________________________________________________
_ One Sunday, late in the afternoon, found Daylight across the bay
in the Piedmont hills back of Oakland. As usual, he was in a big
motor-car, though not his own, the guest of Swiftwater Bill,
Luck's own darling, who had come down to spend the clean-up of
the seventh fortune wrung from the frozen Arctic gravel. A
notorious spender, his latest pile was already on the fair road
to follow the previous six. He it was, in the first year of
Dawson, who had cracked an ocean of champagne at fifty dollars a
quart; who, with the bottom of his gold-sack in sight, had
cornered the egg-market, at twenty-four dollars per dozen, to the
tune of one hundred and ten dozen, in order to pique the
lady-love who had jilted him; and he it was, paying like a prince
for speed, who had chartered special trains and broken all
records between San Francisco and New York. And here he was once
more, the "luck-pup of hell," as Daylight called him, throwing
his latest fortune away with the same old-time facility.
It was a merry party, and they had made a merry day of it,
circling the bay from San Francisco around by San Jose and up to
Oakland, having been thrice arrested for speeding, the third
time, however, on the Haywards stretch, running away with their
captor. Fearing that a telephone message to arrest them had been
flashed ahead, they had turned into the back-road through the
hills, and now, rushing in upon Oakland by a new route, were
boisterously discussing what disposition they should make of the
constable.
"We'll come out at Blair Park in ten minutes," one of the men
announced. "Look here, Swiftwater, there's a crossroads right
ahead, with lots of gates, but it'll take us backcountry clear
into Berkeley. Then we can come back into Oakland from the other
side, sneak across on the ferry, and send the machine back around
to-night with the chauffeur."
But Swiftwater Bill failed to see why he should not go into
Oakland by way of Blair Park, and so decided.
The next moment, flying around a bend, the back-road they were
not going to take appeared. Inside the gate leaning out from her
saddle and just closing it, was a young woman on a chestnut
sorrel. With his first glimpse, Daylight felt there was
something strangely familiar about her. The next moment,
straightening up in the saddle with a movement he could not fail
to identify, she put the horse into a gallop, riding away with
her back toward them. It was Dede Mason--he remembered what
Morrison had told him about her keeping a riding horse, and he
was glad she had not seen him in this riotous company.
Swiftwater Bill stood up, clinging with one hand to the back of
the front seat and waving the other to attract her attention.
His lips were pursed for the piercing whistle for which he was
famous and which Daylight knew of old, when Daylight, with a hook
of his leg and a yank on the shoulder, slammed the startled Bill
down into his seat.
"You m-m-must know the lady," Swiftwater Bill spluttered.
"I sure do," Daylight answered, "so shut up."
"Well, I congratulate your good taste, Daylight. She's a peach,
and she rides like one, too."
Intervening trees at that moment shut her from view, and
Swiftwater Bill plunged into the problem of disposing of their
constable, while Daylight, leaning back with closed eyes, was
still seeing Dede Mason gallop off down the country road.
Swiftwater Bill was right. She certainly could ride. And,
sitting astride, her seat was perfect. Good for Dede! That was
an added point, her having the courage to ride in the only
natural and logical manner. Her head as screwed on right, that
was one thing sure.
On Monday morning, coming in for dictation, he looked at her with
new interest, though he gave no sign of it; and the stereotyped
business passed off in the stereotyped way. But the following
Sunday found him on a horse himself, across the bay and riding
through the Piedmont hills. He made a long day of it, but no
glimpse did he catch of Dede Mason, though he even took the
back-road of many gates and rode on into Berkeley. Here, along
the lines of multitudinous houses, up one street and down
another, he wondered which of them might be occupied by her.
Morrison had said long ago that she lived in Berkeley, and she
had been headed that way in the late afternoon of the previous
Sunday--evidently returning home.
It had been a fruitless day, so far as she was concerned; and yet
not entirely fruitless, for he had enjoyed the open air and the
horse under him to such purpose that, on Monday, his instructions
were out to the dealers to look for the best chestnut sorrel that
money could buy. At odd times during the week he examined
numbers of chestnut sorrels, tried several, and was unsatisfied.
It was not till Saturday that he came upon Bob. Daylight knew
him for what he wanted the moment he laid eyes on him. A large
horse for a riding animal, he was none too large for a big man
like Daylight. In splendid condition, Bob's coat in the sunlight
was a flame of fire, his arched neck a jeweled conflagration.
"He's a sure winner," was Daylight's comment; but the dealer was
not so sanguine. He was selling the horse on commission, and its
owner had insisted on Bob's true charactor being given. The
dealer gave it.
"Not what you'd call a real vicious horse, but a dangerous one.
Full of vinegar and all-round cussedness, but without malice.
Just as soon kill you as not, but in a playful sort of way, you
understand, without meaning to at all. Personally, I wouldn't
think of riding him. But he's a stayer. Look at them lungs.
And look at them legs. Not a blemish. He's never been hurt or
worked. Nobody ever succeeded in taking it out of him. Mountain
horse, too, trail-broke and all that, being raised in rough
country. Sure-footed as a goat, so long as he don't get it into
his head to cut up. Don't shy. Ain't really afraid, but makes
believe. Don't buck, but rears. Got to ride him with a
martingale. Has a bad trick of whirling around without cause
It's his idea of a joke on his rider. It's all just how he feels
One day he'll ride along peaceable and pleasant for twenty miles.
Next day, before you get started, he's well-nigh unmanageable.
Knows automobiles so he can lay down alongside of one and sleep
or eat hay out of it. He'll let nineteen go by without batting
an eye, and mebbe the twentieth, just because he's feeling
frisky,
he'll cut up over like a range cayuse. Generally
speaking, too lively for a gentleman, and too unexpected.
Present owner nicknamed him Judas Iscariot, and refuses to sell
without the buyer knowing all about him first. There, that's
about all I know, except look at that mane and tail. Ever see
anything like it? Hair as fine as a baby's."
The dealer was right. Daylight examined the mane and found it
finer than any horse's hair he had ever seen. Also, its color
was unusual in that it was almost auburn. While he ran his
fingers through it, Bob turned his head and playfully nuzzled
Daylight's shoulder
"Saddle him up, and I'll try him," he told the dealer. "I wonder
if he's used to spurs. No English saddle, mind. Give me a good
Mexican and a curb bit--not too severe, seeing as he likes to
rear."
Daylight superintended the preparations, adjusting the curb strap
and the stirrup length, and doing the cinching. He shook his
head at the martingale, but yielded to the dealer's advice and
allowed it to go on. And Bob, beyond spirited restlessness and a
few playful attempts, gave no trouble. Nor in the hour's ride
that followed, save for some permissible curveting and prancing,
did he misbehave. Daylight was delighted; the purchase was
immediately made; and Bob, with riding gear and personal
equipment, was despatched across the bay forthwith to take up his
quarters in the stables of the Oakland Riding Academy.
The next day being Sunday, Daylight was away early, crossing on
the ferry and taking with him Wolf, the leader of his sled team,
the one dog which he had selected to bring with him when he left
Alaska. Quest as he would through the Piedmont hills and along
the many-gated back-road to Berkeley, Daylight saw nothing of
Dede Mason and her chestnut sorrel. But he had little time for
disappointment, for his own chestnut sorrel kept him busy. Bob
proved a handful of impishness and contrariety, and he tried out
his rider as much as his rider tried him out. All of Daylight's
horse knowledge and horse sense was called into play, while Bob,
in turn, worked every trick in his lexicon. Discovering that his
martingale had more slack in it than usual, he proceeded to give
an exhibition of rearing and hind-leg walking. After ten
hopeless minutes of it, Daylight slipped off and tightened the
martingale, whereupon Bob gave an exhibition of angelic goodness.
He fooled Daylight completely. At the end of half an hour of
goodness, Daylight, lured into confidence, was riding along at a
walk and rolling a cigarette, with slack knees and relaxed seat,
the reins lying on the animal's neck. Bob whirled abruptly and
with lightning swiftness, pivoting on his hind legs, his fore
legs just lifted clear of the ground. Daylight found himself
with his right foot out of the stirrup and his arms around the
animal's neck; and Bob took advantage of the situation to bolt
down the road. With a hope that he should not encounter Dede
Mason at that moment, Daylight regained his seat and checked in
the horse.
Arrived back at the same spot, Bob whirled again. This time
Daylight kept his seat, but, beyond a futile rein across the
neck, did nothing to prevent the evolution. He noted that Bob
whirled to the right, and resolved to keep him straightened out
by a spur on the left. But so abrupt and swift was the whirl
that warning and accomplishment were practically simultaneous.
"Well, Bob," he addressed the animal, at the same time wiping the
sweat from his own eyes, "I'm free to confess that you're sure
the blamedest all-fired quickest creature I ever saw. I guess
the way to fix you is to keep the spur just a-touching--ah! you
brute!"
For, the moment the spur touched him, his left hind leg had
reached forward in a kick that struck the stirrup a smart blow.
Several times, out of curiosity, Daylight attempted the spur,
and each time Bob's hoof landed the stirrup. Then Daylight,
following the horse's example of the unexpected, suddenly drove
both spurs into him and reached him underneath with the quirt.
"You ain't never had a real licking before," he muttered as Bob,
thus rudely jerked out of the circle of his own impish mental
processes, shot ahead.
Half a dozen times spurs and quirt bit into him, and then
Daylight settled down to enjoy the mad magnificent gallop. No
longer punished, at the end of a half mile Bob eased down into a
fast canter. Wolf, toiling in the rear, was catching up, and
everything was going nicely.
"I'll give you a few pointers on this whirling game, my boy,"
Daylight was saying to him, when Bob whirled.
He did it on a gallop, breaking the gallop off short by fore legs
stiffly planted. Daylight fetched up against his steed's neck
with clasped arms, and at the same instant, with fore feet clear
of the ground, Bob whirled around. Only an excellent rider could
have escaped being unhorsed, and as it was, Daylight was nastily
near to it. By the time he recovered his seat, Bob was in full
career, bolting the way he had come, and making Wolf side-jump to
the bushes.
"All right, darn you!" Daylight grunted, driving in spurs and
quirt again and again. "Back-track you want to go, and
back-track you sure will go till you're dead sick of it."
When, after a time, Bob attempted to ease down the mad pace,
spurs and quirt went into him again with undiminished vim and put
him to renewed effort. And when, at last, Daylight decided
that the horse had had enough, he turned him around abruptly and
put him into a gentle canter on the forward track. After a time
he reined him in to a stop to see if he were breathing painfully.
Standing for a minute, Bob turned his head and nuzzled his
rider's stirrup in a roguish, impatient way, as much as to
intimate that it was time they were going on.
"Well, I'll be plumb gosh darned!" was Daylight's comment. "No
ill-will, no grudge, no nothing-and after that lambasting! You're
sure a hummer, Bob."
Once again Daylight was lulled into fancied security. For an
hour Bob was all that could be desired of a spirited mount, when,
and as usual without warning, he took to whirling and bolting.
Daylight put a stop to this with spurs and quirt, running him
several punishing miles in the direction of his bolt. But when
he turned him around and started forward, Bob proceeded to feign
fright at trees, cows, bushes, Wolf, his own shadow--in short, at
every ridiculously conceivable object. At such times, Wolf lay
down in the shade and looked on, while Daylight wrestled it out.
So the day passed. Among other things, Bob developed a trick of
making believe to whirl and not whirling. This was as
exasperating as the real thing, for each time Daylight was fooled
into tightening his leg grip and into a general muscular tensing
of all his body. And then, after a few make-believe attempts,
Bob actually did whirl and caught Daylight napping again and
landed him in the old position with clasped arms around the neck.
And to the end of the day, Bob continued to be up to one trick or
another; after passing a dozen automobiles on the way into
Oakland, suddenly electing to go mad with fright at a most
ordinary little runabout. And just before he arrived back at the
stable he capped the day with a combined whirling and rearing
that
broke the martingale and enabled him to gain a perpendicular
position on his hind legs. At this juncture a rotten stirrup
leather parted, and Daylight was all but unhorsed.
But he had taken a liking to the animal, and repented not of his
bargain. He realized that Bob was not vicious nor mean, the
trouble being that he was bursting with high spirits and was
endowed with more than the average horse's intelligence. It was
the spirits and the intelligence, combined with inordinate
roguishness, that made him what he was. What was required to
control him was a strong hand, with tempered sternness and yet
with the requisite touch of brutal dominance.
"It's you or me, Bob," Daylight told him more than once that day.
And to the stableman, that night:--
"My, but ain't he a looker! Ever see anything like him? Best
piece of horseflesh I ever straddled, and I've seen a few in my
time."
And to Bob, who had turned his head and was up to his playful
nuzzling:-
"Good-by, you little bit of all right. See you again next Sunday
A.M., and just you bring along your whole basket of tricks, you
old son-of-a-gun." _
Read next: PART II: CHAPTER XII
Read previous: PART II: CHAPTER X
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