Perhaps more than all this, the cowponies rode by compulsion, urged with sharp spurs, checked and guided by the jaw-breaking curb, whereas Satan frolicked along at his own will, or at least at the will of a master which was one with his.

No heavy bit worried his mouth, no pointed steel tormented his flanks.

He had only one handicap--the weight of his rider, and that weight was balanced and distributed with the care of a perfect horseman.
With all this in mind it was hardly wonderful that the stallion kept the posse easily in play.

His breathing was a trifle harder, now, and perhaps there was not quite the same light spring in his gallop, but Barry, looking back, could tell by the tossing heads of the horses which followed that they were being quickly run down to the last gasp.

Mile after mile there was not a pause in that murderous pace, and then, cutting the sky with a row of sharply pointed roofs, he saw a town straight ahead and groaned in understanding.
It was rather new country to Barry, but the posse must know it like a book.