Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/51

 tioning murmur, which broke into derisive calls here and there, and loud shrill questions from cowboy throats as to the family of the animal before them.

"You'll have to get out of here!" ordered the red-faced man.

"Clear out—get back over there!"

The youngest of the judges spurred forward, reined in short, brought his horse to its haunches two yards from where Texas stood. The lean, solemn cattleman did not give an inch, but looked the other such a challenge, eye to eye, as would have meant, under other circumstances, the slinging of guns. He turned slowly and went back to the corral gate, where Sallie McCoy was waiting, her face white, a shadow of terror in her sad brown eyes.

Winch looked at Texas curiously, but did not speak, for at that moment Fannie Goodnight started on her conquest of the apathetic steer. She was well mounted, and handled her long-legged horse with every evidence of much experience in the saddle.

As she rode into the field the steer lifted his sad head and trotted to the center, where he stood, entirely unmoved by the scene so widely different from the pastures of his youth. He displayed a little burst of kindling spirit when the velvet-clad beauty made a dash for him, her reata whirling over her