It is not galloping on the turf; it is being shaken and tossed in a saddle which the knees can never grip, on the back of something gone mad--for the maddest, wisest, carefullest thing on earth is a broncho, which itself was once a wild pony of the hills, and has been hunted down, thrown by the lasso, saddled, bridled and heart-broken all in an hour.

When the broncho which was once a wild pony sets out on the chase after its own, there is nothing like it in the world; and so Orlando found.
The veteran broncho-busters and ranchmen gave him no vociferous welcome as he appeared among them.

Had it not been for the reputation which he already gained for courage, such as he had shown in the recent affair when he had driven off the men who were robbing Joel Mazarine, and also for an idea, steadily spreading, that he was masquerading, and that behind all, was a curly-headed, intrepid, out-door "white man," he would not have had what he called a great day.
He could not throw the lasso as well as many another, but he could ride as well as any man that ever rode; and the broncho given him to ride that day was one sufficiently unreliable in character and sure-footed in travel to test him to the utmost.

He had endured the test; he had even got his little gray mare, lassoing her like a veteran.

He had helped to break her, and had sent her home from the improvised corral by one of his men.