ACROSS THE DESERT 91 



rode his white horse, Heart, while I rode 

 Shorty. Shorty had behaved very well since 

 his escapade on the mountainside above Grass- 

 hopper Valley, but his rest at Winslow had re- 

 vived his sportive tendencies and inclined him 

 to do unseemly things. Several times, on slight 

 provocation, he jumped and reared, and once 

 when I drew my pocket handkerchief from my 

 hip pocket he began to buck. 



Presently, however, he settled down to sober 

 plodding, a pretense of reformation that caught 

 me unawares. I had drawn him up to a walk, 

 while I lighted my pipe and then lifted my 

 foot from the stirrup to adjust the shoe lace. 

 That was all. What happened next came so 

 suddenly and unannounced that I never did 

 know how it came about. I only knew that I 

 was sitting in the sand, still smoking my pipe, 

 while Shorty circled around me, doing the 

 prettiest bucking act I have ever witnessed — 

 "hogging it," as the cowboys would express it. 

 I had experienced no shock, was uninjured, 

 and my only sensation was that of surprise and 

 an inclination to laugh at Shorty's maneuvers. 

 He bucked the rifle out of its boot and the 

 camera off the horn, and then, failing to dis- 

 lodge anything else, ran off to join some wild 

 horses a mile or so away. 



