Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/69

Rh During this conversation both their mounts were on the keen jump. The saddle was bounding high over the plain as the steer still bellowed and ran. Jane Ann urged her pony as close alongside the steer as she dared, leaned sideways from her saddle, and made a sharp slash in the air with the hunting knife that had hung from her belt in its sheath. The keen blade severed Jimsey's best hair rope (there would be a postscript to Jimsey's remarks about that, later) and the saddle, just then bounding into the air, caromed from the steer's rump against Jane Ann's pony, and almost knocked it off its legs.

But the girl kept her seat and the pony gathered his feet under him again and started after the relieved steer. But she did not use her rope even then, and after returning her knife to its sheath she guided her pony close in to the steer's flank. Before that saddle had beaten him so about the body, Old Trouble-Maker might have made a swift turn and collided with the girl's mount; but he was thinking only of running away now—getting away from that mysterious thing that had been chasing and thumping him!

Ike, who cantered along just behind her (the rest of the crowd were many yards in the rear) suddenly let out a yell of fear. He saw that the girl was about to try, and he was scared. She leaned from her saddle and seized the stiff tail of