On the following morning Speed sought a secluded nook with Helen, but no sooner had he launched himself fairly upon the subject uppermost in his mind than he was disturbed by a delegation of cowboys, consisting of the original four who had waited upon him that first morning after his arrival. They came forward with grave and serious mein, requesting a moment's interview. It was plain there Was something of more than ordinary importance upon their minds from the manner in which Stover spoke, but when Helen quickly volunteered to withdraw, Speed checked her.
"Stay where you are; I have no secrets from you," said he. Then noting the troubled face of the foreman, quoted impatiently:
"'You may fire when ready, Gridley.'"
Still Bill shifted the lump in his cheek, and cleared his throat before beginning formally.
"Mr. Speed, while we honor you a heap for your accomplishments, and while we believe in you as a man and a champeen, we kind of feel that it might make you stretch your legs some if you knew just exactly what this foot-race means to the Flying Heart outfit."
"I assured you that the Centipede cook would be beaten," said the college man, stiffly.
"Isn't Mr. Speed's word sufficient?" inquired the girl.
Stover bowed. "It had sure ought to be, and we thank you for them new assurances. You see, our spiritual on-rest is due to the fact that Humpy Joe's get-away left us broke, and we banked on you to pull us even. That first experience strained our credulity to the bustin' point, and—well, in words of one syllable, we come from Joplin."
"Missouri," said Willie.
"My dear sirs, I can't prove that you are going to win your wagers until the day of the race. However, if you are broke to start with, I don't see how you can expect to lose a great deal."
"You ain't got the right angle on the affair," Stover explained. "Outside of the onbearable contumely of losin' twice to this Centipede outfit, which would be bad enough, we have drawn a month's wages in advance, and we have put it up. Moreover, I have bet my watch, which was presented to me by the officials of the Santa Fe for killin' a pair of road-agents when I was Depity Sheriff."
Miss Blake uttered a little scream, and Speed regarded the lanky speaker with new interest. "It's a Waltham movement, solid gold case, eighteen jewels, and engraved with my name."
"No wonder you prize it," said Wally.
"I bet my saddle," informed Carara, in his slow, soft dialect. "Stamp' leather wit' silver filagree. It is more dear to me than —well—I love it ver' much, Senor!"
"Seems like Willie has made the extreme sacrifice," Stover followed up. "While all our boys has gone the limit, Willie has topped 'em all: he's bet his gun."
"Indeed! Is it a good weapon?"
"It's been good to me," said the little man, dryly. "I took it off the quivering remains of a Sheriff in Dodge City, up to that time the best hip shot in Kansas."
Speed felt a cold chill steal up his spine, while Miss Blake went pale and laid a trembling hand upon his arm.
"You see it ain't intrinsic value so much as association and sentiment that leads to this interview," Stover continued. "It ain't no joke—we don't joke with the Centipede—and we've relied on you. The Mex here would do murder for that saddle," Carara nodded, and breathed something in his own tongue. "I have parted with my honor, and Willie is gamblin' just as high."
"But I notice Mr.—Willie still has his revolver."
"Sure I got it!" Willie laughed, abruptly. "And I don't give it up till we lose, neither. That's the understandin'." His voice was surprisingly harsh for one so high-pitched. He looked more like a professor than ever.
"Willie has reasons for his caution which we respect," explained the spokesman.
J. Wallingford Speed, face to face with these serious-minded gentlemen, began to reflect that this foot-race was not a thing to be taken too lightly.
"I can't understand," he declared, with a touch of irritation, "why you should risk such priceless things upon a friendly encounter."
"Friendly!" cried Willie and Stover in a tone that made their listeners gasp. "The Centipede and the Flying Heart is just as friendly as a pair of wild boars."
"You see, it's a good thing we wised you up," added the latter.
Carara muttered fiercely: "Senor, I works five year' for that saddle. I am a good gambler, si, si! but I keel somebody biffore I lose it to the Centipede."
"And is that Echo Phonograph worth all this?" inquired Helen.
"We won that phonograph at risk of life and limb," said Willie, doggedly, "from the Centipede-"
"—and twenty other outfits, Senor."
"It's a trophy," declared the foreman, "and so long as it ain't where it belongs, the Flying Heart is in disgrace."
"Even the 'Leven X treats us scornful!" cried the smallest of the trio angrily. "We're a joke to the whole State."
"I know just how these gentlemen must feel," declared Miss Blake, tactfully, at which Stover bowed with grateful awkwardness.
"And it's really a wonderful instrument," said he. "I don't reckon there's another one like it in the world, leastways in these parts. You'd ought to hear it—clear as a bell—"
"And sweet," said Willie. "God! It's sure sweet!"
"Why, we was a passel of savages on this ranch till we got it—no sentiment, no music, no nothin' in our souls—except profanity and thirst. Then everything changed." Stover nodded gravely. "We got gentle. That music mellered us up. We got so we was as full of brotherly love as a basket of kittens. Some of the boys commenced writin' home; Cloudy begin to pay his poker debts. You'd scarcely hear enough profanity to make things bearable. I tell you it was refined. It got so that when a man came steamin' in after a week's high life and low company in town, his wages gone, and his stummick burnin' like he'd swallered all his cigar- butts, it didn't make no difference if he found a herd of purple crocodiles in his blankets, or the bunk-house walls a-crawlin' with Gila monsters. Little things like that wouldn't phaze him! He'd switch on the Echo Phonograph and doze off like a babe in arms, for the tender notes of Madam-o-sella Melby in The Holy City would soothe and comfort him like the caressin' hand of a young female woman."
"I begin to feel your loss," said Speed, gravely. "Gentlemen, I can only assure you I shall do my best."
"Then you won't take no chances?" inquired Willie, mildly.
"You may rely upon me to take care of myself."
"Thank you!" The delegation moved away.
"What d'you think of him?" inquired Stover of the little man in glasses, when they were out of hearing.
"I think he's all right," Willie hesitated, "only kind of crazy, like all Eastern boys. It don't seem credible that no sane man would dast to bluff after what we've said. He'd be flyin' in the face of Providence."
But this comforting conclusion wavered again, when Berkeley
Fresno, who had awaited their report, scoffed openly.
"He can't run! If he could run he'd be running. I tell you, he can't run as fast as a sheep can walk."
"Senor, you see those beautiful medal he have?" expostulated
Carara.
"Sure," agreed Willie. "His brisket was covered with 'em. He had one that hung down like a dewlap."
"Phony!"
"I've killed men for less," muttered the stoop-shouldered man.
"Did you see his legs?" Fresno was bent upon convincing his hearers.
"Couldn't help but see 'em in that runnin'-suit."
"Nice and soft and white, weren't they?"
"They didn't look like dark meat," Stover agreed, reluctantly.
"But you can't go nothin' on the looks of a feller's legs."
"Well, then, take his wind. A runner always has good lungs, but I'll bet if you snapped him on the chest with a rubber band he'd cough himself to death."
"Mebbe he ain't in good shape yet."
Fresno sneered. "No, and he'll never get into good condition with those girls hanging around him all the time. Don't you know that the worst thing in the world for an athlete is to
talk to a woman?"
"That's the worst thing in the world for anybody," said Willie, with cynicism. "But how can we stop it?"
"Make him eat as well as sleep in his training-quarters; don't let him spend any time whatever in female company. Keep your eyes on him night and day."
Willie spoke his mind deliberately. "I'm in favor of that. If this is another Humpy Joe affair I'm a-goin' to put one more notch in my gun-handle, and it looks like a cub bear had chawed it already."
"There ain't but one thing to do," Stover announced, firmly.
"We've got to put it up to Mr. Glass and learn the truth."
"You'll find him in the bunk-house," directed Fresno. "I think
I'll trail along and hear what he has to say."
CHAPTER IX
Glass had gone to the cowboys' sleeping-quarters in search of his employer, and was upon the point of leaving when the delegation filed in. He regarded them with careless contempt, and removed his clay pipe to exclaim, cheerfully:
"B—zoo gents! Where's my protege?"
"I don't know. Where did you have it last?"
"I mean Speed, my trainin' partner. That's a French word."
"Oh! We just left him."
"Think I'll hunt him up."
"Wait a minute." Willie came forward. "Let's talk."
"All right. We'll visit. Let her go, professor."
"You've been handlin' him for quite a spell, haven't you?"
"Sure! It's my trainin' that put him where he is. Ask him if it ain't."
"Then he's a good athlete, is he?"
"Is he good? Huh!" Glass grunted, expressively.
"How fast can he do a hundred yards?"
Larry yawned as if this conversation bored him.
"Oh—about—eight—seconds."
At this amazing declaration Willie paused, as if to thoroughly digest it.
"Eight seconds!" repeated the little man at length.
"Sure! Depends on how he feels, of course."
Berkeley Fresno, in the corner, snickered audibly, at which the trainer scowled at him.
"Think he can't do it, eh? Well, he's there four ways from the ace."
Seeing no evidence that his statement failed to carry conviction in other quarters at least, Glass went further. It was so easy to string these simple-minded people that he could not resist the temptation. "Didn't you never hear about the killin' he made at Saratoga?" he queried.
Willie started, and his hand crept slowly backward along his belt. "Killin'! Is that his game?"
"Now, get me right," explained the former speaker. "He breaks trainin', and goes up to Saratoga for a little rest. While he's there he wins eight thousand dollars playin' diabolo."
"Playin' what?" queried Stover.
"Diabolo! He backs himself, of course."
Glass took an imaginary spool from his pocket, spun it by means of an imaginary string, then sent it aloft and pretended to catch it dexterously. The cowboys watched him with grave, uncomprehending eyes.
"He starts with a case five and runs it up to eight thousand dollars, that's all."
Stover uttered an exclamation of astonishment, whereupon the New-
Yorker grew even bolder.
"The next week he hops over to Bar Harbor and wins the Furturity Ping-pong stakes from scratch. That's worth twenty thousand if it's worth a lead nickel. Oh, I guess he's there, all right!" He searched out a match and relighted his pipe.
"I suppose he's a great croquet-player too," observed Fresno, whose face was purple.
"Sure!" Glass winked at him, glad to see that the Californian enjoyed this kind of sport.
"We don't care nothin' about his skill at sleight-of-hand tricks," said the man in spectacles, seriously. "And we wouldn't hold his croquet habits agin him. Some men drink, some gamble, some do worse; every man has his weakness, and croquet may be his. What we want to know is this: can he win our phonograph?"
"Surest thing you know!"
"Then you vouch for him, do you?" Willie's eyes were bent upon the fat man with a look of searching gravity that warned Glass not to temporize.
"With my life!" exclaimed the trainer.
"You're on!" said the cowboy, with unexpected grimness.
"What d'you mean?"
But before the other could explain, Berkeley Fresno, who had sunk weakly into a chair at Larry's extravagant praise of his rival, afforded a diversion. The tenor had leaned back, convulsed with enjoyment when, losing his balance, he came to the floor with a crash. The sudden sound brought a terrifying result, for with a startled cry the undersized cow-man leaped as if touched by a living flame. Like a flash of light he whirled and poised on his toes, his long, evil-looking revolver drawn and cocked, his tense face vulturelike and fierce. His eyes glared through his spectacles, his livid features worked as if at the sound of his own death-call. His whole frame was tense; a galvanic current had transformed him. His weapon darted toward the spot whence the noise had come, and he would have fired blindly had not Stover yelled:
"Don't shoot!"
Willie paused, and the breath crept audibly into his lungs.
"Who done that?" he asked, harshly.
Still Bill brought his lanky frame up above the level of the table.
"God 'lmighty! don't be so sudden, Willie!" he cried. "It was a accident."
But the gun man seemed unconvinced. With cat-like tread he stole cautiously to the door, and stared out into the sunlight; then, seeing nobody in sight, he replaced his weapon in its resting- place and sighed with relief.
"I thought it was the marshal from Waco," he said. "He'll never git me alive."
Stover addressed himself to Fresno, who had gone pale, and was still prostrate where he had fallen.
"Get up, Mr. Berkeley, but don't make no more moves like that behind a man's back. He most got you."
Fresno arose in a daze and mopped his brow, murmuring, weakly,
"I-I didn't mean to."
Carara and Mr. Cloudy came out from cover whither they had fled at Willie's first movement. "I dreamed about that feller agin last night," apologized the little man. "I'm sort of nervous, and any sudden noise sets me off."
As for Glass, that corpulent individual had disappeared as if into thin air; only a stir in one of the bunks betrayed his hiding-place. At the first sight of Willie's revolver he had dived for a refuge and was now flattened against the wall, a pillow pressed over his head to deaden the expected report.
"Hey!" called the foreman, but Glass did not hear him.
"Seems to be gun-shy," observed Willie, gently.
Stover crossed to the bunk and laid a hand upon the occupant, at which a convulsion ran through the trainer's soft body, and it became as rigid as if locked in death. "Come out, Mr. Glass, it's all over."
Larry muttered in a stifled voice, "Go 'way!"
"It was a mistake."
He opened his tight-shut lids, rolled over, and thrust forth a round, pallid face. He saw Stover laughing, and beheld the white teeth of Carara, the Mexican, who said:
"Perhaps the Senor is sleepy!"
Finding himself the object of what seemed to him a particularly senseless joke, the New-Yorker crept forth, his face suffused with anger. Strangely enough, he still retained the pipe in his fingers.
"Say, are youse guys tryin' to kid me?" he demanded, roughly. Now that no firearm was in sight, he was master of himself again; and seeing the cause of his undignified alarm leaning against the table, he stepped toward him threateningly. "If you try that again, young feller, I'll chip you on the jaw, and give you a long, dreamy nap." He thrust a short, square fist under Willie's nose.
That scholarly gentleman straightened up, and edged his way to one side, Glass following aggressively.
"You're a husky, ain't you?" said the little man, squinting up at the red face above him. "Am I?" Glass snorted. "Take a good look!" With deliberate menace he bumped violently into the other. It was with difficulty he could restrain himself from crushing him.
Stover gasped and retreated, while Carara crossed himself, then sidled back of a bunk. Mr. Cloudy stepped silently out through the open door and held his thumbs.
"You start to kid me and I'll wallop you—"
"One moment!" Willie was transfigured suddenly. An instant since he had been a stoop-shouldered, short-sighted, insignificant person, more gentle mannered than a child, but in a flash he became a palpitating fury: an evil atom surcharged with such terrific venom that his antagonist drew back involuntarily. "Don't you make no threat'nin' moves in my direction, or you'll go East in an ice-bath!" He was panting as if the effort to hold himself in leash was almost more than he could stand.
"G'wan!" said Glass, thickly.
"You're deluded with the idea that the Constitution made all men equal, but it didn't; it was Mr. Colt." With a movement quicker than light the speaker drew his gun for the second time, and buried half the barrel in the New-Yorker's ribs.
"Look out!" Glass barked the words, and undertook to deflect the weapon with his hand.
"Let it alone or it'll go off!"
Glass dropped his hand as if it had been burned, and stared down his bulging front with horrified, fascinated eyes.
"Now, listen. We've stood for you as long as we can. You've made your talk and got away with it, but from now on you're working for us. We've framed a foot-race, and put up our panga because you said you had a champeen. Now, we ain't sayin' you lied—'cause if we thought you had, I'd gut-shoot you here, now." Willie paused, while Glass licked his lips and undertook to frame a reply. The black muzzle of the weapon hovering near his heart, however, stupefied him. Mechanically he thrust the stem of his pipe between his lips while Willie continued to glare at him balefully. "You're boss is a guest, but you ain't. We can talk plain to you."
"Y—yes, of course."
"You said just now you'd answer for him with your life. Well, we aim to make you! We ain't a-goin' to lose this foot-race under no circumstances whatever, so we give you complete authority over the body, health, and speed of Mr. Speed. It's up to you to make him beat that cook."
"S-s-suppose he gets sick or sprains his ankle?" Glass undertook to move his body from in front of the weapon, but it followed him as if magnetized.
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