第61章

Holley's answer was short and sharp.The King was out! Bostil raved.He could not see.He could not believe.After all the weeks of preparation, of excitement, of suspense-- only this! There was no race.The King was out! The thing did not seem possible.A thousand thoughts flitted through Bostil's mind.Rage, impotent rage, possessed him.He cursed Van, he swore he would kill that red stallion.And some one shook him hard.Some one's incisive words cut into his thick, throbbing ears: "Luck of the game! The King ain't beat!

He's only out!"

Then the rider's habit of mind asserted itself and Bostil began to recover.

For the King to fall was hard luck.But he had not lost the race! Anguish and pride battled for mastery over him.Even if the King were out it was a Bostil who would win the great race.

"He ain't beat!" muttered Bostil."It ain't fair! He's run off the track by a wild stallion!"His dimmed sight grew clear and sharp.And with a gasp he saw the moving, dark line take shape as horses.A bright horse was in the lead.Brighter and larger he grew.Swiftly and more swiftly he came on.The bright color changed to red.

Bostil heard Holley calling and Cordts calling--and other voices, but he did not distinguish what was said.The line of horses began to bob, to bunch.The race looked close, despite what Holley had said.The Indians were beginning to lean forward, here and there uttering a short, sharp yell.Everything within Bostil grew together in one great, throbbing, tingling mass.His rider's eye, keen once more, caught a gleam of gold above the red, and that gold was Lucy's hair.Bostil forgot the King.

Then Holley bawled into his ear, "They're half-way!"The race was beautiful.Bostil strained his eyes.He gloried in what he saw--Lucy low over the neck of that red stallion.He could see plainer now.

They were coming closer.How swiftly! What a splendid race! But it was too swift--it would not last.The Indians began to yell, drowning the hoarse shouts of the riders.Out of the tail of his eye Bostil saw Cordts and Sears and Hutchinson.They were acting like crazy men.Strange that horse-thieves should care! The million thrills within Bostil coalesced into one great shudder of rapture.He grew wet with sweat.His stentorian voice took up the call for Lucy to win.

"Three-quarters!" bowled Holley into Bostil's ear."An' Lucy's give thet wild hoss free rein! Look, Bostil! You never in your life seen a hoss ran like thet!"Bostil never had.His heart swelled.Something shook him.Was that his girl--that tight little gray burr half hidden in the huge stallion's flaming mane? The distance had been close between Lucy and the bunched riders.

But it lengthened.How it widened! That flame of a horse was running away from the others.And now they were close--coming into the home stretch.A deafening roar from the onlookers engulfed all other sounds.A straining, stamping, arm-flinging horde surrounded Bostil.

Bostil saw Lucy's golden hair whipping out from the flame-streaked mane.And then he could only see that red brute of a horse.Wildfire before the wind!

Bostil thought of the leaping prairie flame, storm-driven.

On came the red stallion--on--on! What a tremendous stride! What a marvelous recovery! What ease! What savage action!

He flashed past, low, pointed, long, going faster every magnificent stride--winner by a dozen lengths.