She turned again toward the Quarter Circle KT group and a shamed silence settled over the swell "out-of-town" car.
Old Heck chuckled with delight at Carolyn June's show of temper.
A whirlwind program of racing, roping, bull-dogging—this event is that in which a rider springs from a running horse, grasps by the horns a wild steer running at his side, twists the animal's head up and backward and so throws it down and then holds the creature on the ground—rough-riding and other Rodeo sports followed immediately after the parade.
Pedro and Charley Saunders were the only Quarter Circle KT cowboys participating in the events of the first day of the Rodeo. The Mexican did a fancy roping stunt in front of the grandstand and finished his exhibition directly before the Clagstone "Six" in which Carolyn June, Ophelia, Old Heck and Skinny were sitting. At the conclusion of his performance Pedro bowed to the little audience in the car and swept his sombrero before him with all the courtly grace of a great matador. Carolyn June generously applauded the dark-skinned rider from the Cimarron and waved a daintily gloved hand in acknowledgment of his skill with the rope. Skinny gritted his teeth while a pang of jealousy shot through his heart.
Charley took part in the bull-dogging event. He drew a black steer, rangey built, heavy and wicked. When he lunged from his horse on to the horns of the brute it dragged him for a hundred feet before he could check its mad flight. At last he slowly forced its nose in the air and with a quick wrench of the head to one side threw its feet from under it. Man and beast went down in a heap—the neck of the steer across the cowboy's body. A groan went up from the crowd in the grandstand and Carolyn June's cheeks paled with horror—it looked as if one horn of the creature had pierced Charley's breast. But it had missed by the fraction of an inch. Straightening himself up to a sitting posture the cowboy bent forward and sunk his teeth in the upper lip of the prostrate animal and threw up both hands as a signal to the judges that the brute was "bulldogged." But the fight had been too hard for him to win first place. Buck Wade, a lanky cow-puncher from Montana, in three seconds less time, had thrown a brindle Anchor-O steer and taken first money.
* * * * *
Before the sun dipped into the Costejo peaks the Ramblin' Kid left the Rodeo and returned alone to the Quarter Circle KT. He told Parker and the cowboys, all of whom intended to remain in Eagle Butte every night during the Rodeo, that he would be back in town the next afternoon and bring with him the Gold Dust maverick. Word had been passed among the Quarter Circle KT crowd to keep Dorsey and his bunch in the dark as long as possible regarding the fact that the filly, Ophelia, was the famous outlaw mare of the lower Cimarron.
After supper Parker, Chuck, Bert and Charley drifted into the Elite Amusement Parlor. The place was crowded. Mike Sabota immediately singled out the Quarter Circle KT group and began jollying them about the coming two-mile sweepstakes. Dorsey and Flip Williams had been in the pool-room earlier in the evening and told him of the Ramblin' Kid's entry of the filly against the Thunderbolt horse.
Within ten minutes Bert and Charley had placed two hundred and fifty dollars each against five hundred of Sabota's money that the Vermejo stallion would not finish in first place in the big race.
Old Judge Ivory, who happened to be present, was agreed upon as stake-holder.
"That Thunderbolt horse, he is the devil," Sabota laughed evilly as the money was handed over to the gray-haired judge. "And Satan, he takes care of his own!"
"Well!" Parker drawled, "if you feel inclined to send any more money to hell I might help you—" pulling a wad of bills from his pocket and throwing the certificates on the soft-drink bar at which they were standing.
Sabota's eyes gleamed greedily.
"I think there's two thousand in this roll," Parker continued, "and I'm willing to bet it all that the Ramblin' Kid's filly not only goes under the wire first in the two-mile run, but that she'll be kicking dirt in old Thunderbolt's face—if he ain't too damned far behind—when she does it!"
The Greek covered the wager eagerly.
As Judge Ivory pocketed the money Dorsey and Flip Williams stepped into the pool-room. Sabota glanced up.
"These Quarter Circle KT hombres are getting bad," he laughed sneeringly to Dorsey; "they think th' Ramblin' Kid's got a colt that can beat Thunderbolt!"
"The Ramblin' Kid must have a hell of a fast horse!" Dorsey snarled contemptuously, "a hell of a fast horse!" he repeated, "when the Ramblin' Kid himself declines to risk a dollar of his own money on the running qualities of the critter!" referring to the conversation a few hours before in the entry judges' office.
As he finished speaking he turned and looked squarely into the cold gray eyes of Old Heck who, with Skinny, had entered the Amusement Parlor while Dorsey was talking and heard the Vermejo cattleman's sneering insinuation.
CHAPTER XV
MOCHA AND JAVA
Old Heck and Skinny had left Ophelia and Carolyn June at the Occidental Hotel, where a room was reserved by Old Heck for the use of the two women during the Rodeo. They had then gone direct to Mike Sabota's place for the express purpose of running into Dorsey and his crowd. Old Heck knew that if any large bets were to be laid on the two-mile sweepstakes the only chance would be to place them before the Ramblin' Kid brought the Gold Dust maverick to Eagle Butte and the Vermejo bunch discovered the identity of the horse Thunderbolt was up against.
The Quarter Circle KT cow-men stepped into the pool-room at exactly the instant most favorable for their purpose.
Dorsey had made his boast in the presence of a crowd.
He would hardly dare back up without covering, at least to some worth-while extent, his words with his money.
For a full minute Old Heck drilled Dorsey with a look such, as a hound dog might have in his eyes after he has cornered a coyote and pauses before he springs.
Instinctively the crowd stepped back from the two cattlemen while a death-like hush fell over the place.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid don't need to back the filly with his money, Dorsey," Old Heck said slowly and in a voice audible in every part of the room; "I'm here to back her with mine! You've done a lot of talking—now, damn you, cover your chatter with coin or shut up!" the end of the sentence coming like the crack of a whip.
With a nervous laugh the Vermejo cattleman jerked a wallet from his pocket.
"Here's a thousand that says Thunderbolt does the same thing to the
Ramblin' Kid's filly that he done to Quicksilver!" Dorsey snapped.
Old Heck threw back his head and laughed scornfully.
"A thousand? I thought you were a sport, Dorsey!" he sneered. "Match this," he continued, reaching for his check-book and fountain pen and quickly filling out a check payable to "Cash" for ten thousand dollars, which he laid on the hardwood bar. "Match that, or admit you're a cheap, loud-howlin' bluffer!"
Dorsey paused just an instant as he noted the amount of the check.
"I'll match it!" he exclaimed, flushing angrily, drawing his own check-book from his pocket, and then, carried away by his passion added, throwing down the bars completely as Old Heck had hoped he would, "and go with you to the end of the trail!"
"Good!" Old Heck laughed, "now you are talking like a sport! Let's see," he added calculatingly, "how many Y-Bar cattle do you figure you've got running on the Vermejo range—five thousand?"
"There's that many," Dorsey started to say.
"Call it fifty-five hundred!" Old Heck flung at him. "Steer for steer, cow for cow, hoof for hoof—I'll put Quarter Circle KT critters against every brute you own that th' Ramblin' Kid lands his horse tinder the wire ahead of Thunderbolt!"
Dorsey paled, then a purple-red of fury spread over his neck and face, and with an oath he cried:
"I'll call you!"
Bills of sale were drawn and turned over to Judge Ivory, to be delivered, after the race, to the winner.
"Now," Old Heck said with a hard laugh, "maybe you'd like to own the Quarter Circle KT ranch, Dorsey? It's worth twice as mu
ch as your Vermejo holdings but I'll just give you that percentage of odds and call it an even bet that your black stallion don't outrun the little animal th' Ramblin' Kid has entered in the sweepstakes!"
But Dorsey did not answer except with a muttered: "Hell, a man's crazy that—" He had gone his limit. He had suddenly come to his senses and grown suspicious.
Before Skinny and Old Heck left the pool-room the former managed to get a bet of five hundred dollars with Sabota.
The next afternoon the Ramblin' Kid rode into Eagle Butte on Captain Jack. By his side he led the Gold Dust maverick. The noise and confusion in the streets filled the mare with nervousness and she crowded closely against the little roan stallion. Before he got the outlaw filly to the stables a half dozen cowboys had recognized the Cimarron maverick. Within an hour Dorsey and Sabota knew the identity of the Ramblin' Kid's entry in the big race that was to be run Friday afternoon and which was the big and closing event of the Rodeo.
The Greek was furious.
Wednesday night he called "Gyp" Streetor, a carnival tout, who had one time been a jockey but was ruled off the track for crooked work and was now picking up "easies" at the Eagle Butte Rodeo, into a side room of the Amusement Parlor.
For half an hour the two talked earnestly and furtively.
"Nothin' doin'—absolutely nothin'!" the tout finally said in reply to some suggestion of Sabota's. "That Captain Jack horse would murder any man but th' Ramblin' Kid that tried to get in the stall—"
"Well, by hell!" the Greek exclaimed, clenching his hairy fists, while his mouth twitched with passion, "that filly's got to be kept out of the sweepstakes someway or other—"
"You can't get to her, I tell you," Gyp said sullenly, then with a look of cunning suddenly coming into his eyes: "They say she's a one-man brute like the stallion—nobody can ride her but th' Ramblin' Kid," significantly looking at Sabota. "If you could—but he don't drink!"
The Greek laughed.
"There are other ways!" he said. "He eats, don't he? Listen: To-morrow and Friday you take that 'sandwich and coffee' run at the stables—" referring to the concession to peddle lunch stuff among the horsemen who seldom left their charges, a concession which Sabota, with other privileges, had purchased the right to operate. "Th' Ramblin' Kid eats off the trays—it will be your business to see that he ain't feeling well when the sweepstakes is called! I'll get the 'pills' for you to-night—"
"No killin', Sabota!" Gyp warned.
"Just enough to put him out for an hour or two!" the Greek answered.
Wednesday night the Ramblin' Kid slept in the stall with the Gold Dust maverick and Captain Jack. Thursday he remained close to the horses. Thursday night he again slept on a pile of hay in one corner of the box-compartment. Under no circumstances would he leave the animals. Occasionally Parker or some of the Quarter Circle KT cowboys came down to the stables.
Each night Old Heck and Skinny, with Carolyn June and Ophelia, after the evening program was concluded, drove out to the ranch in the Clagstone "Six," returning early the following day.
Friday forenoon Old Heck drove the car down to the stall in which Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick were confined. The two horses were standing, side by side, with their heads out of the door, the upper half of which was swung back. The Ramblin' Kid leaned against the door at the side of the horses.
To Carolyn June he looked tired and worn.
"How's the filly?" Old Heck asked, as the outlaw mare sprang back away from the door when the car stopped.
"She's all right."
"Hadn't you ought to exercise her?" Skinny asked.
"She don't need it," the Ramblin' Kid replied with a note of weariness in his voice. "She'll get enough exercise this afternoon!"
"You're all right, yourself, are you?" Old Heck asked a bit anxiously.
"Of course I'm all right," was the rather impatient reply. "Don't be uneasy," he added with a laugh; "—th' filly'll be in th' race an' beat old Thunderbolt!"
"Good luck!" Carolyn June cried, as Old Heck turned the car about and started back toward the grandstand.
"Good luck!" the Ramblin' Kid muttered to himself, watching the car as it whirled away. "Ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" he repeated bitterly, then with a queer smile in which was a world of tenderness he pulled the pink satin elastic garter he had picked up at the circular corral, from his pocket and looked at it long and wistfully. "Good luck?" he exclaimed again questioningly. "Well, maybe that little jigger'll bring it!" and he slipped the band back in his pocket.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid acts like he's got the blues this morning," Skinny said as the Clagstone "Six" rolled away from the stables. "He looks to me like a feller that's in just the right humor to get on a whale of a drunk—"
"That's one thing about him you can depend on," Old Heck broke in, "—he never poisons himself with liquor. That's why when he says he'll do anything you can bet all you've got he'll do it!"
"Well, if he ever does break loose," Skinny retorted, "it'll be sudden and wild!"
"Probably," Old Heck replied as though there wasn't the slightest danger of such an eventuality.
That morning Gyp purposely avoided going as far, with his stock of provisions, as the stall in which were Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick. Nor did he come with his lunch tray and tin pot of coffee until nearly one o'clock.
The Ramblin' Kid had no breakfast. To secure it he would have been required to leave the horses. That he would not do. Of course he might have told Old Heck or Skinny to bring or send him something, but he did not feel inclined to mention, in the presence of Carolyn June and Ophelia, that he was hungry. Anyhow, well, they were having a good time and what was the use of bothering them?
When Gyp finally came with the lunch the Ramblin' Kid was outside the stall and had walked a little way up the stable street. Captain Jack and the filly were in a compartment at the end of the string of stalls. The one next to it, back toward the grandstand, was unoccupied, and adjoining that was a hay room. Gyp stopped opposite the open door of the compartment in which the bales of hay and straw were piled. He paused a moment and turned as if to go back.
"Hold on there!" the Ramblin' Kid called to him. "What you tryin' to do?
Starve me to death?"
"D' last thing I'd want to do, Bo!" Gyp laughed good-naturedly. "Did I miss you this mornin'? Here, come inside where I can set this bloomin' junk down on a bale of hay for a minute an' I'll fix you up!"
The Ramblin' Kid followed Gyp into the stall.
The tout stooped over, with his back to the other, and slipped a capsule containing a white powder into a coffee cup which he filled quickly with the black liquid from the tin pot he carried. He handed the cup to the Ramblin' Kid. The latter took it and sat down on a bale of hay lying opposite. The coffee was just hot enough to melt, instantly, the capsule and not too warm to drink at once. The Ramblin' Kid was thirsty as well as hungry. Lifting the cup to his lips, while Gyp, fumbling for a sandwich, watched him furtively, he drained it without stopping.
"That's—what was in that?'" he asked, eying the tout keenly. "It tastes like—!"
"Just good old Mocha an' Java!" Gyp interrupted lightly. "Maybe it's a little strong. Here, take another one!" reaching for the cup.
The Ramblin' Kid started to hand the cup to Gyp to be refilled—a queer numbness swept over him—the cup fell from his hand—he swayed—tensed his body in an effort to get up—mumbled thickly:
"What th'—what th'—?"
The tout backed away toward the door, crouching like a cat ready to spring, his beady eyes half-frightened, watching the poison deaden the faculties of the other. He leaped through the door, glanced up and down the stable street—deserted at that hour except for a few drowsy attendants lounging in front of their stalls—jerked the door shut, hooked the open padlock through the iron fastenings, snapped its jaws together and muttered, as he hurried away:
"I guess that guy won't ride the Gold Dust maverick in any two-mile sweepstake
s to-day!"
As the door slammed shut the Ramblin' Kid pitched forward, unconscious, on the bale of hay.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SWEEPSTAKES
The Clagstone "Six" was parked, Friday afternoon, in its usual place near the east end of the grandstand and close to the entrance to the track. Old Heck and Ophelia were alone in the car. Carolyn June and Skinny, on Pie Face and Red John, watched the afternoon program from the "inside field" across the race track. Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys were also mounted on their horses and in the field opposite the grandstand.
Never had there been such a jam at a Rodeo held in Eagle Butte.
The two-mile sweepstakes, itself the "cow-man's classic" and the great derby event of western Texas, always drew record crowds the day on which it was run.
This Friday the grandstand creaked under its load of humanity.
The racing feud between the Quarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar and the thousands of dollars Old Heck and Dorsey were known to have bet on their respective favorites acted as tinder on the flame of public interest in the big event.
Thunderbolt had a great reputation. Last year, and the year before, he had mastered the field of runners put against him.
The Gold Dust maverick—named in the race "Ophelia"—was a wonder horse in the minds of the people of western Texas who had heard of the beautiful, almost super-creature, that had tormented, with her speed and endurance, the riders of the Cimarron and now at last was caught, and to be ridden in the sweepstakes, by the Ramblin' Kid.
At two-forty a special exhibition of "Cossack Riding"—participated in by Lute Larsen, of Idaho; Jack Haines, from Texas, and Curly Piper, a Colorado cowboy, finished in front of the grandstand.
The Ramblin Kid Page 16
