第4章

To complicate matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a great horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had been heard to say that some day he would force a race between the King and Blue Roan.And that threat had been taken in various ways.It alienated Bostil beyond all hope of reconciliation.It made Lucy Bostil laugh and look sweetly mysterious.

She had no enemies and she liked everybody.It was even gossiped by the women of Bostil's Ford that she had more than liking for the idle Joel.But the husbands of these gossips said Lucy was only tender-hearted.Among the riders, when they sat around their lonely camp-fires, or lounged at the corrals of the Ford, there was speculation in regard to this race hinted by Joel Creech.

There never had been a race between the King and Blue Roan, and there never would be, unless Joel were to ride off with Lucy.In that case there would be the grandest race ever run on the uplands, with the odds against Blue Roan only if he carried double.If Joel put Lucy up on the Roan and he rode Peg there would be another story.Lucy Bostil was a slip of a girl, born on a horse, as strong and supple as an Indian, and she could ride like a burr sticking in a horse's mane.With Blue Roan carrying her light weight she might run away from any one up on the King--which for Bostil would be a double tragedy, equally in the loss of his daughter and the beating of his best-beloved racer.But with Joel on Peg, such a race would end in heartbreak for all concerned, for the King would outrun Peg, and that would bring riders within gunshot.

It had always been a fascinating subject, this long-looked-for race.It grew more so when Joel's infatuation for Lucy became known.There were fewer riders who believed Lucy might elope with Joel than there were who believed Joel might steal his father's horses.But all the riders who loved horses and all the women who loved gossip were united in at least one thing, and that was that something like a race or a romance would soon disrupt the peaceful, sleepy tenor of Bostil's Ford.

In addition to Bostil's growing hatred for the Creeches, he had a great fear of Cordts, the horse-thief.A fear ever restless, ever watchful.Cordts hid back in the untrodden ways.He had secret friends among the riders of the ranges, faithful followers back in the canyon camps, gold for the digging, cattle by the thousand, and fast horses.He had always gotten what he wanted --except one thing.That was a certain horse.And the horse was Sage King.

Cordts was a bad man, a product of the early gold-fields of California and Idaho, an outcast from that evil wave of wanderers retreating back over the trails so madly traveled westward.He became a lord over the free ranges.But more than all else he was a rider.He knew a horse.He was as much horse as Bostil.Cordts rode into this wild free-range country, where he had been, heard to say that a horse-thief was meaner than a poisoned coyote.

Nevertheless, he became a horse-thief.The passion he had conceived for the Sage King was the passion of a man for an unattainable woman.Cordts swore that he would never rest, that he would not die, till he owned the King.So there was reason for Bostil's great fear.