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They were within ten feet of the rabbit now, and no voice on earth could have stopped them. "Pacer! Racer!" shouted Ben. There was a pause, and then the quick bark of a revolver. A puff of dust arose before the nose of the leading dog. Again no response, only the steadily lessening distance. For a second Ben Blair hesitated; but it was for a second only.
The Pacer took alarm at half a mile, and led his band away out of sight on the soapweed mesa to the southeast. Jo followed at a gallop till he once more sighted them, then came back and instructed the cook, who was also teamster, to make for Alamosa Arroyo in the south. Then away to the southeast he went after the mustangs.
Lizzette and Trombine were already at the wire, but poor Troup his mare had never been able to settle after her wild break, and she caught the flag square in the face. The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight. He had not been shut out marvel of marvels! It was getting interesting indeed. Bud and Jack met him with water and a blanket. How proud they were!
But the sudden death of his gallant roadster, his proud pacer through the streets of Barbie, touched him with a sense of quite personal loss and bereavement. Coming on the heels of his other calamities it seemed to make them more poignant, more sinister, prompting the question if misfortune would never have an end.
She had not been properly broken in. After Mr. Wood finished his work he went and stood in the doorway. There were six horses altogether: Dutchman, Cleve, Pacer, Scamp, a bay mare called Ruby, and a young horse belonging to Mr. Harry, whose name was Fleetfoot. "What do you think of them all?" said Mr. Wood, looking down at me. "A pretty fine-looking lot of horses, aren't they?
While the excellent fresh beef and bread and the vile coffee, dried peaches and molasses were being consumed, he of the horseshoe remarked, in tones which percolated through a huge stop-gap of bread: "Wall, I seen that thar Pacer to-day, nigh enough to put a plait in his tail." "What, you didn't shoot?" "No, but I come mighty near it."
He always stayed pretty late, and on the way home he'd tie the reins to the whip-stock and go to sleep, and never wake up till Cleve or Pacer, whichever one he happened to have, would draw up in the barnyard. They would pass any rigs they happened to meet, and turn out a little for a man. If Davids wasn't asleep, he could always tell by the difference in their gait which they were passing.
Henderson's sister next week. She doesn't know it yet; but I do. After that I spent all the rest of the evening in planning my dinner-party, and I had a most royal good time. I always have had lots of company, but mostly the spend-the-day kind with relatives, or more relatives to supper. That's what most entertaining in Hillsboro is like, but, as I say, once in a while the old slow pacer wakes up.
It was morning when Jo came to camp on foot. His tale was briefly told: eight horses dead five men worn out the matchless Pacer safe and free. "Tain't possible; it can't be done. Sorry I didn't bore his hellish carcass through when I had the chance," said Jo, and gave it up. Old Turkeytrack was cook on this trip.
But not the slightest disrespect had been intended, and to leave the table without making myself known was not to be thought of. I wanted the pleasure, too, of telling those men that I knew the gait of a pacer very well that not in the least did I deserve their pity. My face was burning and my voice unnatural when I threw the bomb! I said, "The horse you are speaking of I know very well.
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