LITMIR.BIZ

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into the house liked loved relatives she had not seen for years. Her happiness was infectious. Even Dugdale’s heartache was banished for the time being.

      Chapter Ten

      Sonny’s Hundredth Case

      George Watts, returning in time to join them in an early afternoon cup of tea, went off on a tour of the back paddocks with the squatter and Dugdale, leaving Ralph the pleasant task of talking to the two women. He did this till the conversation veered to babies and dress fashions, when, these subjects not being in his line, he drifted across the stockyards, in which he had seen a bunch of horses.

      At that time there was engaged at Thurlow Lake a horse-breaker. The popular conception of breaking-in horses appears to be to rope the animal in cowboy style, fling a saddle across its back, mount and ride till either bucked off or crowned with the laurels of victory. As a matter of cold fact, such procedure would not merely break-in a horse, but break it up, too, into a dispirited, abject, miserable animal.

      Some of the best horse-breakers in Australia are the worst horse-riders. Such a one was Sonny. No one knew his surname; it is doubtful if he knew it himself. He was no rider, but he had no equal in handling a colt or a spirited filly, mouthing it, training it to lead, to stay rooted to the ground when the reins were dropped, and to step up immediately to a man, if that man wanted to ride it, when commanded by the lifting of an arm. Vicious horses, bucking horses, bolting horses, are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the result of bad breaking-in. But that afternoon Sonny was in despair with the hundredth case—the born vicious, unbreakable beast.

      “I can’t handle him and I can’t ride him,” Sonny wailed when Ralph had perched himself on the top-most rail of the round yard.

      The horse was a beautiful, jet-black, three-year-old gelding. Sonny had got the bridle on him with great difficulty, and had been fruitlessly trying to give him his first lesson. With forefeet planted like sticks in the ground, the gelding refused obstinately to move one inch. The short length of rope attached to the bit-rings was taut. The animal’s head was thrust out and down under the breaker’s pull, ears flattened, eyes sloe-coloured in a sea of chalk.

      Sonny relaxed the strain on the rope by edging towards the horse, which remained immobile. He gained its side and gave its rump a cut with the light switch. The gelding swung its hind-quarters round away from the breaker, its forefeet pivoting slightly, but still as straight as sticks. The relative positions of horse and man were precisely the same.

      “I wish I could ride, you black devil,” Sonny cried. “I’d break you or bust your big, damned heart.”

      “I can ride a bit, Sonny,” came Ralph’s musical drawl. “Let me have a go, will you?”

      “Well, Mr Ralph, I’ve never let anyone ride my hosses till I say they’re broke-in,” replied the short, powerful-armed Sonny. “But this ’ere beast will never, never be any mortal use. Don’t you ride him, now. He’ll kill you.”

      “Not he. Take the bridle off him and hand it to me.”

      Ralph Thornton was not exactly a fool. He had learned to ride at a very early age, and had since never ridden an easy horse if a spirited animal was to be had. He was an excellent rider in that he possessed instinctive balance. There are many, many good riders, but few, very few, riders of good balance.

      Sonny knew this. And, though he thought he knew that the young man was an inexperienced buck-jump rider, he was aware that a super buck-jumping horse is so after successfully unseating many riders. Sonny reckoned that once Ralph was on its back the gelding would hardly know what to do. Even so he took no chances.

      His slim hands quickly undid the neck-strap, the stodgy yet infinitely gentle fingers deftly removed the bridle. Instantly, when free, the horse whipped round and lashed out with both hind hoofs; but Sonny was on the top rail alongside Ralph.

      “I didn’t oughter let yer, Mr Ralph,” he said, “and I’m going to only on the condition that you square off the boss if I’ve got to shoot that black swine.”

      “Why would you have to shoot him?”

      “Why! ’Cos when he throws you, if he does, he is going to kill you if I don’t drop him with a bullet,” Sonny replied shortly. “Don’t you tackle him, now, till I gits my gun.”

      Ralph waited confidently. He had no doubt of his ability to stick, once he had his legs across that gleaming black back. As for the horse, he knew that, should Sonny give it up, Mr Thornton would have it shot, for the squatter believed in having not one useless animal on his run.

      When Sonny returned he carried a .32 Winchester rifle and a saddle. The saddle he handed up to the young man. The rifle he examined before taking a clear view of all parts of the yard. Ralph, still on the twelve-foot fence, adjusted the stirrup leathers to his length.

      “Don’t you shoot, now, unless he gets me down,” he said to the breaker.

      “You leave the shooting to me,” replied Sonny gruffly. “I’m going to git the sack for letting you ride him. I’ll git hanged if I let him kill you.”

      Smiling, the young man dropped into the yard, swiftly leaning the saddle against the inside of the fence. The horse on the farther side watched him with flattened ears and wicked eyes. Without looking at what he was doing, Ralph adjusted the bridle over his left forearm, so that when the time came there would be no fumbling.

      Nothing escaped the blue eyes of Sonny, knowing and poignantly regretting his limitations as a rider.

      Ralph made no hurry. For fully a minute he stared into the eyes of the horse, who at first seemed inclined to rush him with white, rending teeth. But, whilst the seconds passed, Sonny saw first uneasiness, then the first hint of fear flicker in the white-rimmed, blazing orbs.

      It was then that slowly, arms and head motionless, eyes holding those of the horse in remorseless stare, Ralph walked across to it, till he stood directly in front of the shining satin muzzle.

      “My Gawd, ’e mesmerizes ’im like a black fellow,” Sonny grunted, the rifle held to his shoulder as though in a vice, his right eye glued to the foresight.

      Now Ralph was gently patting the sleek velvet neck; his left hand, on whose wrist hung the bridle, rose with the slow inexorability of fate to the animal’s nostrils, rose higher and higher up its face, between its amazed eyes, fondled its ears. The bit seemed to rise into the horse’s mouth without guidance. Five seconds later, the bridle was fixed behind the still flattened ears, and in three more the neck-strap was buckled. And the horse neither moved nor flinched.

      The horse had utterly refused to be led by Sonny. Holding the reins, Ralph slipped backward towards the saddle till brought up by the obstinate gelding. Once more he stared into the black eyes. It was not mesmerism, as Sonny thought, it was not overmastering will-power that compelled the horse to follow, step by reluctant step, the slowly-backing Ralph. In the young man’s fixed eyes the animal saw that which made it shiver, made the delicate nostrils expand to show the red, made its halting walk similar to the rigid action of a sleepwalker.

      Saddling was a prolonged operation, for Ralph could not then hold the animal with his eyes. But the impression of his stare remained sufficiently long to enable the saddle finally to be slid over the animal’s back, the girth tightened cruelly; the surcingle followed, then the crupper and the martingale. For the first time in its life the gelding found itself saddled. It was astounded, and, before the stunning surprise could give place to fiendish anger, Ralph vaulted lightly on its back.

      Sonny gasped. The horse became a statue. For a full minute it hardly breathed. It was galvanized into a living volcano by the sharp digging of Ralph’s heels.

      The gelding seemed to sink. Then it screamed with rage. Swiftly as light it whirled in a half-circle, its forefeet turning within an arc of not more than twenty inches. The perfectly balanced figure glued to its back had not moved the breadth of a hair out of the saddle.

      Then came a succession of routes round the circular yard. First away from the fence, then towards

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