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Bob asked his companion as they jogged along at a road gait. "I mean when he's chasin' dogies across a hill on the jump." "He don't," Dud answered ungrammatically but promptly. "His bronc 'tends to that. If you try to guide you're sure enough liable to take a fall." "But when the hole's covered with grass?" "You gotta take a chance," Dud said. "They're sure-footed, these cowponies are.
The two men had brought with them in addition to their own mounts a led pack-horse. Doble backed up his partner. "Sure are, Buck. I can get cowponies for ten and fifteen dollars all I want of 'em," he said, and contrived by the lift of his lip to make the remark offensive. "Not ponies like Chiquito," ventured Sanders amiably. "That so?" jeered Doble.
A dozen yards behind his companion he sent his horse splashing through the creek. The cowponies, used to the heavy going in the hills, took the slope in short, quick plunges. Neither of the young men used the spur, for the chase might develop into a long one with stamina the deciding factor. The mesquite was heavy and the hill steep, but presently they struck a cattle run which led to the divide.
Some cowponies, hitched to rails in front of the saloons and the stores, stood with drooping heads, tormented by myriad flies; a wagon or two, minus horses, occupied a space in front of a blacksmith shop. In the Red Dog saloon some punchers on a holiday played cards at various tables, quietly drinking. Behind the rough bar Pete Moulin, the proprietor stood, talking to his bartender, Blacky.
To one accustomed to jockeys and racing-pads, these full-grown riders and cumbrous trappings made the cowponies seem small but they were finely formed, the pick of the range. The days of mongrel breeds are long since over in the West. Smaller heads, longer necks, more sloping shoulders, told of good blood crossed on the range stock.
Once there rang out the high notes of a woman's hysterical laughter. Cowponies and packed burros drooped listlessly at the hitching-rack. Even loaded wagons were waiting to take the road as soon as the drivers could tear themselves away from the attractions of keno and a last drink. Junipero Street was not the usual crooked lane that serves as the main thoroughfare for business in a mining town.
In others the drifts were deep. From a hillside they looked down into a grove of cottonwoods that filled a small draw. Here the snow had blown in and was heavy. Three elk were floundering in the white banks. Dud waded in and shot two with his revolver. The third was a doe. The cowponies snaked them out to the open. "We'll take 'em with us to 'Leven Mile camp," Dud said.
He was convinced that something sinister lay behind their silence. After breakfast the ranchman rode away. Jeff and Slim Sanders jogged off on their cowponies to mend a broken bit of fence. Hal sat on the porch replacing with rivets the torn strap of a stirrup. Beaudry could stand it no longer. He found his hostess digging around the roots of some rosebushes in her small garden.
Except for the cowponies and the buckboard and the prairie schooner there was a total absence of life or movement, offering a striking contrast to the bustling cities to which the young man had been accustomed. He walked rapidly down the board walk, entered the courthouse, and paused before a door upon which appeared the legend: "United States District Court. J. Blackstone Graney."
Moreover, most of the cowponies who now raced on the trail of Satan carried riders who outweighed Barry by twenty pounds and in addition to this they were burdened by saddles made ponderously to stand the strain of roping cattle, whereas Barry's specially made saddle was hardly half that weight.
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