Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/159

Rh play again and again. Still the rush of hoofs behind her grew louder and louder, and now there was a panting at her side and the head of cream-colored Mary drew up and past.

She gave up the battle with a little shout of anger and slowed up her mount with a sharp pull on the reins. It needed only a word from Pierre and his mare drew down to a hand-gallop, twisting her head a little toward the black as if she called for some recognition of her superiority.

"It's always this way," cried Jack, and jerked at the reins with a childish impotence of anger. "I beat you for the first quarter of a mile and then this fool of a horse—I'm going to give him away."

"The black," said Pierre, assuming an air of quiet and superior knowing which always aggravated her most, "is a good second-rate cayuse when some one who knows horses is in the saddle. I'd give you fifty for him on the strength of his looks and keep him for a decoration."

She could only glare her speechless rage for a moment. Then she changed swiftly and threw out her hands in a little gesture of surrender.

"After all, what difference does it make? Your Mary can beat him in a long run or a short one, but it's your horse, Pierre, and that takes the sting away. If it were any one else's I'd—well, I'd shoot either the horse or the rider. But my partner's horse is my horse, you know."

She broke into song, the clear voice flinging back from the mountainside to the canon that dropped on their right: