Beadles Boys Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. | Page 8

the leader struck Billy a severe blow and when he departed
carried with him Sable Satan.
This almost broke the boy's heart; but he declared he would some day
regain his horse, and for weeks he tried to do so, but without success.
One night two horsemen came to the Cody farm and again asked for the
farmer, but were told by Mrs. Cody that he was away.
They would not take her word for it; but thoroughly searched the house,
after which they forced Billy's sisters to get them some supper.

While they were eating Billy and his father returned, and warned by
one of the girls, Mr. Cody went up-stairs to bed, for he was quite ill,
and suffering from the wound he had received.
But Billy went into the kitchen and saw there the very man who had
struck him the severe blow; and who had taken Sable Satan on his last
visit.
"Well, boy, that's a good horse I got from you," he said, with a rude
laugh.
"Yes, he's too good for such a wretch as you are," was the fearless
reply.
"No lip, boy, or I'll give you a licking you'll remember. By the way,
where's that old father of yours?" said the man.
Billy made no reply but walked out of the kitchen, to be soon after
followed by his sister Mary who said anxiously:
"Oh, Will, they say father must have come with you, and they intend to
search the house again."
"Then I'll go up and tell father," whispered Billy, and up-stairs he went.
He found his father asleep, and his mother was seated near him and told
Billy he had a high fever.
"Then don't wake him, and I'll not let them come up here," said Billy,
and he went out of the room and took his place at the stairs.
A moment after the two men, both with pistols in their hands, came out
of the kitchen and started to come up-stairs.
"Stop, Luke Craig, for you can't come up here," said the boy.
With a hoarse laugh the man sprung up the steps to fall back as a pistol
flashed in his face and roll back to the bottom, knocking his companion
down too.

But the latter quickly sprung to his feet and dashed out of the house to
where their horses were hitched.
His horse was a white one, and his comrade's was Sable Satan, and to
the latter he ran.
But up went the window and in a loud voice Billy cried:
"I've got my rifle on you, and I'll fire if you take my horse."
The man evidently believed that he would, from what he had seen, and
mounting his own horse dashed swiftly away in the darkness while
Billy returned to the one he had shot.
He found him badly wounded, but not fatally, and putting him in his
father's buggy drove him to the nearest doctor, at whose house he
remained for months before he was well again.
CHAPTER VII.
LOVE AND RIVALRY.
Finding that Billy was becoming far more accomplished as a rider and
shot, than in his books, Mrs. Cody determined to send him to a small
school that was only a few miles away.
Billy, though feeling himself quite a man, yielded to his mother's
wishes and attended the school, which was presided over by a
cross-grained Dominie that used the birch with right good earnest and
seeming delight.
Of course Billy's love of mischief got him many a whipping; but for
these he did not seem to care until there suddenly appeared in the
school another pupil in the shape of a young miss just entering her
teens.
The name of this young lady was Mollie Hyatt, and she was the
daughter of a well-to-do settler who had lately arrived, and was as

pretty as a picture.
Billy's handsome face and dark eyes won her young heart, and the
love-match was going smoothly along until a rival appeared in the field
in the shape of a youth two years the junior of young Cody, and larger
and stronger.
These virtues on the part of Master Steve Gobel, with his growing love
of Mollie, made him very assuming, and he forced his company upon
the little maid, and had things pretty much his own way, as all the boys
seemed afraid of him.
As for Billy he let him have his own way for awhile, and then
determined not to stand it any longer he sought Steve Gobel for a
settlement of the affair, the result of which was, the teacher hearing
them quarreling and coming out took the word of young Cody's rival
about it, and gave my hero a severe whipping before the whole school.
Since his meeting Mollie Hyatt, Billy