Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/217

 a satisfaction to show these new teeth of a man.

With Helena's appearance Roberto elaborated his tactics to compel the stubborn horse and break it to his will. He abandoned his attempt to force it directly to approach the whipping-post and smell away its fear of that object. Now he galloped to the opposite end of the courtyard, out of Henderson's sight, to come at headlong speed in a moment, thinking to win in this subterfuge what he had failed to gain before.

But with all this headway to impel him forward, the horse refused to be ridden to the post, where the fresh wood of the cross-arm shone yellow in the sun. It turned sharply, sliding, trampling, its maneuver carrying it over against the warehouse, making a scatterment among the people gathered along the wall.

The horse stopped within a few feet of the window at which Henderson crouched. Blood and sweat dripped from the frantic creature's sides, its breath was hoarse in its nostrils. Roberto gave the harried thing its way for a moment, permitting it to stand where it had stopped. He raised himself until he stood in his stirrups on his toes, his superb body in tense grace of stretched muscle and tendon, swept his hand in slow, expressive salute to Helena, something of mockery in the gesture, in his very pose. Thus far, he seemed to say, this has been a colorless affair. Now the show is about to begin.

Roberto rode slowly to the center of the court-