"_h.e.l.l_--_no--'Little--Little--Pink Garter!--that's--that's--_what y'

are! Little--Pink--Garter_--" he repeated irrationally. "_That's it--show 'em--d.a.m.n 'em--show 'em what--what runnin'--what real runnin'

is!_" fumbling caressingly at the mare's neck with hands numb and stiff and chuckling pitifully, insanely, while his face was drawn with agony nearly unendurable.

Then the Gold Dust maverick ran!

Never had ground flowed with such swiftness under the belly of a horse on a Texas track.

"Good G.o.d!" Skinny yelled, "looky yonder! He's pa.s.sin' them! Th'

Ramblin' Kid is pa.s.sin' 'em!"

No one answered him.

His voice was drowned in the mighty roar that surged from five thousand throats and rolled in waves of echoing and re-echoing sound across the field.

"He's ridin' round 'em!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid is goin' around them!"

"Great heavens! Look at that horse go!"

"She's a-flyin'! _She's a-flyin_'!"

The Gold Dust maverick closed the gap--she caught Dash-Away--she evened up with Prince John--she left the big sorrel behind--she pa.s.sed Say-So--nose to nose for a few rods she ran opposite the black wonder--the Thunderbolt horse from the Vermejo.

Flip Williams, spurs raking the flanks of Dorsey's stallion, looked around.

The Ramblin' Kid leaned toward him:

"h.e.l.l--why--don't you--_make that--thing run_!" he sneered at the Y-Bar rider.

The next instant the Gold Dust maverick's neck and shoulders showed in the lead of the Y-Bar stallion.

At the turn for the home stretch the outlaw filly shot ahead of the wonderful black horse from the Vermejo, swung close to the inside rail, and like a flash of gold-brown darted down the track toward the wire.

The grandstand was turned into a madhouse of seething humanity. The immense crowd came to its feet roaring and shrieking with frenzy. Men smashed their neighbors with clenched fists--not knowing or caring how hard or whom they struck--or that they themselves were being hit. Women screamed frantically, hysterically, tears streaming from thousands of eyes because of sheer joy at the wonderful thing the Gold Dust maverick was doing. Even the stolid Sing Pete was jumping up and down, shouting:

"_Come on--come on--Lamblin' Kid! Beat 'em--beatee h.e.l.l out of 'em_!"

Full three lengths in the lead of the "unbeatable" Thunderbolt the Gold Dust maverick flashed under the wire in front of the judges!

Dorsey, shaken in every nerve, lips blue as though he were stricken with a chill, reeled out of the box from which he had watched his whole fortune swept away by the speed of the Cimarron mare. At his side, profaning horrible, obscene oaths staggered Mike Sabota.

Old Heck, white-faced, but his lips drawn in a smile of satisfaction, stood up in the Clagstone "Six" and watched the Ramblin' Kid--his eyes set and staring, his body twitching convulsively, check the filly, swing her around, ride back to the judges' stand, weakly fling up a hand in salute and then, barely able to sit in the saddle, rein the Gold Dust maverick off the track and ride toward the box stall.

Skinny drew a hand across his eyes and looked at Carolyn June.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

CHAPTER XVII

OLD HECK GOES TO TOWN

It was Monday morning, clear and cloudless, with a whiff of a breeze kissing the poplars along the front-yard fence at the Quarter Circle KT.

On the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, Pedro was pushing the saddle cavallard toward Rock Creek, where the last half of the beef round-up was to begin. Parker and the cowboys were just splashing their bronchos into the water at the lower ford. Sing Pete, on the high seat of the grub-wagon, was once more clucking and cawing at Old Tom and Baldy as they drew the outfit along the lane and followed the others to the open range.

Old Heck, Skinny, Ophelia and Carolyn June again were alone at the Quarter Circle KT.

The Eagle b.u.t.te Rodeo had closed, with one last riotous carnival of wildness at midnight Sat.u.r.day night.

Once more the straggling town, its pulse gradually beating back to normal, lay half-asleep at the foot of the sun-baked b.u.t.te that stood silent and drowsy beyond the Sante Fe tracks.

Tom Poole, the lank marshal, loafed as usual about the Elite Amus.e.m.e.nt Parlor, over which hung a sullen quiet reflecting the morbid emotions of Mike Sabota, its brutish-built proprietor, resulting from his heavy losses on Thunderbolt in the two-mile sweepstakes when the Gold Dust maverick, ridden by the drug-crazed Ramblin' Kid, darted under the wire lengths ahead of the black Vermejo stallion.

Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room.

Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Bar cattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he had recklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle the Vermejo rancher owned.

Dorsey was game.

"You put it on me," he said to Old Heck "but the Ramblin' Kid won square and I'm not squealing!"

Old Heck turned the check slowly over in his hand and looked at it with a quizzical frown on his face:

"I reckon this is good?"

"It's my exact balance," Dorsey replied; "I saw to that this morning."

For a long minute Old Heck studied the bill of sale that made him owner of every cow-brute burnt with the Y-Bar brand.

"My men will gather the cattle within fifteen days," Dorsey said dully, noting the half-questioning look on Old Heck's face, "or you can send your own crew, just as you please. I suppose you'll meet me half-way and receive the stock in Eagle b.u.t.te?"

"Can Thunderbolt run?" Old Heck asked irrelevantly.

"Not as fast as that imp of h.e.l.l of the Ramblin' Kid's!" Dorsey answered instantly and with a short laugh.

Old Heck chuckled.

"You say you'll turn the Y-Bar cattle over to me within fifteen days?"

he asked again, reverting to a study of the paper he held in his hand.

"Yes," Dorsey replied; "is that satisfactory?"

"You're a pretty good sport, after all, Dorsey," Old Heck said quietly.

"I'll cash this check"--glancing at the yellow slip of paper--"and this thing, here--we'll just tear it up!" as he reduced the bill of sale to fragments. "Keep your cattle, Dorsey," he added, "ten thousand dollars is enough for you to pay for your lesson!"