Cow-Country by B. M. Bower (best color ereader txt) 📗

The old man was mounted on a clean-built bay whose coat shone with little glints of gold in the dark red. With one sweeping look Bud observed the points that told of speed, and his eyes went inquiringly to meet the sharp blue ones, that sparkled under the tufted white eyebrows of grandpa.

“Do you expect Smoky to show up the same day that horse arrives?” he inquired mildly. “Pop, you'll have to prove to me that he won't run Sunday—”

Pop snorted. “Seems to me like you do know a speedy horse when you see one, young feller. Beats me't you been overlookin' what you got under yore saddle right now. Boise, he's the best runnin' horse in the valley—and that's why he won't run next Sunday, ner no other Sunday till somebuddy brings in a strange horse to put agin him. Dave, he won't crowd ye fur a race, boy. You kin refuse to run yore horse agin him, like the rest has done. I'll jest lope along t'day and see what yours kin do.”

“Well, all right, then.” Bud waited for the old man to ride ahead down the obscure trail that wound through the brush for half a mile or so before they emerged into the rough border of the creek bed. Pop reined in close and explained garrulously to Bud how this particular stream disappeared into the ground two miles above Little Lost, leaving the wide, level river bottom bone dry.

Pop was cautious. He rode up to a rise of ground and scanned the country suspiciously before he led the way into the creek bed. Even then he kept close under the bank until they had passed two of the quarter-mile posts that had been planted in the hard sand.

Evidently he had been doing a good deal of thinking during the ride; certainly he had watched Smoky. When he stopped under the bank opposite the half-mile post he dismounted more spryly than one would have expected. His eyes were bright, his voice sharp. Pop was forgetting his age.

“I guess I'll ride yore horse m'self,” he announced, and they exchanged horses under the shelter of the bank. “You kin take an' ride Boise-an' I want you should beat me if you kin.” He looked at Bud appraisingly. “I'll bet a dollar,” he cried suddenly, “that I kin outrun ye, young feller! An' you got the fastest horse in Burroback Valley and I don't know what I got under me. I'm seventy years old come September—when I'm afoot. Are ye afraid to bet?”

“I'm scared a dollar's worth that I'll never see you again to-day unless I ride back to find you,” Bud grinned.

“Any time you lose ole Pop Truman—shucks almighty! Come on, then—I'll show ye the way to the quarter-post!”

“I'm right with you, Pop. You say so, and I'm gone!”

They reined in with the shadow of the post falling square across the necks of both horses. Pop gathered up the reins, set his feet in the stirrups and shrilled, “Go, gol darn ye!”

They went, like two scared rabbits down the smooth, yellow stretch of packed sand. Pop's elbows stuck straight out, he held the reins high and leaned far over Smoky's neck, his eyes glaring. Bud—oh, never worry about Bud! In the years that lay between thirteen and twenty-one Bud had learned a good many things, and one of them was how to get out of a horse all the speed there was in him.

They went past the quarter-post and a furlong beyond before either could pull up. Pop was pale and triumphant, and breathing harder than his mount.

“Here 's your dollar, Pop—and don't you talk in your sleep!” Bud admonished, smiling as he held out the dollar, but with an anxious tone in his voice. “If this is the best running horse you've got in the valley, I may get some action, next Sunday!”

Pop dismounted, took the dollar with a grin and mounted Boise—and that in spite of the fact that Boise was keyed up and stepping around and snorting for another race. Bud watched Pop queerly, remembering how feeble had been the old man whom he had met at the corral.

“Say, Pop, you ought to race a little every day,” he bantered. “You're fifteen years younger than you were an hour ago.”

For answer Pop felt of his back and groaned. “Oh, I'll pay fer it, young feller! I don't look fer much peace with my back fer a week, after this. But you kin make sure of one thing, and that is, I ain't goin' to talk in my sleep none. By Christmas, We'll make this horse of yours bring us in something! I guess you better turn yore horses all out in the pasture. Dave, he'll give yuh work all right. I'll fix it with Dave. And you listen to Pop, young feller. I'll show ye a thing or two about runnin' horses. You'n me'll clean up a nice little bunch of money-HE-HE!-beat Boise in a quarter dash! Tell that to Dave, an' he wouldn't b'lieve ye!”

When Pop got off at the back of the stable he could scarcely move, he was so stiff. But his mind was working well enough to see that Bud rubbed the saddle print off Boise and turned his own horses loose in the pasture, before he let him go on to the house. The last Bud heard from Pop that forenoon was a senile chuckle and a cackling, “Outrun Boise in a quarter dash! Shucks a'mighty! But I knew it—I knew he had the speed—sho! Ye can't fool ole Pop—shucks!”