" Cecil nodded casually, and
the impatient pupil went off in a series of bounds that struck the city
boy as alarming, although Mick did not appear to notice that his mount
was not walking demurely.
Several other men came to the stockyard, selected each a horse, and
saddled it, and disappeared in various directions. The old black horse,
Bob's mate, was taken by Joe Burton, who harnessed him into a dray that
stood near, loaded up a number of fence rails, and drove off over the
paddock, evidently to a job of repairing some boundary. Cecil watched
them crawl across the plain, until they were only a speck on the grass.
Then he turned his sullen eyes on Bobs, who, left alone, had come
nearer to the fence where he sat, and was sleepily flicking with his
tail at an intrusive fly, which insisted on walking round his hip.
Cecil stared at him for some minutes before his idea came to him.
Then he flushed a little, his hand clenching on the post beside him. At
first the idea was fascinating, but preposterous; he tried to put it
from him, but it came back persistently, and his mind held it with a
kind of half-fearful excitement. They had said he could not ride him--a
child's pony! Would he show them?
Once he entertained the idea at all he could not let it go. It would be
such an easy way of "coming out on top"--of showing them that in one
thing at least their opinion was worthless.
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