Literally Rickety hurled himself at the sun and landed alternately on one stiffened foreleg and then the other.

At each shock the chin of Arizona Charley was flung down against his chest and at the same time his head snapped sideways with the uneven lurch of the horse.

An ordinary pony would have broken his leg at the first or second of these jumps; but Rickety was untiring.

He jarred to the earth; he vaulted up again as from springs--over and over the same thing.
It would eventually have become tiresome to watch had not both horse and rider soon showed effects of the work.

Every leap of Rickety's was shorter.