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"Howdy, Slone," drawled Cordts, with hand outstretched. "I sure am glad to meet yuh. I'd like to trade the Sage King for this red stallion!" A roar of laughter greeted this sally, all but Bostil and Slone joining in. The joke was on Bostil, and he showed it. Slone did not even smile. "Howdy, Cordts," he replied. "I'm glad to meet you so I'll know you when I see you again."
This pleased the Indians greatly, and they fell an easy victim to the duplicity of the soldiers and made a contract to sell their black stallion racing horse to them for the sum of $2,000, which sale was to be completed 60 days later if the soldiers still wanted the purchase of the horse, at which time they were to notify the Chief, and he was to bring or send him to Fort Riley.
He advanced toward Wildfire. The stallion snorted and plunged. If ever Bostil saw hate expressed by a horse he saw it then. But he seemed to be tractable to the control of the girl. Bostil swiftly grasped the strange situation. Lucy had won the love of the savage stallion. That always had been the secret of her power. And she had hated Sage King because he alone had somehow taken a dislike to her.
They put a price on his head. It was worth six months wages to any cowboy who might kill or capture Black Eagle. About this time Lefty, the silent man of the Bar L outfit, disappeared. Weeks went by and still the branded stallion remained free and unhurt, for no cow horse in all the West could keep him in sight half an hour.
As for the wild riders from the cattle ranges, they drew into a close group with the ringmaster between them and the gaunt stallion, almost as if the fearless ones were seeking for protection.
"Satan an' Black Bart ain't got any other dogs an' hosses to run around with. They's jest playing a little by way of exercise." Calder stood agape before what seemed the incarnate fury of the pair. Then he noticed that those snapping fangs, however close they came, always missed the flesh of the stallion, and the driving hoofs never actually endangered the leaping wolf.
Wildfire had grazed along no more than a mile in the lead. Slone looked eagerly up the narrowing canyon, but he was not rewarded by a sight of the stallion. As he progressed up a gradually ascending trail he became aware of the fact that the notch he had long looked up to was where the great red walls closed in and almost met.
It was to be used in the shooting matches. Capt. Boggs and Major McColloch were arranging the contestants in order. Jonathan Zane, Will Martin, Alfred Clarke all the young men were carefully charging and priming their rifles. Betty was sitting on the black stallion which Col. Zane had generously offered as first prize.
The military Governor passed by on horseback, preceded by a mounted soldier, and followed by two more soldiers and by a Spahi, whose red jacket gleamed against the white coat of his prancing stallion. Bugles sounded; bells rang; a donkey brayed with dreary violence in a side street.
Gus Reeve was running towards the stallion, his rope in action to entangle one of the hindfeet and make sure of his prey; Ronicky Joe had leaped up with a yell and blazed away at Black Bart. It was no easy mark to strike, for the moment the rope shot out from the hand of Gus, the wolf-dog whirled in his tracks and darted straight for the scene of action.
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