Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

IN THE EVENT like the writhing of a demon. Madly she bucked and leaped in twisting, frantic evo- lutions. And the slim figure balanced upon her, rode loosely in the saddle, sometimes thrown prone upon the animal's writhing back, sometimes standing in his stirrups; but always he was a part of the picture. Instead of being the horse’s victim he seemed some demon of another sort which had leaped in attack upon this fury from hell. Thunderbolt did not buck as lesser horses do. She bucked with maniacal intelligence; she twisted with artful malice. In the dark- ness the spectators saw her take strange and awful shapes as she reared and sparred with her forefeet, only to whip them down and arise again. She tottered there, menacing her rider with death beneath her crushing weight, but the crack of a pistol butt between her ears brought her down to thrash from side to side; and as she twisted Cosgrove was whipped cruelly about in the saddle. And again and again she cleared the ground to dash him down upon the saddle as she landed, legs wide. Then she rolled, grinding the saddle into the earth as she threw herself on her back. But Cosgrove slid from her, alighting up- right from a cloud of dust; and when she plunged to her feet he was upon her with a bound. The red mare screamed in a monstrous rage, and plunged for the sheer wall of the house. What Cosgrove did then they could not see. The twist of his legs had some- thing to do with it, and also the fact that his revolver butt was ever ready to his hand, as the other hand was strong upon the reins. But they saw the red mare plunge sky- ward as she reached the wall, and she whirled on her hind legs and came bound- ing on with a series of bucking plunges which should have been agony to the rider. But he maintained his seat and there came an instant when Thunderbolt’s head came up and twisted back toward him and horse and rider hovered in the air for a terrible fall. What Cosgrove did in that moment was oA OF DEATH. 865 not bronco busting; it was not rodeo riding. It was a compound of supreme horseman- ship and a master sense of balance. He bal- anced himself, and he balanced the maniac horse. He governed weight and movement and direction in that split second when tragedy impended, and in that split second Thunderbolt must have known she bore her master. She came down, and she bucked no more, Instead, she plunged forward and thun- dered away. With cries ranging from alarm to horror, all who had witnessed the battle trailed after her. For they knew that in her path lay the steep, unbroken drop to the road below. Hazel Farlev ran as she had not run since childhood. And she knew that she was run- ning, as the others ran with her, to look upon the final scene of tragedy. She reached the front of the house in time to see Cosgrove bring the mare up, dancing on the rim of the drop, fight her for a moment while she struggled for free- dom; and then, as men pressed around her, Hazel flung herself forward to grasp the bridle rein. As though made frantic by this last indignity, Thunderbolt flung up her head as the girl reached forward and arose with her deadly forehoofs in the air. And Cosgrove, to save the girl, swung the wicked animal about, facing the drop. The red mare with a snort, plunged for- ward and the horrified spectators saw man and horse disappear into the blackness. They rushed to the brink, and peered downward into the darkness. But the moon- light was hidden by the sheer side of the bank and they could at first see nothing, hear nothing. Then they discerned an oc- casional flash and flicker, the reflection of the diffused moonhght, as it caught the moving body of something which went dash- ing, hurtling down. The descent made lit- tle noise in the sandy side of the bank. There followed silence. It was protract- ed to the watchers who stood, spellbound, upon the rim. Then, like a voice from great depths, came a voice from the sunken road: ‘Which wav is Manford?” It was the voice of Cosgrove, and they Conn GIOok