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Just across from the farther end of the bar and near the last card table a half-dozen hard-looking, small-town "toughs" creatures who loafed about Sabota's and aided him, as occasion required, in his boot-legging operations or other questionable enterprises were lounging, some standing, some sitting, watching a slow poker game going on at the last table.
"Pretty dead-lookin'," the Ramblin' Kid remarked. "Let's go down to Sabota's." "All right," Skinny replied, and they moved down the street. The pool-room offered nothing of interest.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
As the Greek forced him back, bending him down and over, the Ramblin' Kid, his eyes burning like fire while a million flashes of light seemed to stab the darkness before them and needles darted through every fiber of his flesh, wrenched his right arm free and gripping the back of Sabota's shirt with his left hand to give purchase to the blow, with all the strength left in his body, drove the knuckles of his right fist into the left temple of the Greek.
The crowd in the pool-room instinctively kept far back and gave the unequal combatants ample room. From Sabota's lips poured a steady torrent of blasphemy. The Ramblin' Kid made no sound as, with body swaying slowly from side to side, his shoulders heaved with the full, heavy breaths that reached to the bottom of his lungs. Suddenly, like some wild beast, Sabota sprang forward.
The marshal had heard of Sabota's effort to have the young cowboy drugged the day of the race and also the immediate cause for the fight. "Oh, I don't know as I will," he said, "unless the Greek makes some charge or other. I don't imagine he'll do that" "I know blamed well he won't!" Old Heck interrupted. "But how about th' Ramblin' Kid putting his gun in your ribs resisting an officer and so on?"
Sabota did not die. After the escape of the Ramblin' Kid the marshal reentered the pool-room and had the big Greek removed to the hotel. A doctor was called and set as well as possible the broken jaws, the crushed nose, picked out the fragments of bone and the loosened teeth, sewed up the terrible gashes on Sabota's face and left the bully groaning and profaning in half-conscious agony.
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