CHAPTER VI
THE ROPING CONTEST
With a chorus of "co-ees" and wild yells the cowboys of Silver Ranch dashed away on the race after the huge black and white steer. And Jane Ann, on her bay mustang, was right up with the leaders in the wild rush. It was indeed an inspiring sight, and the boys and girls from the East urged their own mounts on after the crowd with eagerness.
"See Nita ride! isn't she just wonderful?" cried Helen.
"I don't think there's anything wonderful about it," sneered The Fox, in her biting way. "She was almost born on horseback, you know. It's as natural to her as breathing."
"Bu—bu—but it shakes—you up—a good—bit more—than breath—breathing!" gasped Heavy, as her pony jounced her over the ground.
Tom and Bob had raced ahead after the cowboys, and Ruth was right behind them. She had learned to sit the saddle with ease now, and she was beginning to learn to swing a rope; Ike was teaching her. Tom could really fling the lasso with some success; but of course he could not enter into this mad rush for a single steer.
A twenty dollar gold piece was not to be scorned; and the cowboys were earnest in their attempt to make that extra twenty over and above their monthly stipend. But Jane Ann Hicks worked for the fun of it, and because she desired to show her Eastern friends how she excelled in horsemanship. There were so many other things which her friends knew, in which she was deficient!
She was up with the leaders when they came within casting distance of the big steer. But the steer was wily; he dodged this way and that as they surrounded him, and finally one of the punchers got in an awkward position and Old Trouble-Maker made for him. The man couldn't pull his pony out of the way as the steer made a short turn, and the old fellow came head on against the pony's ribs. It was a terrific shock. It sounded like a man beating an empty rainwater barrel with a club!
The poor pony was fairly lifted off his feet and rolled over and over on the ground. Luckily his rider kicked himself free of the stirrups and escaped the terrible horns of Old Trouble-Maker. The steer thundered on, paying no further attention to overturned pony or rider, and it was Jib Pottoway who first dropped a rope over the creature's horn.
But it was only over one horn and when the galloping steer was suddenly "snubbed" at the end of Jib's rope, what happened? Ordinarily Old Trouble-Maker should have gone down to his knees with the shock; but the Indian's pony stumbled just at that anxious moment, and instead of the steer being brought to his knees, the pony was jerked forward by Old Trouble-Maker's weight.
The cowboys uttered a chorus of dismal yells as Jib rose into the air—like a diver making a spring into the sea—and when he landed—well! it was fortunate that the .noose slipped off the steer's horn and the pony did not roll over the Indian.
Two men bowled over and the odds all in favor of the black and white steer! The other cowboys set up a fearful chorus as Jib scrambled up, and Old Trouble-Maker thundered on across the plain, having been scarcely retarded by the Indian's attempt. Bellowing and blowing, the steer kept on, and for a minute nobody else got near enough to the beast to fling a rope.
Then one of the other boys who bestrode a remarkably fast little pony, got near enough (as he said afterward) to grab the steer by the tail and throw him! And it was too bad that he hadn't tried that feat; for what he did do was to excitedly swing his lariat around his head and catch his nearest neighbor across the shoulders with the slack! This neighbor uttered a howl of rage and at once "ran amuck"—to the great hilarity of the onlookers. It was no fun for the fellow who had so awkwardly swung the rope, however; for his angry mate chased him half a mile straight across the plain before he bethought him, in his rage, that it was the steer, not his friend, that was to be flung and tied for the prize.
The others laughed so over this incident that the steer was like to get away. But one of the fellows, known to them all as "Jimsey" had been working cautiously on the outside of the bunch of excited horsemen all the time. It was evident to Ruth, who was watching the game very earnestly from the rear, that this Jimsey had determined to capture the prize and was showing more strategy than the others. He was determined to be the one to down Old Trouble-Maker, and as he saw one after the other of his mates fail, his own grin broadened.
Now, Ruth saw, he suddenly urged his pony in nearer the galloping steer. Standing suddenly in his stirrups, and swinging his lariat with a wide noose at the end, he dropped it at the moment when Old Trouble-Maker had just dodged another rope. The steer fairly ran into Jimsey's noose. The puncher snubbed down on the rope instantly, and the steer, caught over the horns and with one foreleg in the noose, came to the hard plain like a ton of bricks falling.
"He's down! he's down!" shrieked Bob, vastly excited.
"Oh, the poor thing!" his sister observed. "That must have hurt him."
"Well, after the way that brute tried to crawl into the automobile, I wouldn't cry any if his neck was broken!" exclaimed Mary Cox, in sharp tones.
Jimsey's horse was well broken and he swung his weight at the end of the rope in such a way that the huge steer could not get on his feet again. Jimsey vaulted out of the saddle and ran to the floundering steer with an agility that delighted the spectators from the East. How they cheered him! And his mates, too, urged him on with delight. It looked as though Jimsey had "called the trick" and would tie the struggling beast and so fulfill the requirements of the contest.
As the agile puncher sought to lay hold of the steer's forefeet, however, Old Trouble-Maker flung his huge body around. The "yank" was too much for the pony and it was drawn forward perhaps a foot by the sheer weight of the big steer.
"Stand still, thar!" yelled Jimsey to the pony. "Wait till I get this yere critter tied up in a true-lover's knot! Whoa, Emma!"
Again the big steer had jerked; but the pony braced his feet and swung backward. It was then the unexpected happened! The girth of Jimsey's saddle gave way, the taut rope pulling the saddle, sideways. The pony naturally was startled and he jumped to one side. In an instant the big steer was nimbly on his feet, and flung Jimsey ten feet away! Bellowing with fear the brute tore off across the plain again, now with the wreck of Jimsey's saddle bounding over the ground behind him and whacking him across the rump at every other jump.
If anything was needed to make Old Trouble-Maker mad he had it now. The steer sped across the plain faster than he had ever run before, and in a temper to attack anything or anybody who chanced to cross his trail.