Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

934 canon in a race with the herd for safety, the girl saw him gallop down the cafion directly into the face of the maddened flood. At first sight Nan thought Cal Triggers had resolved to ride directly into the face of sudden death. He drove his horse, she noted, toward the very center of the for- ward wave of the stampede, but when with- in ten yards of the leading steer he suddenly wheeled his horse and galloped off as if leading the rush. And now as he raced with the herd it was apparent to the girl that he was not giving his frantic horse the reins. He was holding back, and bit by bit the first huge steer—-a spotted longhorn—gained on him. As the great brute reached the flanks of the horse Cal again raced it, raking his mount from shoulder to rump. The long- horn, terrified at this horseman looming in the dust beside it, swerved, and Cal pressed his horse over swerving with him, eating off toward the right, oblivious of the big horn which ripped the underleathers of the saddle and gored the shoulders of the panic- stricken horse. Still the rider pressed his mount against the steer, and after a tearing race of a hundred yards, it began to dawn upon Nan Harvess just what Cal was doing. The steer, partly because of its size, part- ly because of its color—the spotted black and white—stood out from the brown ani- mals on all sides, and thus served as a leader. The stampede had—after the man- ner of most stampedes—taken a direct course, with every member of the herd fol- lowing the steer before it. When Cal changed the direction of this big leader, a dozen steers followed, and then a hundred, so that in the half minute it took to shove the leader over against the side of the cafion, a big gap had opened up in the breast of the stampede. Nan Harvess saw that almost miraculously the mass had split. There were now two distinct streams to the stampede. The split made by the tiny wedge up in the vanguard had extended farther and farther backward, gaping at every weak spot—first at a big rock, then at the wrecked ore-crusher, then at the little cabin itself where Nan a moment before had been awaiting the pile-up which would mash the walls about her head. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Having started this first “‘ warping ” or side movement to the herd mass, Cal turned back again to the center of the stampede. Lashing his horse madly and pressing it forward, he worked at cross-currents with the big flow. The herd, seeing this huge form coming against it, warped still wider, and the rift opened—enough to admit the horseman as far as the:first rock. This Cal took as only a temporary refuge, and in another moment Nan saw him striking out again in her direction, this time coming as near to her as the wrecked ore-crusher. The gap opened and Nan could see the form, now obscured in the dust, now distinct in a rift, galloping toward her. As he neared the hut she saw where one of his chaps had been torn completely from his leg, the leather sudadero had been ripped and the khaki of the trouser leg was blackened with blood. Before Nan had overcome her first sick- ening qualm at this sight she felt herself lifted bodily to the saddle of Cal’s mount. She threw her arms about the horseman, but Cal, knowing that the little pinto could not carry two riders through that mael- strom, freed himself from her embrace. ‘What are you going to do?” the girl screamed. ‘“ If you don’t come with me you will be killed!” She could not hear Cal’s answer because of the tumult. But she saw him take the reins of her mount, wheeling the horse about so that it faced the upper end of the cajion toward which the steers were racing. “Come with me!” Nan cried desperately. ‘“T am afraid! I cannot go back there alone!” Cal answered by taking the bite of the reins and whipping the pinto furiously. He knew that that horse needed no guiding hand from then on. A cow-horse in the middle of a stampede could be relied upon to search for safety. As it felt the sting of the reins it leaped ahead, bearing the girl and leaving Cal behind, and with the wisdom of a pony bred from its breaking to “ think steer,” it sped away. The space between the two separated streams of the stampede widened, and for a moment the pinto raced with the big mass hurling along on either side of it. It passed comicloool C©