Collie, leaning forward, patted her neck. "Come on, sis. Come on, Yuma girl. You're just a little hummingbird. You ain't a real horse."
With a leap the pony reared. Still there came no sting of spur or quirt. She dropped to her feet. Collie had cleverly consumed a minute of the allotted time.
"One minute!" called Williams, holding the watch.
"Why, that ain't ridin'," grumbled an Oro man.
"See you later," said Williams, and several of his companions looked at him strangely. The foreman's eyes were fixed on the watch.
Collie had also heard, and he dug his unspurred heels into the pony's sides. She leaped straight for the corral gate and freedom. With a patter of hoofs, stiff-legged, she jolted toward the plain. The men dropped from the bars and ran toward the gate, all, except Williams, who turned, blinking in the sun, his watch in his hand.
A few short jumps, a fish-like swirl sideways, and still Collie held his seat. He eased the hackamore a little. He was breathing hard. The horse took up the slack with a vicious plunge, head downward. The boy's face grew white. He felt something warm trickling down his mouth and chin. He threw back his head and gripped with his knees.
"Only one of 'em--so far," said Williams. "One minute and thirty seconds."
Then, like a bolt of copper light, the pony shot forward at a run.
On the ranch-house veranda sat Walter Stone conversing with his host, where several girls, bright-faced and gowned in cool white, were talking and laughing.
The pony headed straight for the veranda. The laughing group jumped to their feet. Collie, using both hands, swung the hackamore across the outlaw's neck and tugged.
She stopped with a jolt that all but unseated him. Walter Stone rose. "It's one of my boys," he said. And he noticed that a little stream of red was trickling from Collie's mouth and nostrils.
His head was snapped back and then forward at every plunge. Still he gripped the saddle with rigid knees. The outlaw bucked again, and flung herself viciously sideways, turning completely round. Collie pitched drunkenly as the horse came down again and again. His eyes were blurred and his brain grew numb. Faintly he heard Brand Williams cry, "Two minutes! Moonstone wins!" Then came a cheer. His gripping knees relaxed. He reeled and all around him the air grew streaked with slivers of piercing fire. He pitched headforemost at the feet of the group on the veranda.