But to no avail. Sue could neither manage him nor get out of the saddle to escape Blackwater. The maverick was fortunately charging the strange horse from the off side, and he was coming like a shot from a cannon. The cowpunchers at the pen were mounting their ponies and racing after the black steer, but they were too far away to stop him. In another moment he would head into the body of Sue's mount with an awful impact! CHAPTER XIV THE CONTRAST "Frances!" Pratt Sanderson fairly shrieked the ranch girl's name. He could do nothing to save Sue Latrop himself, nor could the other visitors from Amarillo. Silent Sam and his men were too far away. If with anybody, it lay with Frances Rugley to save the Boston girl. Frances already had her rope circling her head and Molly was coming on the jump! The wicked little black steer was almost upon the gangling Eastern horse ere Frances stretched forward and let the loop go. Then she pulled back on Molly's bridle reins. The cow-pony began to slide, haunches down and forelegs stiffened. The loop dropped over the head of the black steer. Had Blackwater been a heavier animal, he would have overborne Frances and her mount at the moment the rope became taut. For it was not a good job at all--that particular roping Frances was afterward ashamed of. To catch a big steer in full flight around the neck only is to court almost certain disaster; but Blackwater did not weigh more than nine hundred pounds. Nor was Molly directly behind him when Frances threw the lariat. The rope tautened from the side--and at the very instant the mad steer collided with Sue Latrop's mount. The wicked head of the steer banged against the horse's body, which gave forth a hollow sound; the horse himself squealed, stumbled, and went over with a crash. Fortunately Sue had known enough to loosen her foot from the stirrup. As Frances lay back in her own saddle, and she and Molly held the black steer on his knees, Pratt drove his mount past the stumbling horse, and seized the Boston girl as she fell. She cleared her rolling mount with Pratt's help. Otherwise she would have fallen under the heavy carcase of the horse and been seriously hurt. Blackwater had crashed to the ground so hard that he could not immediately recover his footing. He kicked with a hind foot, and Frances caught the foot expertly in a loop, and so got the better of him right then and there. She held the brute helpless until Sam and his assistants reached the spot. It was Pratt who had really done the spectacular thing. It looked as though Sue Latrop owed her salvation to the young man. "Hurrah for Pratt!" yelled one of the other young fellows from the city, and most of the guests--both male and female--took up the cry. Pratt had tumbled off his own grey pony with Sue in his arms. "You're re'lly a hero, Pratt! What a fine thing to do," the girl from Boston gasped. "Fancy my being under that poor horse."