[Trailin’! by Max Brand]@TWC D-Link bookTrailin’! CHAPTER II 8/12
Woodbury's chin snapped down against his breast as though he had been struck behind the head with a heavy bar, but though his brain was stunned, the fighting instinct remained strong in him and when the stallion reared and toppled back the rider slipped from the saddle in the nick of time. Fourteen hundred pounds of raging horseflesh crashed into the sawdust; he rolled like a cat to his feet, but at the same instant a flying weight leaped through the air and landed in the saddle.
The audience awoke to sound--to a dull roar of noise; a thin trickle of blood ran from Woodbury's mouth and it seemed that the mob knew it and was yelling for a death. There followed a bewildering exhibition of such bucking that the disgruntled cowboys forgot their shame and shouted with joy.
Upon his hind legs and then down on his forefeet with a sickening heartbreaking jar the stallion rocked; now he bucked from side to side; now rose and whirled about like a dancer; now toppled to the ground and twisted again to his feet. Still the rider clung.
His head rocked with the ceaseless jars; the red-stained lips writhed back and showed the locked teeth.
Yet, as if he scorned the struggles of the stallion, he brought into play the heavy quirt which had been handed him as he mounted.
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