They were the well-named tumble
weeds of the prairie; as distinctive as the resting flock of late
autumn, of approaching winter. One of these it was now that came
tumbling in lazily from the south and, barely missing the indifferent
birds themselves, dawdled languidly on toward the pony beyond. On it
came, would have passed to the right; but, under an impulse he in no way
understood, the broncho moved to intercept it. Fair in its path, the
little beast would still have shifted to give it right of way, for the
weed is very prickly; but again the authority he did not question held
him in his place, and the three, the man, the horse, and the plant, came
together. Then it was the _finale_ began, the real test, the matching of
human cunning and animal watchfulness.
Left alone there upon the prairie, the indifferent broncho resumed its
feeding. Away from it, foot by foot, so slowly that a careful observer
could barely have seen it stir, moved the great weed. No animal on the
face of earth save man himself would have been suspicious of that
natural blind; even he would have overlooked it had he not by chance
noted that while every other of its kind was moving with the wind, it
slowly but surely was advancing against it. The scene where the drama
was taking place was level as a floor, the grazed grass that covered it
scarcely higher than a man's hand; yet from in front not an inch of the
Indian's long body was visible, not a sound marked its advance.
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