said nothing. In truth, he had his hands full. Excited before, his pony was now half mad with frenzy. It bucked as if its insides had been made of steel springs. But Jack stuck to it like a burr to a maverick’s tail.
“Wow! Wow!” shouted the Rangers, as the pony gathered its feet together, sprung into the air, and came down with legs as stiff as hitching posts.
“Stick to him, kid! Don’t go to leather!” (meaning, “grab hold of the saddle”), encouraged some of the Rangers struck by Jack’s manful riding. But the dark–skinned little chap seemed to wish nothing more than to see the youthful leader of the Border Boys ignominiously toppled into the dust. He spurred his pony alongside Jack’s and whacked it again and again with his rawhide quirt.
“That’s enough!” shouted Jack. “Stop it!”
“You’re scared!” jeered the Ranger. “Mammy’s little pet!”
The taunt had hardly left his lips before something very unexpected happened. Jack, for a flash, managed to secure control of his pony. He swung it round on its hind legs and rode it right at the scornful, jeering Ranger. As he did so the other leaned out of his saddle to give Jack’s pony another blow with the quirt as it dashed by him. But he miscalculated. Jack drove his pony right in alongside his tormentor’s, and the shock of the collision, added to the position the Ranger now occupied in the saddle – leaning far over – proved too much for his equilibrium.
His animal plunged, as if shot from a catapult, halfway across the street from Jack’s pony. As it did so its rider made a vain attempt to save himself by grabbing its withers. But quick as he was he could not regain his balance.
Off he shot, landing in the street and ploughing a furrow with his face in the soft dust. As for the pony, it dashed off, while a dozen Rangers pursued it, yelling and swinging lariats.
Those who remained set up a yell of delight. It tickled the fancy of these free and easy sons of the plains to see their companion unhorsed by a slip of a boy.
“Good for you, kid!” shouted some.
“Say, Shorty,” admonished others, “why don’t you pick a fellow your own size?”
In the meantime “Shorty,” as he had been addressed, scrambled to his feet. He was a sorry object. His elaborate black silk shirt was torn and dust covered, and one of his carefully tied ribbons was missing. His sombrero lay six feet away, and his black hair fell in a tangle over his dark forehead. As he got to his legs again, crowning humiliation of all, a Chinaman picked up his broad–brimmed hat and tendered it to him. Shorty aimed a blow and a curse at the well–meaning Mongolian, who quickly dodged.
With a roar of rage he rushed at Jack. Then Jack and the others saw what they had not noticed before.
In his fall Shorty’s revolver had fallen from its holster into the dust. But he had recovered it, and now, with his lips set viciously, he was rushing at Jack, the weapon poised for a shot.
“You dern young coyote, I’ll do fer you!” he shouted hoarsely, beside himself with fury, intensified by the taunts of his companions over his downfall.
As if in a trance Jack saw the revolver raised above the fellow’s head, and then brought down to the firing position.
CHAPTER II.
THE HUMBLING OF SHORTY
But at the very instant that the Ranger’s finger pressed the trigger something came swishing and snaking through the air, falling in a loop about him and pinioning his arms. The gun cracked as Shorty was yanked from his feet, but the bullet merely ploughed a little furrow in the ground. The next minute he was rolling in the dust for the second time, roped as neatly as ever he had lassoed a yearling, by the rawhide of Captain Atkinson himself.
The captain, who had been in advance, as we know, had not witnessed the first part of the drama which had so nearly ended in a tragedy, but had been apprised of it when Shorty’s pinto pony had flashed by him with half a dozen shouting Rangers at its heels. The minute it had been roped he instituted inquiries, and hearing what had occurred, he judged from his acquaintance with Shorty’s character that his presence might be needed at the scene of the Ranger’s unhorsing.
At top speed he had galloped back, arriving just in time to see Shorty’s revolver flash in the air as he brought it down for a shot. Almost as by magic the captain’s hand had sought and found his lariat and sent its coil swishing through the air.
“Get up!” he thundered to the disgruntled Shorty, who, thoroughly humiliated, did as he was told.
“Let me alone! Let me git at that cub!” he snarled, under his breath.
“See here, Shorty Swift!” flashed Atkinson, “this isn’t the first trouble I’ve had with you. You’re a disgrace to the Rangers.”
“He was pickin’ on me,” began the Ranger; but his commander cut him short with a sharp word.
“Buncombe! Is this the way you obey orders to conduct yourself properly? Do you mean to tell me that you can give me any good reason why a kid like that should annoy a Texas ranger?”
“Well, he did. It was his fault. He – he – ”
“See here, Shorty, are you going to tell the truth?”
“I am telling the truth, cap.”
“You’re not. Some of you other boys tell me what happened.”
One of the Rangers who had applauded Jack’s horsemanship gave a plain, unvarnished account of the whole scene. Captain Atkinson’s brow darkened as he heard.
“So,” he snapped, “that’s the sort of fellow you are. Well, all I’ve got to say is that you and your kind are a disgrace to the name of Texas. I’ve warned you before, Shorty, of what you might expect if you got into disgrace again. That was the last time. Now I find you bullyin’ a kid who hadn’t done you any harm, and when he gave you what you deserved you tried to shoot him. I’ve only got one thing to say to you – ”
He paused.
There was a vibrant silence, during which the trampling of the restless ponies’ hoofs and the hard breathing of Shorty were the only sounds to break the stillness.
“Git!”
The order came like the crack of a rifle.
Shorty seemed to wither and grow smaller and darker as he heard.
“Captain, I – ” he stammered out. But Atkinson cut him short abruptly.
“You heard me. Git! This isn’t a cow camp, but a regularly organized troop to enforce law and order. You set a fine example of lawlessness right in the town we have been sent to protect from that very thing. There’s your pony and here’s the pay that’s coming to you. Hit the trail, and hit it quick.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, captain. Give him one more chance. I guess it was only meant as horse play and not viciousness.”
Captain Atkinson turned his bronzed countenance on the speaker. It was Jack. Beside him Walt Phelps had reined up and Ralph Stetson, too, the latter having been attracted by the excitement from the side street where he had sought refuge at the boisterous entrance of the Rangers.
“Oh,
