Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/130

 "Ma foi, quelle beauté (My gracious, how beautiful)!" cried Baroney.

"Try to crease that black, lieutenant," the doctor proposed.

The lieutenant rested his gun upon his empty saddle, took long aim, and fired. But he did not stun the black—he missed him entirely—he had not dared to draw fine enough.

At that, around the wild horses wheeled, as if by command, and pelted off, to halt and gaze again.

"To-morrow we'll see if we can run some down," said the lieutenant. "Shall we, Stub?"

"Pawnee sometimes run all day. Mebbe ketch one, mebbe not. Too swift, have too much wind."

"Well, we can try," laughed the doctor.

The camp was excited, to-night, with the thought of catching wild horses. The men busied themselves tying nooses in their picket ropes.

"But we haven't a critter that could ketch a badger," John Sparks complained; "unless it be the doctor's black an' that yaller pony o' Stub's."

Stub doubted very much whether his yellow pony would amount to anything, in racing wild horses. The Pawnees always used two or three horses, each, so as to tire the wild horses out.

However, the lieutenant was bound to try. In the morning he picked out the six best horses, which