Then commenced the most exciting struggle for mastery between brute and man that the boys had ever seen.

For a moment the broncho stood stock still, paralyzed with surprise and fright.  Then he gave a mighty leap into the air in a vain endeavor to unseat the rider.  This failing, he snapped viciously at the horseman’s leg, which was instantly thrown up out of reach.  Then the maddened brute rushed against the bars of the corral in an effort to crush the rider.  But again the uplifted leg foiled the maneuver, and the severe scraping that the horse himself received took away from him all desire of repeating that particular trick.

All this time the cowboy showed the most extreme nonchalance.  If anything, he seemed rather bored.  And yet, despite his apparent stolidity, the boys noticed that he watched his mount like a hawk and always discounted each trick a second in advance.  It was a fight between brute strength and human intelligence and the struggle was unequal.  Barring accidents the latter was bound to win.

Like a flash the horse changed his tactics and went to the ground, intending to roll over and crush his rider.  The movement was almost too quick to be followed by the eye.  But the man was off at a bound and, when the astonished broncho struggled to his feet, his tormentor had again sprung on his back and was lashing him with the end of the rope that served as a halter.

Then the pony tried his last resource.  Springing into the air he came down with all four feet held closely together.  It would have jarred a novice out of his seat at once.  But the superb horsemanship of the man on his back absorbed the shock with his tightly gripped legs as he descended, and he settled into his seat with the lightness of a feather.

For half an hour the battle was prolonged, and, to the breathlessly watching boys, it seemed that the daring rider escaped death a dozen times almost by a miracle.  All that they had ever seen in Wild West shows seemed pale and weak by comparison with this fight out in the open, where nothing was prearranged and where both parties to the combat were in deadly earnest.  It was life “in the raw” and it stirred them to the depths.

And now the horse was “all in.”  His flanks heaved with his tremendous exertions, and he was dripping with sweat and foam.  He had made a gallant fight, but the odds were against him.  His ears were no longer flattened viciously against his head, but drooped forward piteously, and into his eyes came the look that spelled surrender.  He had learned the hard and pathetic lesson of the brute creation, that man was the master.  This strange being, who so easily defied his strength and thwarted his cunning, was stronger than he, and at last he knew it.

The rider, now that he had won, could afford to be kind.  He patted his mount’s head and spoke to him soothingly.  Then he drove him without demur a few times more about the corral and dismounted.  A stable attendant led the conquered brute to a stall, and the victor, breathing a little hard, but bearing no other traces of the struggle, repaired to the fence, squatted on the top rail and lighted a cigarette.