"See Nita ride! isn't she just wonderful?" cried Helen.

"I don't think there's anything wonderful about it," sneered The Fox, in her biting way. "She was almost _born_ on horseback, you know. It's as natural to her as breathing."

"Bu-bu-but it shakes-you up-a good-bit more-than breath-breathing!"

gasped Heavy, as her pony jounced her over the ground.

Tom and Bob had raced ahead after the cowboys, and Ruth was right behind them. She had learned to sit the saddle with ease now, and she was beginning to learn to swing a rope; Ike was teaching her. Tom could really fling the la.s.so with some success; but of course he could not enter into this mad rush for a single steer.

A twenty dollar gold piece was not to be scorned; and the cowboys were earnest in their attempt to make that extra twenty over and above their monthly stipend. But Jane Ann Hicks worked for the fun of it, and because she desired to show her Eastern friends how she excelled in horsemanship. There were so many other things which her friends knew, in which she was deficient!

She was up with the leaders when they came within casting distance of the big steer. But the steer was wily; he dodged this way and that as they surrounded him, and finally one of the punchers got in an awkward position and Old Trouble-Maker made for him. The man couldn't pull his pony out of the way as the steer made a short turn, and the old fellow came head on against the pony's ribs. It was a terrific shock. It sounded like a man beating an empty rainwater barrel with a club!

The poor pony was fairly lifted off his feet and rolled over and over on the ground. Luckily his rider kicked himself free of the stirrups and escaped the terrible horns of Old Trouble-Maker. The steer thundered on, paying no further attention to overturned pony or rider, and it was Jib Pottoway who first dropped a rope over the creature's horn.

But it was only over one horn and when the galloping steer was suddenly "snubbed" at the end of Jib's rope, what happened? Ordinarily Old Trouble-Maker should have gone down to his knees with the shock; but the Indian's pony stumbled just at that anxious moment, and instead of the steer being brought to his knees, the pony was jerked forward by Old Trouble-Maker's weight.

The cowboys uttered a chorus of dismal yells as Jib rose into the air-like a diver making a spring into the sea-and when he landed-well!

it was fortunate that the noose slipped off the steer's horn and the pony did not roll over the Indian.

Two men bowled over and the odds all in favor of the black and white steer! The other cowboys set up a fearful chorus as Jib scrambled up, and Old Trouble-Maker thundered on across the plain, having been scarcely r.e.t.a.r.ded by the Indian's attempt. Bellowing and blowing, the steer kept on, and for a minute n.o.body else got near enough to the beast to fling a rope.

Then one of the other boys who bestrode a remarkably fast little pony, got near enough (as he said afterward) to grab the steer by the tail and throw him! And it was too bad that he hadn't tried that feat; for what he _did_ do was to excitedly swing his lariat around his head and catch his nearest neighbor across the shoulders with the slack! This neighbor uttered a howl of rage and at once "ran amuck"-to the great hilarity of the onlookers. It was no fun for the fellow who had so awkwardly swung the rope, however; for his angry mate chased him half a mile straight across the plain before he bethought him, in his rage, that it was the steer, not his friend, that was to be flung and tied for the prize.

The others laughed so over this incident that the steer was like to get away. But one of the fellows, known to them all as "Jimsey" had been working cautiously on the outside of the bunch of excited hors.e.m.e.n all the time. It was evident to Ruth, who was watching the game very earnestly from the rear, that this Jimsey had determined to capture the prize and was showing more strategy than the others. He was determined to be the one to down Old Trouble-Maker, and as he saw one after the other of his mates fail, his own grin broadened.

Now, Ruth saw, he suddenly urged his pony in nearer the galloping steer.

Standing suddenly in his stirrups, and swinging his lariat with a wide noose at the end, he dropped it at the moment when Old Trouble-Maker had just dodged another rope. The steer fairly ran into Jimsey's noose. The puncher snubbed down on the rope instantly, and the steer, caught over the horns and with one foreleg in the noose, came to the hard plain like a ton of bricks falling.

"He's down! he's down!" shrieked Bob, vastly excited.

"Oh, the poor thing!" his sister observed. "That must have hurt him."

"Well, after the way that brute tried to crawl into the automobile, I wouldn't cry any if his neck was broken!" exclaimed Mary c.o.x, in sharp tones.

Jimsey's horse was well broken and he swung his weight at the end of the rope in such a way that the huge steer could not get on his feet again.

Jimsey vaulted out of the saddle and ran to the floundering steer with an agility that delighted the spectators from the East. How they cheered him! And his mates, too, urged him on with delight. It looked as though Jimsey had "called the trick" and would tie the struggling beast and so fulfill the requirements of the contest.

As the agile puncher sought to lay hold of the steer's forefeet, however, Old Trouble-Maker flung his huge body around. The "yank" was too much for the pony and it was drawn forward perhaps a foot by the sheer weight of the big steer.

"Stand still, thar!" yelled Jimsey to the pony. "Wait till I get this yere critter tied up in a true lover's knot! Whoa, Emma!"

Again the big steer had jerked; but the pony braced his feet and swung backward. It was then the unexpected happened! The girth of Jimsey's saddle gave way, the taut rope pulling the saddle sideways. The pony naturally was startled and he jumped to one side. In an instant the big steer was nimbly on his feet, and flung Jimsey ten feet away! Bellowing with fear the brute tore off across the plain again, now with the wreck of Jimsey's saddle bounding over the ground behind him and whacking him across the rump at every other jump.

If anything was needed to make Old Trouble-Maker mad he had it now. The steer sped across the plain faster than he had ever run before, and in a temper to attack anything or anybody who chanced to cross his trail.

CHAPTER VII-JANE ANN TURNS THE TRICK

"Oh, Ruth! that man is hurt," cried Helen, as the chums rode as hard as they dared after the flying bunch of cattle punchers.

Jimsey lay on the ground, it was true; but when they came nearer they saw that he was shaking both fists in the air and spouting language that was the very reverse of elegant. Jimsey wasn't hurt; but he was awfully angry.

"Come on! come on, girls!" called Tom. "That old steer is running like a dog with a can tied to its tail! Did you ever see the beat of that?"

"And Nita is right in with the crowd. How they ride!" gasped Madge Steele. "She'll be killed!"

"I hope not," her brother shouted back. "But she's just about the pluckiest girl I ever heard of."

"She's swinging her rope now!" gasped Heavy. "Do you suppose she intends to try and catch that steer?"

That was what Jane Ann Hicks seemed determined to do. She had ridden so that she was ahead of the troop of other riders. Bashful Ike, the foreman, put spurs to his own mount and tried to catch the boss's niece.

If anything happened to Jane Ann he knew that Old Bill would call him to account for it.

"Have a care there, Jinny!" he bawled "Look out that saddle don't give ye a crack."

The saddle bounded high in the air-sometimes higher than Jane Ann's head-and if she ran her mount in too close to the mad steer the saddle might knock her off her pony. Nor did she pay the least attention to Bashful Ike's advice. She was using the quirt on her mount and he was jumping ahead like a streak of light.

Jane Ann had coiled her rope again and it hung from her saddle. She had evidently formed a new plan of action since having the field to herself.

The others-all but Ike-were now far behind.

"Have a care thar, Jinny!" called the foreman again. "He'll throw you!"

"You keep away, Ike!" returned the girl, excitedly. "This is my chance.

Don't you dare interfere. I'll show those boys I can beat them at their own game."

"Sufferin' snipes! You look out, Jinny! You'll be killed!"

"I won't if you don't interfere," she yelled back at him.

During this conversation both their mounts were on the keen jump. The saddle was bounding high over the plain as the steer still bellowed and ran. Jane Ann urged her pony as close alongside the steer as she dared, leaned sideways from her saddle, and made a sharp slash in the air with the hunting knife that had hung from her belt in its sheath. The keen blade severed Jimsey's best hair rope (there would be a postscript to Jimsey's remarks about that, later) and the saddle, just then bounding into the air, caromed from the steer's rump against Jane Ann's pony, and almost knocked it off its legs.

But the girl kept her seat and the pony gathered his feet under him again and started after the relieved steer. But she did not use her rope even then, and after returning her knife to its sheath she guided her pony close in to the steer's flank. Before that saddle had beaten him so about the body, Old Trouble-Maker might have made a swift turn and collided with the girl's mount; but he was thinking only of running away now-getting away from that mysterious thing that had been chasing and thumping him!

Ike, who cantered along just behind her (the rest of the crowd were many yards in the rear) suddenly let out a yell of fear. He saw that the girl was about to try, and he was scared. She leaned from her saddle and seized the stiff tail of the steer at its base. The foreman drew his gun and spurred his horse forward.

"You little skeezicks!" he gasped. "If you break your neck your uncle will jest natcherly run me off'n this range!"

"Keep away, Ike!" panted the girl, letting the tail of the maddened steer run through her hand until she felt the bunch of hair-or brush-at the end.

Then she secured her grip. Digging her spurs into the pony's sides she made him increase his stride suddenly. He gained second by second on the wildly running steer and the girl leaned forward in her saddle, clinging with her left hand to the pommel, her face in the pony's tossing mane.

The next moment the tail was taut and the jerk was almost enough to dislocate her arm. But she hung on and the shock was greater to the big steer than to Jane Ann. The yank on his tail made him lose his stride and forced him to cross his legs. The next moment Old Trouble-Maker was on his head, from which he rolled over on his side, bellowing with fright.

It was a _vaquero_ trick that Jane Ann had seen the men perform; yet it was a mercy that she, a slight girl, was not pulled out of her saddle and killed. But Jane Ann had done the trick nicely; and in a moment she was out of her saddle, and before Ike was beside her, had tied the steer's feet, "fore and aft," with Jimsey's broken rope. Then, with one foot on the heaving side of the steer, she flung off her hat and shouted to the crowd that came tearing up: