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The day had been so cool and fresh, and our progress so easy; flat as was the country, it had its charm, the charm of cultivated plains, relieved by lanes of feathered bamboos, by clumps of nodding palms, by limpid streams. But we were off, nevertheless, the Governor-General on a cow-pony, nearly all the rest on Arabs and thoroughbreds, Van Schaick and I riding mountain ponies.
"Good. Then you can learn right. Go rope a cayuse get some staples and that leetle axe in my office, and go to it. There's plenty fence." The "Go rope a cayuse" momentarily staggered the boy, but he went silently to the corral, secured a riata, and by puzzling the playful ponies by his amateur tactics he finally entangled "Baldy," a white-faced cow-pony of peaceful mien but uncertain disposition.
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.
Half an hour later Alex, mounted on a spirited little cow-pony, with a few necessities in a sweater, strapped to the saddle, and a blanket over his shoulder, army fashion, waved a good-by to Jack and Wilson, and was off over the prairie at a lope, following the telegraph poles.
Even his mount seemed to sense the pride of his master. It was a cream-colored mustang, not one of the lump-headed, bony-hipped species common to the ranges, but one of those rare reversions to the Spanish thoroughbreds from which the Western cow-pony is descended.
Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red, as everyone in the north country knew him. His second horse, staunch cow-pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees and hanging head, but Pierre rode upright, at ease, for his mind was untired. Broken-backed indeed was the house before which he dismounted.
"You plan well without knowing my wishes." "I knew well what your wishes are. It is to see a horse I have found." Her voice betrayed her delight, as she cried, "Oh, good!" "He is a beauty," Chris said. But her face had suddenly gone grave, and apprehension brooded in her eyes. "He's called Comanche," Chris went on. "A beauty, a regular beauty, the perfect type of the Californian cow-pony.
Regularly on the last day of each month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life again.
And, by Jove, look at those men at the oars. It's an all-white crew. Now what reason brings them here?" "They're not proper sailors," Joan commented. "I'd be ashamed of a crew of black-boys that pulled in such fashion. Look at that fellow in the bow the one just jumping out; he'd be more at home on a cow-pony."
If so, his identification promised to become easy, for a man on a sorrel cow-pony was more than likely to be observed. Perhaps he thought himself secure and counted upon the assistance of some friend or confederate among the Las Palmas ranch-hands in case of pursuit. That seemed not unreasonable, particularly inasmuch as he could have no suspicion that it was a Ranger who was on his trail.
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