Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/43

 man pushed forward a little as he spoke, and leaned as if concentrating his faculties to influence the steer. "Now! That's the girl—that's the girl!"

The encouraging exclamation had been drawn from him by Sallie's sudden maneuver. Quitting the pursuit of the steer, throwing her weight across the saddle to swerve her horse sharply, she cut across the arena and intercepted the flying animal directly in front of the place where Texas and the bow-legged man stood.

The steer stiffened his legs and slid in his surprised attempt to escape the trap, wheeled, snorted defiance, and made off on a back track. But his checked race had been fatal to his spectacular calculations, if calculations he had inside his wild, long-horned head. Before he could get back to his lost gait Sallie had swung and cast her reata.

It fell true to the mark. Her watchful horse stiffened in his tracks, braced himself, lunged back, as Sallie half flung herself from the saddle on the opposite side to set her weight against the shock. In a second there was a glimpse of wild-flying legs as eight hundred pounds of steer struggled against the tight-strung lariat to get to its feet again.

The grand stand started a cheer when the steer was thrown, but bit it off as if the door of its emotion had been opened untimely. There was not