CHAPTER XII.
"What is the trouble ?" Derrick asked, in a perfectly calm, almost casual way.
The man who was holding the horse turned to him with a grin.
"We're going to show your man how to do the trick, mister," he said.
"He's a fool-man, to think he can come over here and teach us boys how to ride." Derrick had not been to a public school for nothing.

He caught the spirit of the thing in a moment, and with that readiness which makes the Britisher the master of circumstance wherever he goes, he nodded and smiled, and clapped the cowboy on the shoulder.
"Right you are! Go ahead," he said, cheerfully, and the cowboy, evidently surprised by Derrick's complaisance, stepped back.
The horse was set going, the cowboy walked slowly in the proper direction, the audience watching him in intense silence, then, with a run and a bound, he alighted on the horse's back, performing the trick to perfection.

The audience thundered its applause, and Derrick, to round off the thing properly, took the cowboy's rough hand, shook it, and whispered, "Bow, bow, and get back to your place at once.

Off with you!" Amidst cheers and laughter, the now shy and confused amateur obeyed, and Derrick, with his hands in his pockets, strolled across the ring, as if the whole incident had been planned.
A group of persons awaited him; men and women who had paled beneath their paint, for they had expected trouble.

But they were flushed now, and the women's eyes were sparkling with admiration.