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Andy glanced up under his eyebrows, and then sidelong at the crowd. Every man within hearing was paying strict attention, and was eyeing him expectantly; for broncho-fighting is a spectacle that never palls.

“Well, I can ride him, if yuh say so,” Andy made cautious answer, “but I won’t gamble he’s a bad hoss now–that is, bad enough to take to the Falls. Yuh don’t want to expect–“

“Oh, I don’t expect anything–only I want to see him ridden once. Come on, no time like the present. If he’s bad, you’ll have to ride him at the fair, anyhow, and a little practice won’t hurt you; and if he isn’t, I want to know it for sure.”

“It’s a go with me,” Andy said indifferently, though he secretly felt much relief. The roan would go off like a pet dog, and he could pretend to be somewhat surprised, and declare that he had reformed. Bad horses do reform, sometimes, as Andy and every other man in the crowd knew. Then there would be no more foolish speculation about the cayuse, and Andy could keep him in peace and have a mighty good cow-pony, as he had schemed. He smoked a cigarette while Chip was having the horses corralled, and then led the way willingly, with twenty-five men following expectantly at his heels. Unlike Andy, they fully expected an impromptu exhibition of fancy riding. Not all of them had seen Andy atop a bad horse, and the Diamond G men, in particular, were eager to witness a sample of his skill.

The blue roan submitted to the rope, and there was nothing spectacular in the saddling. Andy kept his cigarette between his lips and smiled to himself when he saw the saddle bunch hazed out through the gate and the big corral left empty of every animal but the blue roan, as was customary when a man tackled a horse with the record which he had given the poor beast. Also, the sight of twenty-five men roosting high, their boot-heels hooked under a corral rail to steady them, their faces writ large with expectancy, amused him inwardly. He pictured their disappointment when the roan trotted around the corral once or twice at his bidding, and smiled again.

“If you can’t top him, Green, we’ll send for Billy Roberts. He’ll take off the rough edge and gentle him down for yuh,” taunted a Diamond G man.

“Don’t get excited till the show starts,” Andy advised, holding the cigarette in his fingers while he emptied his lungs of smoke. Just to make a pretence of caution, he shook the saddle tentatively by the horn, and wished the roan would make a little show of resistance, instead of standing there like an old cow, lacking only the cud, as he complained to himself, to make the resemblance complete. The roan, however, did lay back an ear when Andy, the cigarette again in his lips, put his toe in the stirrup.

“Go after it, you weatherbeaten old saw-buck,” he yelled, just to make the play strong, before he was fairly in the saddle.

Then it was that the Happy Family, heart and soul and pocket all for Andy Green and his wonderful skill in the saddle; with many dollars backing their belief in him and with voices ever ready to sing his praises; with the golden light of early sunset all about them and the tang of coming night-frost in the air, received a shock that made them turn white under their tan.

“Mama!” breathed Weary, in a horrified half-whisper.

And Slim, goggle-eyed beside him, blurted, “Well, by golly!” in a voice that carried across the corral.

For Andy Green, tamer of wild ones (forsooth!) broncho-twister with a fame that not the boundary of Chouteau County held, nor yet the counties beyond; Andy Green, erstwhile “Andre de Greno, champion bare-back rider of the Western Hemisphere,” who had jumped through blazing hoops and over sagging bunting while he rode, turned handsprings and done other public-drawing feats, was prosaically, unequivocally “piled” at the fifth jump!