Page:Patches (1928).pdf/136

 "Horse killers," yelled somebody in the regiment.

"What are you trying to do to those horses?" shouted another.

But the cow-punchers, all unmindful of this ridicule, took their places. The sixth chukker was nip and tuck. The ball flew up and down the field, but neither team could carry it successfully for any length of time. Sooner or later some one missed a stroke or was put out of play and the ball fell into the opponent's hands.

Again and again Larry and Pony rode down the field behind the trooper who was carrying the ball. Larry would ride in on his right flank just before he reached the ball and as he made the stroke would hook his mallet and Pony would pick up the ball and start it back down the field.

It was a chukker of hard riding, brilliant strokes and many close calls for the defense men. Once the troopers drove the ball over the cow-punchers' goal line, but it was six inches outside the post and the cowboys got a free shot from the back line and this carried the ball out of danger. So the chukker ended with the score still three to three.

The troopers were not surprised to see the cow-punchers come back with the pintos for the seventh, for they reasoned that the other ponies would be out of the question, but they were astonished to see Patches