“Never mind oratin’ no card of thanks.  Just you climb up into the middle of that bronc an’ we’ll be hittin’ the trail.  We got quite some ridin’ to do before we get to the bad lands—­an’ quite some after.”

Endicott reached for the bridle reins of his horse which was cropping grass a few feet distant.

“But Alice—­Miss Marcum!” With the reins in his hand he faced the Texan.  “I must let her know I am safe.  She will think I have been lynched and——­”

“She’s goin’ along,” interrupted the Texan, gruffly.

“Going along!”

“Yes, she was bound to see you through because what you done was on her account.  Bat an’ her’ll be waitin’ for us at Snake Creek crossin’.”

“Who is Bat?”

“He’s a breed.”

“A what?”

“Wait an’ see!” growled Tex.  “Come on; we can’t set here ’til you get educated.  You’d ought to went to school when you was young.”

Endicott reached for a stirrup and the horse leaped sidewise with a snort of fear.  Again and again the man tried to insert a foot into the broad wooden stirrup, but always the horse jerked away.  Round and round in a circle they went, while the Texan sat in his saddle and rolled a cigarette.

“Might try the other one,” he drawled, as he struck a match.  “Don’t you know no better than to try to climb onto a horse on the right-hand side?  You must of be’n brought up on G-Dots.”

“What’s a G-Dot?”

“There you go again.  Do I look like a school-marm?  A G-Dot is an Injun horse an’ you can get on ’em from both sides or endways.  Come on; Snake Creek crossin’ is a good fifteen miles from here, an’ we better pull out of this coulee while the moon holds.”

Endicott managed to mount, and gathering up the reins urged his horse forward.  But the animal refused to go and despite the man’s utmost efforts, backed farther and farther into the brush.

“Just shove on them bridle reins a little,” observed the Texan dryly.  “I think he’s swallerin’ the bit.  What you got him all yanked in for?  D’you think the head-stall won’t hold the bit in?  Or ain’t his mouth cut back far enough to suit you?  These horses is broke to be rode with a loose rein.  Give him his head an’ he’ll foller along.”

A half-mile farther up the coulee, the Texan headed up a ravine that led to the level of the bench, and urging his horse into a long swinging trot, started for the mountains.  Mile after mile they rode, the cowboy’s lips now and then drawing into their peculiar smile as, out of the corner of his eye he watched the vain efforts of his companion to maintain a firm seat in the saddle.  “He’s game, though,” he muttered, grudgingly.  “He rides like a busted wind-mill an’ it must be just tearin’ hell out of him but he never squawks.  An’ the way he took that hangin’——­ If he’d be’n raised right he’d sure made some tough hand.  An’ pilgrim or no pilgrim, the guts is there.”