Alcatraz | Page 5

and spoke. Every sound, even of the panting
horse, came clearly to her through the open window.
"Kind of small but kind of trim, that hoss."
"Not so small," said the rider. "About fifteen two, I guess."
"Measured him?"
"Never."
"I'd say nigher onto fifteen one."
"Bet my spurs to ten dollars that he's fifteen two; and that's good odds
for you."

The old man hesitated; but the stable boy was watching him with a
grin.
"I'll take that bet if--" he began.
The rider snapped him up so quickly that Marianne was angered again.
Of course he knew the height of his own horse and it would be criminal
to take the old loafer's money, but that was his determination.
"Get a tape, son. We'll see."
The stable boy disappeared in the shadow of the door and came back at
once with the measure. The grey gelding, in the meantime, had smelled
the sweetness of hay and was growing restive but a sharp word from
the rider jerked him up like a tug on his bit. He tossed his head and
waited, his ears flat.
"Look out, Dad," called the rider, as he arranged the tape to fall from
the withers of the horse, "this little devil'll kick your head off quicker
than a wink if he gets a chance."
"He don't look mean," said the greybeard, stepping back in haste.
"I like 'em mean and I keep 'em mean," said the other. "A tame hoss is
like a tame man and I don't give a damn for a gent who won't fight."
Marianne covertly stamped. It was so easy to convert her worries into
anger at another that she was beginning to hate this brutal-minded Beau
Brummel of the ranges. Besides, she had had bitter experience with
these noisy, careless fellows when they worked on her ranch. Her
foreman was such a type grown to middle-age. Indeed her anger at the
whole species called "cowpuncher" now focused to a burning-point on
him of the gilded spurs.
The measuring was finished; he stepped back.
"Fifteen one and a quarter," he announced. "You win, Dad!"
Marianne wanted to cheer.

"You win, confound it! And where'll I get the mates of this pair? You
win and I'm the underdog."
"A poor loser, too," thought Marianne. She was beginning to round her
conception of the man; and everything she added to the picture made
her dislike him the more cordially.
He had dropped on one knee in the dust and was busily loosening the
spurs, paying no attention to the faint protests of the winner that he
"didn't have no use for the darned things no ways." And finally he
drowned the protests by breaking into song in a wide-ringing baritone
and tossing the spurs at the feet of the others. He rose--laughing--and
Marianne, with a mental wrest, rearranged one part of her
preconception, yet this carelessness was only another form of the curse
of the West and Westerners--extravagance.
He turned now to a tousle-headed three-year-old boy who was
wandering near, drawn by the brilliance of the stranger.
"Keep away from those heels, kiddie. Look out, now!"
The yellow-haired boy, however, dazed by this sudden centering of
attention on him, stared up at the speaker with his thumb in his mouth;
and with great, frightened eyes--he headed straight for the heels of the
grey!
"Take the hoss--" began the rider to the stable-boy. But the stable-boy's
sudden reaching for the reins made the grey toss its head and lurch back
towards the child. Marianne caught her breath as the stranger, with
mouth drawn to a thin, grim line, leaped for the youngster. The grey
lashed out with vicious haste, but that very haste spoiled his aim. His
heels whipped over the shoulder of his master as the latter scooped up
the child and sprang away. Marianne, grown sick, steadied herself
against the side of the window; she had seen the brightness of steel on
the driving hoofs.
A hasty group formed. The stable boy was guiltily leading the horse
through the door and around the gaudy rider came the old man, and a

woman who had run from a neighboring porch, and a long-moustached
giant. But all that Marianne distinctly saw was the white, set face of the
rescuer as he soothed the child in his arms; in a moment it had stopped
crying and the woman received it. It was the old man who uttered the
thought of Marianne.
"That was cool, young feller, and darned quick, and a nervy thing as I
ever seen."
"Tut!" said the other, but the girl thought that his smile was a little
forced. He must have heard those metal-armed hoofs as they whirred
past his head.
"There is distinctly something worth while about these Westerners,
after all,"