The latter urged Molly nearer. But the pinto was not on her good behavior this morning. She had been too badly treated at the corral.
Molly shook her head, danced sideways, wheeled, and finally collided with Pratt"s grey pony. The latter squealed and kicked. Instantly, Molly"s little heels beat a tattoo on the grey"s ribs.
"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Pratt, recovering his seat and pulling in the grey.
"What"s the matter with that horse, Frances?"
Molly was off like a rocket. Frances fairly stood in the stirrups to pull the pinto down--and she was not sparing of the quirt. It angered her that Molly should "show off" just now. She had heard Sue Latrop"s shrill laugh.
When she rode back Frances did not offer to shake hands with the Boston girl. And, as it chanced, she never did shake hands with her.
"You ride such perfectly ungovernable horses out here," drawled the Boston girl. "Is it just for show?"
"Our ponies are not usually family pets," laughed Frances. Yet she flushed, and from that moment she was always expecting Sue to say cutting things.
"They tell me it is so interesting to see the calves--er--monogrammed; do you call it?" said Sue, with a little cough.
"Branded!" exclaimed Pratt, hurriedly.
"Oh, yes! So interesting, I suppose?"
"We do not consider it a show," said Frances, bluntly. "It is a necessary evil. I never fancied the smell of scorched hair and hide myself; and the poor creatures bawl so. But branding and slitting their ears are the only ways we have of marking the cattle."
"Re"lly?" repeated Sue, staring at her as though Frances were more curious than the bawling cattle.
The irons were already in the fire when the party rode down to the scene of the branding. Silent Sam was in charge of the gang. They had rounded up nearly two hundred calves and yearlings. Some of the cows had followed their off-spring out of the herd, and were lowing at the corral fence.
Afoot and on horseback the men drove the half-wild calves into the branding pen runway. As they came through they were roped and thrown, and Sam and an a.s.sistant clapped the irons to their bony hips. The smell of singed hair was rather unpleasant, and the bawling of the excited cattle drowned all conversation.
When a calf or a yearling was let loose, he ran as hard as he could for a while, with the smoking "monogram," as Sue Latrop called it, the object of his tenderest attention. But the smart of it did not last for long, and the branded stock soon went to graze contentedly outside the corral fence, forgetting the experience.
Frances had a chance to speak to Sam for a moment.
"Ratty will come to you for his time. I"m going to pay him off this noon. I"ve got good reason for letting him go."
"I bet ye," agreed Sam, for whatever Frances said or did was right with him.
Pratt insisted upon Frances meeting all these people from Amarillo.
There was Mrs. Bill Edwards, whom she already knew, as chaperon. Most of the others were young people, although nearer Pratt"s age than that of the ranchman"s daughter.
Sue Latrop was the only one from the East. She had been to Amarillo before, and she evidently had much influence over her girl friends from that Panhandle city, if over n.o.body else. Two of the girls had copied her riding habit exactly; and if imitation is the sincerest flattery, then Sue was flattered indeed.
The Boston girl undoubtedly rode well. She had had schooling in the art of sticking to a side-saddle like a fly on a wall!
Her horse curvetted, arched his neck, played pretty tricks at command, and was long-legged enough to carry her swiftly over the ground if she so desired. He made the scrubby, nervous little cow-ponies--including Molly--look very shabby indeed.
Sue Latrop apparently believed she was ever so much better mounted than the other girls, for she was the only one who had brought her own horse.
The others, including Pratt, were mounted on Bill Edwards" ponies.
While they were standing in a group and talking, there came a yell from the branding pen. A section of rail fence went down with a crash.
Through the fence came a little black steer that had escaped several "branding soirees."
Blackwater, as the Bar-T boys called him, was a notorious rebel. He was originally a maverick--a stray from some pa.s.sing herd--and had joined the Bar-T cattle unasked. That was more than two years before. He had remained on the Bar-T ranges, but was evidently determined in his dogged mind not to submit to the humiliation of the branding-iron.
He had been rounded up with a bunch of yearlings and calves a dozen times; but on each occasion had escaped before they got him into the corral. It was better to let the black rebel go than to lose a dozen or more of the others while chasing him.
This time, however, Silent Sam had insisted upon riding the rebel down and hauling him, bawling, into the corral.
But the rope broke, and before the searing-iron could touch the black steer"s rump he went through the fence like a battering-ram.
"Look out for that ornery critter, Miss Frances!" yelled the foreman of the Bar-T Ranch.
Frances saw him coming, headed for the group of visitors. She touched Molly with the spur, and the intelligent cow-pony jumped aside into the clear-way. Frances seized the rope hanging at her saddle.
Pratt had shouted a warning, too. The visitors scattered. But for once Sue Latrop did not manage her mount to the best advantage.
"Look out, Sue!"
"Quick! He"ll have you!"
These and other warnings were shouted. With lowered front the black steer was charging the horse the girl from Boston rode.
Unlike the trained cow-ponies from Bill Edwards" corral, this gangling creature did not know, of himself, what to do in the emergency. The other mounts had taken their riders immediately out of the way. Sue"s horse tossed his head, snorted, and pawed the earth, remaining with his flank to the charging steer.
"Get out o" that!" yelled Pratt, and laid his quirt across the stubborn horse"s quarters.
But to no avail. Sue could neither manage him nor get out of the saddle to escape Blackwater. The maverick was fortunately charging the strange horse from the off side, and he was coming like a shot from a cannon.
The cowpunchers at the pen were mounting their ponies and racing after the black steer, but they were too far away to stop him. In another moment he would head into the body of Sue"s mount with an awful impact!
CHAPTER XIV
THE CONTRAST
"Frances!"
Pratt Sanderson fairly shrieked the ranch girl"s name. He could do nothing to save Sue Latrop himself, nor could the other visitors from Amarillo. Silent Sam and his men were too far away.
If with anybody, it lay with Frances Rugley to save the Boston girl.
Frances already had her rope circling her head and Molly was coming on the jump!
The wicked little black steer was almost upon the gangling Eastern horse ere Frances stretched forward and let the loop go.
Then she pulled back on Molly"s bridle reins. The cow-pony began to slide, haunches down and forelegs stiffened. The loop dropped over the head of the black steer.
Had Blackwater been a heavier animal, he would have overborne Frances and her mount at the moment the rope became taut. For it was not a good job at all--that particular roping Frances was afterward ashamed of.