Foam
flecked from its crimsoned jaws and found a resting place on its sides
and on the hairy chaps of its rider. Sweat rolled and streamed from
its heaving flanks and was greedily sucked up by the drought-cursed
alkali. Close to the rider's knee a bloody furrow ran forward and one
of the broncho's ears was torn and limp. The broncho was doing its
best-it could run at that pace until it dropped dead. Every ounce of
strength it possessed was put forth to bring those hind hoofs well in
front of the forward ones and to send them pushing the sand behind in
streaming clouds. The horse had done this same thing many times-when
would its master learn sense?
The man was typical in appearance with many of that broad land.
Lithe, sinewy and bronzed by hard riding and hot suns, he sat in his
Cheyenne saddle like a centaur, all his weight on the heavy, leather-
guarded stirrups, his body rising in one magnificent straight line. A
bleached moustache hid the thin lips, and a gray sombrero threw a
heavy shadow across his eyes. Around his neck and over his open, blue
flannel shirt lay loosely a knotted silk kerchief, and on his thighs a
pair of open-flapped holsters swung uneasily with their ivory handled
burdens. He turned abruptly, raised his gun to his shoulder and fired,
then he laughed recklessly and patted his mount, which responded to
the confident caress by lying flatter to the earth in a spurt of
heart-breaking speed.
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