This chap is no calf, and he's sore over his scrap.

He's on the prod right now." It all happened in a few seconds.
The cowboy's horse, understanding from long experience that this threatening mark for his master's riata was in no gentle frame of mind, fretted uneasily as though dreading his part in the task before them.
Patches saw the whirling rope leave Phil's hand, and saw it tighten, as the cowboy threw the weight of his horse against it; and then he caught a confused vision--a fallen, struggling horse with a man pinned to the ground beneath him, and a wickedly lowered head, with sharp horns and angry eyes, charging straight at them.
Patches did not think--there was no time to think.

With a yell of horror, he struck deep with both spurs, and his startled, pain-maddened horse leaped forward.

Again he spurred cruelly with all his strength, and the next bound of his frenzied mount carried him upon those deadly horns.

Patches remembered hearing a sickening rip, and a scream of fear and pain, as he felt the horse under him rise in the air.