Chapter 3 A THRILLING MOMENT

"We are ready, Mr. Lang," greeted Grace Harlowe as she and her party came up to the corral where the guide was supervising the saddling of the ponies for the outfit.

The girls now wore the overseas uniforms that they had worn in their ride over the Old Apache Trail. In addition, a red bandana handkerchief was twisted about the neck of each Overland Rider, in true western style, to keep the alkali dust from sifting down their necks.

All the equipment except mess kits and emergency rations, and a canteen of water for each, had been sent forward on the burros in charge of the Chinaman, Ping Wing, whom the Overland girls had not yet met.

"How is Blackie behaving at present, Mr. Lang?" questioned Grace, stepping over towards the guide, who was readjusting the cinch- girth on the little animal.

"Quiet as a kitten after finding a nest of young mice. Better put your revolver in the saddle holster where it will be handy. That's where I carry mine. The lieutenant is stowing his now. Never know when the 'hardware' is going to come in handy on the desert."

A lump of sugar found its way into the black bronco's mouth from Grace Harlowe's hand, as she petted and talked to the little fellow. This time his ears were tilted forward, and he stood motionless while his new master was caressing him. The instant Grace stepped away, however, the black grew restless. He dragged the cowboy who was holding him and threatened to break away, nor was he quieted until Grace herself intervened and, slipping the bridle rein over her arm and leading the pony, walked over to Tom Gray.

"No wonder you are successful in managing a husband," observed

Tom. "Even the dumb animals bow to your will."

"Now, Tom," protested Grace laughingly, the color mounting to her cheeks. "That wasn't a bit nice of you."

"Ready whenever you are, Mrs. Gray," interrupted the voice of Hi

Lang.

Grace turned to her husband, the laughter gone from her face.

"I shall miss you, Tom dear. Write to Yvonne as often as you can, and to me, but Yvonne needs our letters to keep her from getting lonely at school. Good-bye and the best of luck, as we used to say when we were in France."

Grace patted the neck of the black bronco, and Tom assisted her to the saddle. Blackie began to prance, but, though he threatened to buck, he did not. Grace finally subdued him and sat waiting for her companions to mount, all of whom managed the operation successfully, though Emma Dean was twice nearly unhorsed.

The cowboys, as the Overland girls observed, were saddled up as if they too were going along, but she supposed they were starting out on some duty connected with their work. All but two of them mounted, and there followed an exhibition of prancing and bucking that furnished amusement and interest to Grace and her friends.

Bud and a companion finally rode up before Grace and dismounted, the former removing his sombrero and approaching her awkwardly.

Glancing inquiringly at Mr. Lang, Grace saw that he was smiling.

"Bud has something on his mind. I reckon he wants to unload, Mrs.

Gray," announced the guide.

"Yes, Bud?" smiled Grace encouragingly. "What is it?"

"It's yourself, Miss. The bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's a woman on the premises."

"What is it the 'bunch' wishes you to say to me?" asked the

Overland girl.

"They seen you bust the black bronc' this morning, and bein' as no female woman ever pulled off a stunt like it in these parts, they reckoned it might not make you mad if they told you you was all to the good."

"Thank you-thank you all." Grace waved a hand and smiled at the eager faces of the cowboys who, lined up on their ponies, just to the rear of Bud and a companion, were eagerly hanging on Bud's words, but not taking their gaze from Grace Harlowe's face for an instant.

"The bunch reckoned, too, that bein' a champeen mebby you'd take a little present from 'em. I ain't much on spreadin' the dough, even if I have some gab," added Bud, floundering for the rest of his speech.

"Bud, I'm just as excited as you are, and, were I in your place, I should not know what to say next," comforted Grace seriously. "What is it that the 'bunch' wished you to give to me?"

Bud reached a hand behind him, whereupon his companion placed something in it. Emma Dean whispered to Nora that it looked like a blacksnake all coiled up and ready to jump.

"This here," resumed the cowboy, holding up the coil that had been passed to him, "is a real Mexican lariat, made by a Greaser, but real horsehair, and warranted not to kink or to miss in the hands of a lady. The bunch reckons they'd like to give it to you to remember 'em by," concluded Bud, stepping forward and handing the lariat to Grace.

"Bud-boys, I don't need anything to make me remember you, but of course I will accept your thoughtful gift. I never threw a rope and could not hit the side of a barn with one, but now that you have given me this beautiful piece of rope I am going to learn to throw it. Mr. Lang, will you teach me how to rope-to throw the lasso?"

The guide nodded.

"If we come back this way, I hope I shall see all you boys here, and I will then throw the rope for you and you shall tell me whether or not I am a hopeless tenderfoot."

"You ain't no tenderfoot already," called a cowboy.

"Thank you. Good-bye, all." Grace waved her sombrero, and, blowing a kiss to her husband, clucked to her pony and was off at a gallop, following in the wake of Hi Lang, who had already started on.

The others of the Overland party swung in and the party began its journey. They had gone but a short distance when, hearing shouts to the rear, they turned to discover the cowboys racing toward them in a cloud of dust.

"What do they want, Mr. Lang!" called Grace, urging her pony up to him.

"I reckon they're coming out to give you a send off," answered the guide.

As they approached, the cowboys spread out and began circling the galloping Overlanders, yelling, whooping and firing their revolvers into the air. Now and then one's sombrero would fly off, whereupon a following cowboy would swing down from his saddle and scoop up the hat.

Ropes began to wiggle through the air as the western riders sought to rope each other. They were giving Grace Harlowe a demonstration of what western roping was, and, as she rode, Grace observed and enjoyed, as did her companions.

Suddenly a rope darted into the air behind her, and, had she not seen its shadow, Grace surely would have been caught. Interpreting that shadow for what it was the Overland Rider threw herself forward on her pony's neck just as the loop descended. It dropped lightly on her back, but she was out from under it in a flash, and, as she sped on, she turned a laughing face to the roper, who was being rewarded by the jeers of his companions who had chanced to see him make the cast and fail.

Howling and whooping like a wild Indian, another rider shot directly across Grace's path, his glee spinning his sombrero as high in the air as he could throw it, intending to ride under and catch it. Grace's revolver, the same weapon that she had taken from Belle Bates, the wife of the bandit of the Apache Trail, whipped out of its holster in a second. Her first shot at the spinning hat missed, but her second shot was a hit. She put a hole right through the crown of the hat.

The whooping and yelling was renewed as the owner of the hat scooped it up from the ground and held it up for the others to see. There were two, however, who were taking no interest in the shooting-the cowboy who had tried to rope Grace, and a companion who was chasing and trying to rope him in payment for his unsportsmanlike attempt to cast his lariat over Grace Harlowe's head.

The two were darting in and out among the racing cowboys and Overlanders at the imminent peril of running down some one; the dust was a suffocating, choking cloud except as they rode ahead, and then only those in the lead were out of the worst of it. The Overlanders were coughing and perspiring, and the shouting and shooting at times made conversation well nigh impossible.

"What is this, a wild west show?" cried Elfreda Briggs, riding toward Grace Harlowe, who was entering into the sport with a zest that set Hi Lang's head nodding in approval.

"The real wild west, Elfreda. It is not easy to find, but we have found it in earnest. Oh! Look at that!"

The pursuing cowboy had now roped a hind foot of the pony ridden by the man who had attempted to lasso Grace Harlowe.

The lariat being attached to the pommel of the thrower's saddle, the roped pony went down on its nose, violently hurling its rider to the ground, but the little horse was up in a flash, galloping away and dragging along the rope which it had jerked free from the owner's hands and from the saddle pommel.

Not only was it dragging the lasso, but also its cowboy rider, who, with one foot caught in a stirrup, was being bumped along on his back over the uneven ground.

Elfreda Briggs, nearest to the fallen cowboy, instantly spurred her pony after the runaway. She was abreast of it in a moment. Grasping the bridle of the runaway, Elfreda tugged at it with all her might in her endeavor to stop the animal, shouting, "Whoa! Whoa!"

In the meantime, Grace on Blackie was heading for the scene at top speed, seeking to head off the runaway.

Others also were trying to stop the animal and rescue the fallen cowboy, but it was Elfreda's race, with Grace following her. Elfreda was clinging desperately to the bridle of the runaway with one hand, the other holding fast to the pommel of her saddle, but despite all her efforts she failed to check the speed of the runaway, leaning over toward it further and further as the space between the two ponies widened.

This meant a fall for Elfreda, as she suddenly realized.

"Let go!" cried Grace, but Elfreda was too busy to hear and still held on to the runaway.

The runaway swerved sharply to the right. Miss Briggs had the presence of mind to kick back with both feet as she felt herself going to fall off. She did this to clear her feet from the stirrups so that when she fell she might not be dragged along on the ground by one foot. She was now leaning too far over to be able to recover her balance on her own saddle.

Miss Briggs suddenly let go of the pommel of her saddle as she felt herself slipping, and threw both arms about the neck of the runaway, to which she clung with all her might.

"Whoa! Whoa!" she gasped chokingly, her feet whipping the ground with every leap of the runaway as she was dragged along. Elfreda was taking severe punishment, but she was enduring it pluckily, determined to hang on until either the runaway stopped or her arms came off.

Grace Harlowe drew down rapidly on the runaway and its victims, having so timed her arrival that she succeeded in heading the pony off, with several yards between it and herself.

"Whoa! Whoa!" commanded Grace sharply, at the same time hurling her sombrero into the face of the runaway. Instead of slowing down, he came on with a rush, and Grace, who was now directly in his path, saw that she could not avoid a collision.

The bronco ridden by Grace braced himself, seeming to know instinctively what was coming.

In the next moment the runaway plunged against Blackie, and the impact bowled Blackie over flat on his side.

Grace already had slipped her feet from the stirrups, and, when the collision came, she too threw herself on the neck of the runaway.

"Ha-ang on! We'll stop him!" she cried, her arms now tightly encircling the runaway's neck, her feet dragging on the ground just as Elfreda's were.

By this time the two girls on the running pony's neck were surrounded by mounted cowboys.

"Let go! Jump clear so we kin rope him!" shouted Bud, for the men dared not rope and throw the horse, fearing that he might fall on one of the girls and crush her.

The cowboys did not seem to realize that neither girl would let go of her own free will until the runaway had been stopped.

The end came suddenly. The heavy burden on his neck was too much for the bronco, and, his knees weakening, all at once he stumbled and went down on his nose, then toppled over on his side, enveloped in a cloud of dust.

"They're caught!" shouted Hi Lang.