Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-01

and the outlaw braced awkwardly as if to receive an
attack
With the bride reins held in his hand at the pom
mel of the saddle, Van stood for moment by the
chestnuts side; then, with incredible celebrity of
movement suddenly placed his foot in the stirrup
and up and well seated before the blinded pony
could have moved
Nothing happened No one made sound
None apparently, Beth, had expected any
thing to happen She tet a rush OF rellef-Wh1ch
came prenaturely.
Van now leaned forward, as the horse remained
stfly braced and slipping the bindtold from the
pony eyes, sat back in the saddle alertly.
Even then the chestnut did not He had
gone through this ordeal many times before He had
often been mounted; but not for long at time. He
had even been exhausted by stubborn bronco bus
ter, hardy human bur that could ride crazy
comet; but always he had won In the end In a
word he had earned his sobriquet, which in bronco
land is never lightly bestowed
WAN not in the least deceived. However,
he was eager for the conflict to begin. He had
time to vast ; He snatched off his hat let out a
wild, shrill yell dug with his spurs, and struck the
animal resounding slap on the flank, which like a
illuminate suddenly detonated the pent-up explo-
slves in the beast
He lit into buckng of astounding violence with the
quickness of dynamite
1t was terrific For a moment Beth saw nothing
but mad grotesquery of horse and man, almost
ltldicrousy unnatural and craZed with eccentric
motion.
The horse shot up in the air like loose distorted
piece OF statuary blown from its pedestal by some
1nidar leap like Bonded thing of metal, then drop
ped to the earth, stiff legged iron image to
bound up again with mad and furious gyrations that
seemed to the girl to twist both horse and rider into
live mass of incongruty.
He struck like ruin falling from the sky went up
again with demonlike activity, more descended
more hurtled wildly aoft,-and repeated this
maneuver with swiftness utterly bewildering
Had some diabolical wind, together with huge
volcanic force taken insane possession OF the animal
to fire him skyward, whirl him about, thresh him
md fling I'm err
time he could not have churned with greater vlo-
lence.
He never came down in the same place twice. but
he always down stiff legged The jolt was
sickenlng All about, in a narrow, earth-cut circle
he bucked, beginning to grunt and warm to his work
and hence to increase the devry and malice of his
actions
Van had yelled but that once He saw nothing
knew nothing, dizzy world, abruptly go14e
crazy about him
To Beth it seemed as if the horror would never
have an end One glimpse she had of Vans white
face; but nothing could it tell of his strength the
lack thereof She felt she must look and look till he
killed. There could be other issue, she was
sure. And for herself there could be escape from
the awful fascination of the vicious brute n1icting
this torture on the man.
TT did end, however rather unexpectedly, that
particular phase of the conflict The horse grew
weary of the effort made in vain, to dlslodge
the stubborn torment his back He changed
the program with the deadliest of all bronco
tricks
Pausng for the briefest part of second, while
Van must certainly have been reeing with hideous
motion and jolt, the chestnut quickly reared on high
drop himself clean over backward 1t thus
that once he had crushed the life from rider.
Obi screamed Beth and sank weakly beside
the tree.
The all yelled raucousy They furious
and afraid
With hoofs wildly nayng the air, while he loomed
tall and unreal in such attitude, the bronco hung
for moment in midpose then dropped sheer,
as if to be shattered into fragments
But chunk of the bronzeke group was detached
and fell to side its thigh. 1t Van. He
had seen what coming in time