They met, with fifteen feet between them as they flashed past. Jose
flung out his lifted hand. The loop hissed and shot straight for Jack's
head.
Jack flung out his little loop, struck the big one fairly, and threw it
aside. Even so, the end might have caught him, but for the lengthening
lunge which Surry made in mid-air. The loop flecked Surry's crinkled
tail and he fled on to the far end and stopped in two short,
stiff-legged jumps.
As Jack coiled his riata and slid off he heard the caballeros yelling
praise of Jose. But he did not mind that in the least. In that one throw
he had learned Jose's method; the big loop, the overhead swirl--direct,
bullet-swift, deadly in its aim. He knew now what Dade had wanted to
tell him--what it was vital that he should know. And--he hugged the
thought--Jose did not know his method; not yet.
A shot, and he was off again with his little loop. Jose, like a great,
black bird, flew towards him with the big loop. As they neared he saw
Jose's teeth show in the smile of hate. He waited, his little loop ready
for the fling should his chance come.
Jose was over-eager. The great, rawhide hoop whistled and shot down
aslant like the swoop of a nighthawk. Surry's eye was upon it
unwinkingly. He saw where the next leap would bring him within its
terrible grip, and he made that leap to one side instead, so that the
rawhide thudded into the dust alongside his nose.
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