Roger Lincoln stood for a long time gazing. Silence came upon all the crowd. They were still with expectancy and fear, because Roger Lincoln, of course, knew horseflesh as no other man in the world could know it.
Only John Brett kept an unchanged face, but Torridon, who knew how to watch little things, made note that the pipe tilted up in the grip of the patriarch’s teeth and from its bowl thick clouds of smoke were driven forth by his heavy breathing.
“Come here, Comanche,” said Roger Lincoln.
The gray mare came to him like a dog, and all the women cried out softly, in admiration of such a tender intimacy between a man and his horse.
Then all fell silent again, biting their lips and looking from Lincoln to John Brett. Because, of course, it was patent that Roger Lincoln had some disagreeable things to say, but that he would not say them until he could illustrate the difference between the colt and a perfect pattern, such as the gray mare.
With a word the plainsman made his mare stand like a rock. Then he began to circle the two. He stood behind them. He stood before them.
There was almost a tragedy when he reached for the hocks of Ashur. That young and haughty prince tried to bite and strike and kick at the same instant.
Torridon, blackness whirling before his eyes, looked to see Roger Lincoln fall torn and crushed to the ground, but the big man had slipped away, as a dead leaf slips from before a striking hand.
“I’ll go with you,” said Torridon eagerly. “Then he’ll be all right.”
“You will?” said Roger Lincoln, and he turned to Torridon and saw him for the first time.
Such eyes never had fallen upon Torridon before. They were between hazel and brown, and now they had a peculiar yellowish cast, like the eyes of a bird of prey.
“You’re not afraid of him?” asked Roger Lincoln.
“He knows me,” explained Torridon, and he stood beside the hip of the stallion and took him by the hock. The young stallion raised that leg and kicked with it, but it was only a small and feeble gesture that did not disturb Torridon’s hold.
Roger Lincoln stepped up in turn, thus escorted, and laid his hand on the joint. He fumbled at it for some moments. And, again escorted by Torridon, who was bursting with pride, the man from the Indian country thumbed and fingered the knee of Ashur, and the cannon bone beneath it. Then he looked at the way the head was placed on the neck and put his fist beneath the jaws of the stallion while Torridon held Ashur irreverently by the nose. At length the great man stepped back and looked at the gray mare and went over her, in turn, with as much care as he had used on the stallion.
Then he had ended—and he had consumed a full half hour in this examination. “I haven’t been on him, yet,” he said to John Brett. “But from the ground I can tell you this. I’ve never seen the horse that compares with Comanche until today. And now I can tell you that he’s as far above her as the sun is above the moon.”
John Brett blinked. There was a sort of moan of joy and relief from the others.
But Roger Lincoln laid his hand on the brow of the gray.
“Poor girl,” he said. “Poor girl.” It was as though a queen had been dethroned that day.
VII
Torridon expected that the big man would, when he desired, simply leap into the saddle and gallop away on the colt. But he did nothing of the kind. First of all, he examined the girths with the greatest care, and then looked to the straps. The saddle itself he seemed suspicious of, although it was new and strong. He took the measurement from his own stirrups and came back to lengthen these to the same degree. He looked well to the bit, the bridle, and above all to the reins.
Then he stepped back and said quietly to John Brett: “That colt may be spoiled. It’s been petted too much.”
“Ha?” cried John Brett. “Paul Torridon, have you spoiled that horse with petting? I’ll . . .”
He grew purple with rage; Paul Torridon grew white with fear.
“However,” said Roger Lincoln, “it may turn out all right.”
And he could not help a little smile, as though the sense of his own strength and skill overcame his modesty for an instant.
Then, in a trice, he had leaped into the saddle.
“Good boy,” he said gently to Ashur. “Go along. Get up!”
Ashur, as he felt the weight, turned stiff as a rock, and crouched.
Torridon stepped back. He forgot his fear of John Brett and began to grow hot with anger. He knew very well that he had no right to feel this anger, but he could not help it when he saw Roger Lincoln on the back of Ashur.
“Get along!” said Roger Lincoln, and slapped the colt lightly on the flank.
Torridon could hardly keep back a voice that wanted to shout through his lips, tearing his throat with violence: Don’t do that! That’s the wrong way! Let him go easily . . . give him time! He needs time to learn!
Ashur, however, suddenly straightened and broke into a trot. It was wonderful to see the silken ease of his movement, the supple fetlocks playing under the strong drive of his legs.
From Roger Lincoln a single delightful glance flashed at John Brett. He pulled on the rein, and the colt swung slowly around while the crowd murmured: “Look. He’s broken Ashur already. He’s a perfect rider. What a man!”
Past John Brett came the colt, and Roger Lincoln leaned to say: “Brett, this horse is the king of the world!”
That instant Ashur acted as though he were a king indeed, and a very angry monarch. He began to buck.
It was a coltish, clumsy beginning. He did not seem able to gather his legs under him, and he grunted when the weight of his rider beat relentlessly down on him.
Roger Lincoln laughed and kept a tight rein. With his free hand he slapped Ashur on the flanks.
“You might as well shake it out of yourself,” he said.
That blow seemed to rouse a hornet’s nest. Or perhaps it was that what Ashur had done before had been enough merely to warm his blood and give him a somewhat greater understanding of his powers. For now he went up into the air as though by the beat of wings, and he came down with head lowered, back humped.
The impact jarred the ground as far as where Torridon stood, and he could hear the gasp of breath driven from the body of Roger Lincoln by the shock.
But that was only the start. In that instant Ashur seemed to have learned all about bucking. He began to plunge high and come down on a stiffened foreleg, a double shock that snapped the head of Roger Lincoln heavily to the side, or down upon his breast. It was irresistible, like the snapping of a whiplash. And yet Roger Lincoln remained in the saddle!
“Ashur can kill himself, but he’ll never get Roger Lincoln off,” said someone.
Torridon turned his head.
It was Nancy who had said that, Nancy looking white and fierce, with her nostrils quivering.
With wonder Torridon saw that she was loving the battle. He turned from her, a little sickened, in time to see Ashur spin like a top to the left, halt with planted hoofs that gouged up several feet of earth, and spin again in the opposite direction.
Then Roger Lincoln was flung from the saddle with incredible force. His dignity dissolved in mid-air, so to speak. He was a whir of arms and legs, and then landed with a desperate thud, and rolled over at the very feet of Torridon
Paul, looking down, knew by one glance at that white, senseless face and the half-open eyes that this man was badly stunned—killed, perhaps.
Then he heard a shout of men, with a tingling scream of women rising over it. People fled from about him, and there was Ashur coming like a tiger, with gaping mouth prepared to finish his victim.