under VB grunted and strained, but was jerked sharply about by the rushes of the heavier stallion, heavier and built of things above mere flesh and bone and tendon. The Captain's belly dripped water; VB's face was glossy with it, his hair plastered down to brow and temple.
The three became tired. In desperation the Captain dropped the fight, turned to run, plunged out as though to part the strands. VB's heart leaped as his faith in the rope faltered—but it held, and the stallion, pulled about, lost his footing, floundered, stumbled, went down, and rolled into the shale, feet threshing the air.
It was an opening—the widest VB had had, wider than he could have hoped for, and he rushed in, stabbing his horse shamelessly with spurs and babbling witlessly as he strove to make slack in the rope. The slack came. Then the quick jerk of the wrist—the trick he had perfected back there in Jed's corral—and a potential half-hitch traveled down the rope.
The Captain floundered to get his feet under him, and the loop in the rope dissolved. Again the wrist twitch, again the shooting loop and—
"Scotched!" screamed Young VB. "Scotched! You're my property!"
Scotched! The rope had found its hold about the off hind ankle of the soiled stallion, and there it clung in a tight, relentless grasp. The rope from neck to limb was so short that it kept the foot clear of the ground, crippling the Captain, and as the great horse floundered to his feet VB had him powerless. The stallion stood dazed, looking down at the thing which would not let him kick, which would not let him step.
Then he sprang forward, and when the rope came tight he was upended, a shoulder plowing the shale.
"It's no use!" the man cried, his voice crackling in excitement. "I've got you right—right—right!"
But the Captain would not quit. He tried even then to rise to his hind legs and make assault, but the effort only sent him falling backward, squealing—and left him on his side, moaning for his gone liberty.
For he knew. He knew that his freedom was gone, even as he made his last floundering, piteous endeavors. He got up and tried to run, but every series of awkward moves only sent his black body down into the dust and dirt, and at last he rested there, head up, defiance still in his eyes, but legs cramped under him.
And then VB wanted to cry. He went through all the sensations—the abrupt drop of spirits, the swelling in the throat, the tickling in the nostrils.
"Oh, Captain!" he moaned. "Captain, don't you see I wouldn't harm you? Only you had to be mine! I had to get bigger than you were, Captain—for my own salvation. It was the only way, boy; it was the only way!"
And he sat there for a long time, his eyes without the light of triumph, on his captive.
His heart-beats quickened, a new warmth commenced to steal through his veins, a new faith in self welled up from his innermost depths, making his pulses sharp and hard, making his muscles swell, sending his spirit up and up.
He had fought his first big fight and he had won!
Blood began to drip from the stallion's nose.
"It's where I struck you!" whispered VB, the triumph all gone again, solicitation and a vast love possessing him. "It's where I struck you, Captain. Oh, it hurts me, too—but it must be so, because things are as they are. There will be more hurts, boy, before we're through. But it must be!"
His voice gritted on the last.
Sounds from behind roused VB, and he looked around.
The sunlight was going even from the ridge up there, and the whole land was in shadow. He was a long way from the ranch with this trophy—his, but still ready to do battle at the end of his rope.
"Got one?" a man cried, coming up, and VB recognized him as one of the trio of fence builders, riding back to their camp.
"Yes—one," muttered VB, and turned to look at the Captain.
Then the man cried: "You've got th' Captain!"
"It's the Captain," said VB unsteadily, as though too much breath were in his lungs. "He's mine—you know—mine!"
The others looked at him in silent awe.
Jed Avery had been away from Young VB almost two weeks, and he had grown impatient in the interval. So he pushed his bay pony up the trail from Ranger, putting the miles behind him as quickly as possible. The little man had fretted over every step of the journey homeward, and from Colt on into the hills it was a conscious effort that kept him from abusing his horse by overtravel.
"If he should have gone an' busted over while I was away I'd—I'd never forgive myself—lettin' that boy go to th' bad just for a dinky claim!"
It was the thousandth time he had made the declaration, and as he spoke the words a thankfulness rose in his heart because of what he had not heard in Ranger. He knew that VB had kept away from town. Surely that was a comfort, an assurance, a justification for his faith that was firm even under the growling.
Still, there might have been a wanderer with a bottle—
And as he came in sight of his own buildings Jed put the pony to a gallop for the first time during that long journey. Smoke rose from the chimney, the door stood open, an atmosphere of habitation was about the place, and that proved something. He crowded his horse close against the gate, leaned low, unfastened the hasp, and rode on through.
"Oh, VB!" he called, and from the cabin came an answering hail, a scraping of chair legs, and the young fellow appeared in the doorway.
"How's th'—"
Jed did not finish the question then—or ever. His eagerness for the meeting, the light of anticipation that had been in his face, disappeared. He reined up his horse with a stout jerk, and for a long moment sat there motionless, eyes on the round corral. Then his shoulders slacked forward and he raised a hand to scratch his chin in bewilderment.
For yonder, his nose resting on one of the gate bars, watching the newcomer, safe in the inclosure, alive, just as though he belonged there, stood the Captain!
After that motionless moment Jed turned his eyes back to Young VB, and stared blankly, almost witlessly. Then he raised a limp hand and half pointed toward the corral, while his lips formed a soundless question.
VB stepped from the doorway and walked toward Jed, smiling.
"Yes," he said with soft pride, as though telling of a sacred thing, "the Captain is there—in our corral."
Jed drew a great breath.
"Did you do it—and alone?"
"Well, there wasn't any one else about," VB replied modestly.
Again Jed's chest heaved.
"Well, I'm a—"
He ended in inarticulate distress, searching for a proper expletive, mouth open and ready, should he find one. Then he was off his horse, both hands on the boy's shoulders, looking into the eyes that met his so steadily.
"You done it, Young VB!" he cried brokenly. "You done it! Oh, I'm proud of you! Your old adopted daddy sure is! You done it all by yourself, an' it's somethin' that nobody has ever been able to do before!"
Then they both laughed aloud, eyes still clinging.
"Come over and get acquainted," suggested VB. "He's waiting for us."
They started for the corral, Jed's eyes, now flaming as they took in the detail of that wonderful creature, already seen by him countless times, but now for the first time unfree.
The stallion watched them come, moving his feet up and down uneasily and peering at them between the bars. VB reached for the gate fastening, and the horse was away across the corral, snorting, head up, as though fearful.
"Why, Captain!" the boy cried. "What ails you?"
"What ails him?" cried Jed. "Man alive, I'd expect to see him tryin' to tear our hearts out!"
"Oh, but he's like a woman!" VB said softly, watching the horse as he swung the gate open.
They stepped inside, Jed with caution. VB walked straight across to the horse and laid his hand on the splendid curve of the rump.
"Well, I'm a—" Again Jed could find no proper word to express his astonishment. He simply took off his hat and swung it in one hand, like an embarrassed schoolgirl.
"Come over and meet the boss, Captain," VB laughed, drawing the black head around by its heavy forelock.
And the Captain came—unexpectedly. The boy realized the danger with the first plunge and threw his arms about the animal's neck, crying to him to be still. And Jed realized, too. He slipped outside, putting bars between himself and those savage teeth which reached out for his body.
Foiled, the stallion halted.
"Captain," exclaimed VB, "what ails you?"
"To be sure, nothin' ails him," said Jed sagely. "You're his master; you own him, body and soul; but you ain't drove th' hate for men out of his heart. He seems to love you—but not others—yes—"
His voice died out as he watched the black beast make love to the tall young chap who scolded into his dainty ear. The soft, thin lips plucked at VB's clothing, nuzzling about him as he stood with arms clasped around the glossy neck. The great cheek rubbed against the boy's side until it pushed him from his tracks, though he strained playfully against the pressure. Such was the fierceness of that horse's allegiance. His nostrils fluttered, but no sound came from them: the beast whisperings of affection. All the time VB scolded softly, as a father might banter with a child. And when the boy looked up a great pride was in his face, and Jed understood.
"That's right, Young VB—be proud of it! Be proud that he's yours; be proud that he's yours, an' yours only. Keep him that way; to be sure, an' you've earned it!"
Then he stepped close to the bars and gazed at the animal with the critical look of a connoisseur.
"Not a hair that ain't black," he muttered. "Black from ankle to ear; hoofs almost black, black in th' nostrils. Black horses generally have brown eyes, but you can't even tell where th' pupil is in his!
"Say, VB, he makes th' ace of spades look like new snow, don't he?"
"He does that!" cried VB, and putting his hands on the animal's back, he leaped lightly up, sitting sidewise on the broad hips and playing with the heavy tail.
"VB, I'm a— Lord, a thousand dollars for a new oath!"
At VB's suggestion they started back to the cabin.
"Why, boy, you're limpin'!" the old man exclaimed. "An' in both legs!" He stopped and looked the young fellow over from hat to heel. "One side of your face's all skinned. Looks as though your left hand'd all been smashed up, it's that swelled. You move like your back hurt, too—like sin. VB?"
The boy stopped and looked down at the ground. Then his eyes met those of the old rancher, and Jed Avery understood—he had seen the bond between man and horse; he realized what must have transpired between them.
And he knew the love that men can have for animals, something which, if you have never felt it, is far beyond comprehension. So he asked just this question: "How long?"
And VB answered: "Six days—from dawn till dark. One to get a halter on him, another to get my hand on his head; three days in the Scotch hobble, and the last—to ride him like a hand-raised colt."
Jed replaced his hat, pulling it low to hide his eyes.
"Ain't I proud to be your daddy?" he whispered.
An overwhelming pride—a pride raised to thenth degree, of the sort that is above the understanding of most men—was in the tonetimbreof the question.
They went on into the house.
"Jed," VB said, as though he had waited to broach something of great import, "I've written a letter this morning, and I want to read it to you, just to see how it sounds out loud."
He sat down in a chair and drew sheets of small tablet paper toward him.
Jed, without answer, leaned against the table and waited. VB read: