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A girl astride a buckskin pony rode down to the river to water her mount. She carried across the pommel of her saddle a small rifle. Hanging from the cantle strings was a wild turkey she had shot. It was getting along toward evening and she was on her way back to Los Portales. The girl was a lover of the outdoors and she had been hunting alone.
But they saw a sudden spurt of flame and smoke. The captor reeled drunkenly in his saddle, caught blindly at the pommel, and then slid slowly down into the grass of the plains. Ferguson drew a deep breath and, turning, looked sharply at Miss Radford. She had covered her face with her hands and was swaying dizzily.
He restrained the horse, and walked slowly at her side, his hand on the pommel of the saddle, but did not speak. "You promise not? All night you stay in the cold, where is danger, and how may I know you will not again do such a thing? All is beautiful here, and great happiness may be if if that you do no tragedy." So sweetly did she plead he could no longer remain silent.
The lariat being attached to the pommel of the thrower's saddle, the roped pony went down on its nose, violently hurling its rider to the ground, but the little horse was up in a flash, galloping away and dragging along the rope which it had jerked free from the owner's hands and from the saddle pommel.
"Why don't you ride?" growled Silas Pine, who still remained on the scene of his recent discomfiture, and had watched Ridge's movements curiously. "Any fool can lead a hoss to water and back again." For answer Ridge gathered up the bridle reins, and placing his hands on pommel and cantle, sprang lightly into the saddle.
A stock-saddle weighs thirty or forty pounds instead of ten or fifteen and needs an utterly different seat from that adopted in the East. A cowboy rides with very long stirrups, sitting forked well down between his high pommel and cantle, and depends upon balance as well as on the grip of his thighs.
They were hardly well out of the town when a swift rush of hoof beats swept up from behind, and a horseman darted into the pale mist of the valley bending low over his pommel to cut the wind of his riding. "Who is it?" "Vic Gregg!" muttered Gus Reeve. "Stir, along, Sliver. Vic ain't lingerin' any!" But Sliver Waldron drew rein, and let his horse go on at a walk.
For six hours of almost unparalleled slaughter the victory was with the Prussians. Seventy-two pieces of cannon fell into the hands of the victors, and at every point the Russians were retreating. Frederic, in his exultation, scribbled a note to the empress, upon the field of battle, with the pommel of his saddle for a tablet, and dispatched it to her by a courier.
"I can do it," said Rafael, proudly, "and I shall." The other boys, good sportsmen as they all were, shouted, "No! no!" again; but Rafael laughed gaily, and forced his horse up the almost perpendicular declivity, leisurely unwinding his lariat from the high pommel of his saddle, and tossing it into big snake-like loops, which he gathered one by one into his hand, the last about his thumb.
His face was strangely pale, but his lips were like a proud red flower. He seemed weary, and was leaning back toying in a listless manner with the pommel of his dagger. On the grass beside him lay a plumed hat, and a pair of riding-gloves gauntleted with gilt lace, and sewn with seed-pearls wrought into a curious device.
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