第58章

Come on out now.I want a look at the King."Bostil went into the village.All day long he was so busy with a thousand and one things referred to him, put on him, undertaken by him, that he had no time to think.Back in his mind, however, there was a burden of which he was vaguely conscious all the time.He worked late into the night and slept late the next morning.

Never in his life had Bostil been gloomy or retrospective on the day of a race.In the press of matters he had only a word for Lucy, but that earned a saucy, dauntless look.He was glad when he was able to join the procession of villagers, visitors, and Indians moving out toward the sage.

The racecourse lay at the foot of the slope, and now the gray and purple sage was dotted with more horses and Indians, more moving things and colors, than Bostil had ever seen there before.It was a spectacle that stirred him.Many fires sent up blue columns of smoke from before the hastily built brush huts where the Indians cooked and ate.Blankets shone bright in the sun; burros grazed and brayed; horses whistled piercingly across the slope; Indians lolled before the huts or talked in groups, sitting and lounging on their ponies;down in the valley, here and there, were Indians racing, and others were chasing the wiry mustangs.Beyond this gay and colorful spectacle stretched the valley, merging into the desert marked so strikingly and beautifully by the monuments.

Bostil was among the last to ride down to the high bench that overlooked the home end of the racecourse.He calculated that there were a thousand Indians and whites congregated at that point, which was the best vantage-ground to see the finish of a race.And the occasion of his arrival, for all the gaiety, was one of dignity and importance.If Bostil reveled in anything it was in an hour like this.His liberality made this event a great race-day.The thoroughbreds were all there, blanketed, in charge of watchful riders.In the center of the brow of this long bench lay a huge, flat rock which had been Bostil's seat in the watching of many a race.Here were assembled his neighbors and visitors actively interested in the races, and also the important Indians of both tribes, all waiting for him.

As Bostil dismounted, throwing the bridle to a rider, he saw a face that suddenly froze the thrilling delight of the moment.A tall, gaunt man with cavernous black eyes and huge, drooping black mustache fronted him and seemed waiting.Cordts! Bostil had forgotten.Instinctively Bostil stood on guard.

For years he had prepared himself for the moment when he would come face to face with this noted horse-thief.

"Bostil, how are you?" said Cordts.He appeared pleasant, and certainly grateful for being permitted to come there.From his left hand hung a belt containing two heavy guns.

"Hello, Cordts," replied Bostil, slowly unbending.Then he met the other's proffered hand.

"I've bet heavy on the King," said Cordts.

For the moment there could have been no other way to Bostil's good graces, and this remark made the gruff old rider's hard face relax.

"Wal, I was hopin' you'd back some other hoss, so I could take your money,"replied Bostil.

Cordts held out the belt and guns to Bostil."I want to enjoy this race," he said, with a smile that somehow hinted of the years he had packed those guns day and night.

"Cordts, I don't want to take your guns," replied Bostil, bluntly."I've taken your word an' that's enough.""Thanks, Bostil.All the same, as I'm your guest I won't pack them," returned Cordts, and he hung the belt on the horn of Bostil's saddle."Some of my men are with me.They were all right till they got outside of Brackton's whisky.

But now I won't answer for them."

"Wal, you're square to say thet," replied Bostil."An' I'll run this race an'

answer for everybody."

Bostil recognized Hutchinson and Dick Sears, but the others of Cordts's gang he did not know.They were a hard-looking lot.Hutchinson was a spare, stoop-shouldered, red-faced, squinty-eyed rider, branded all over with the marks of a bad man.And Dick Sears looked his notoriety.He was a little knot of muscle, short and bow-legged, rough in appearance as cactus.He wore a ragged slouch-hat pulled low down.His face and stubby beard were dust-colored, and his eyes seemed sullen, watchful.He made Bostil think of a dusty, scaly, hard, desert rattlesnake.Bostil eyed this right-hand man of Cordts's and certainly felt no fear of him, though Sears had the fame of swift and deadly skill with a gun.Bostil felt that he was neither afraid nor loath to face Sears in gun-play, and he gazed at the little horse-thief in a manner that no one could mistake.Sears was not drunk, neither was he wholly free from the unsteadiness caused by the bottle.Assuredly he had no fear of Bostil and eyed him insolently.Bostil turned away to the group of his riders and friends, and he asked for his daughter.

"Lucy's over there," said Farlane, pointing to a merry crowd.

Bostil waved a hand to her, and Lucy, evidently mistaking his action, came forward, leading one of her ponies.She wore a gray blouse with a red scarf, and a skirt over overalls and boots.She looked pale, but she was smiling, and there was a dark gleam of excitement in her blue eyes.She did not have on her sombrero.She wore her hair in a braid, and had a red band tight above her forehead.Bostil took her in all at a glance.She meant business and she looked dangerous.Bostil knew once she slipped out of that skirt she could ride with any rider there.He saw that she had become the center toward which all eyes shifted.It pleased him.She was his, like her mother, and as beautiful and thoroughbred as any rider could wish his daughter.

"Lucy, where's your hoss?" he asked, curiously.

"Never you mind, Dad.I'll be there at the finish," she replied.

"Red's your color for to-day, then?" he questioned, as he put a big hand on the bright-banded head.

She nodded archly.