She looked down on the arena, and her heart throbbed with the
pure joy of life. Already she loved her West and its picturesque,
chap-clad population. Their jingling spurs and their colored
kerchiefs knotted round sunburned necks, their frank,
whole-hearted abandon to the interest of the moment, led her to
regard these youths as schoolboys. Yet they were a hard-bitten
lot, as one could see, burned to a brick-red by the untempered
sun of the Rockies; with muscles knit like steel, and hearts
toughened to endure any blizzard they might meet. Only the
humorous wrinkles about the corners of their eyes gave them away
for the cheerful sons of mirth that they were.
"Bob Austin on Two-Step," announced the megaphone man, and a
little stir eddied through the group gathered at the lane between
the arena and the corral.
A meek-looking buckskin was driven into the arena. The embodiment
of listlessness, it apparently had not ambition enough to flick a
fly from its flank with its tail. Suddenly the bronco's ears
pricked, its sharp eyes dilated. A man was riding forward, the
loop of a lariat circling about his head. The rope fell true, but
the wily pony side-stepped, and the loop slithered to the ground.
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