In another moment all would be over.
At that instant, when the savage beast was not more than a yard's distance from its victim, it stopped suddenly, and threw back its head with a jerk.

A skilfully thrown noose had gripped it round the neck, and the end of that noose was in the hands of the stranger youth, who now emerged from among the reeds.

Hearing a sound like bull-baiting, he had hastened to the spot, and did not arrive a moment too soon.

Another second and his rival would have been trampled to death.
The bewildered beast, feeling the suffocating pressure of the lasso about its neck, turned towards its new opponent, but he also now turned his horse's head, and throwing the lasso-line across his shoulder, set off at the top of his speed across the plain.
That was something like a gallop! The heavy wild beast was constrained to run a race with the swiftest of steeds.

The cord was pressing tightly round its neck, and blindly, helter-skelter, it had to go in a perfectly straight direction till it dropped.
The youth galloped with it straight towards the racecourse, and then suddenly sprang to one side.