"What is the trouble?" Derrick asked, in a perfectly calm, almost casual
way.
The man who was holding the horse turned to him with a grin.
"We're going to show your man how to do the trick, mister," he said.
"He's a fool-man, to think he can come over here and teach us boys how
to ride."
Derrick had not been to a public school for nothing. He caught the
spirit of the thing in a moment, and with that readiness which makes the
Britisher the master of circumstance wherever he goes, he nodded and
smiled, and clapped the cowboy on the shoulder.
"Right you are! Go ahead," he said, cheerfully, and the cowboy,
evidently surprised by Derrick's complaisance, stepped back.
The horse was set going, the cowboy walked slowly in the proper
direction, the audience watching him in intense silence, then, with a
run and a bound, he alighted on the horse's back, performing the trick
to perfection. The audience thundered its applause, and Derrick, to
round off the thing properly, took the cowboy's rough hand, shook it,
and whispered, "Bow, bow, and get back to your place at once. Off with you!"
Amidst cheers and laughter, the now shy and confused amateur obeyed, and
Derrick, with his hands in his pockets, strolled across the ring, as if
the whole incident had been planned.
A group of persons awaited him; men and women who had paled beneath
their paint, for they had expected trouble. But they were flushed now,
and the women's eyes were sparkling with admiration. Isabel, in all the
glory of her costume, was the first to greet him.
"It was splendid," she said, in her deep contralto, and, as if
involuntarily, she held out her hand. "You saved the show."
Derrick, with the wholesome red of modesty mantling in his cheeks,
gently pushed by them.
"Nonsense! There was no danger, not a bit. Keep it going; we're all
right."
And so it proved; for the audience, highly pleased with itself and the
member who had distinguished himself, received the rest of the bill with
marked satisfaction and pleasure.
"The guv'nor wants you, Mr. Green," said Sidcup, who had not joined in
the congratulations and admiration of the rest.
"All right," said Derrick. "Be with him in a moment."
He went in search of Jackman, and found him, with a bottle of whisky,
just outside the men's quarters. He looked up and snarled as Derrick
approached him. Derrick took the bottle from him, and then looked down
at him with an air of doubt and uncertainty.