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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.
"That's the one I mean," the Ramblin' Kid replied in a low voice, "for two miles or five there ain't nothin' in western Texas, or Mexico either, that can catch her." "Why don't you take her in when the Rodeo is on and run her in the sweepstakes then?" Chuck asked eagerly. "I ain't caring what Kiowa horse gets the money just so that Y-Bar outfit is taken down a notch or two.
Dorsey noticed the entrance of the pair from the Quarter Circle KT. All were range men and were well known to one another. The Y-Bar owner had been drinking. Boot-leg liquor was obtainable, if one knew how and where, in Eagle Butte. "Hello, there, Old Heck!" Dorsey greeted them hilariously and with a half-leer. "Howdy, Skinny! How's the Cimarron?
Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room. Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Bar cattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he had recklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle the Vermejo rancher owned. Dorsey was game.
"Well, bring 'em on!" Dorsey exclaimed boastfully, "the Y-Bar will take all the money you Kiowa fellers feel like contributing! Old Thunderbolt's as fit as a new rawhide rope and is just aching to rake in another three or four thousand of Quarter Circle KT dinero if you people have got the nerve to back your judgment!"
Both animals seemed hungry for her caresses. "Oh, you darling you wonder!" the Ramblin' Kid Heard Carolyn June say, as she gave the maverick's head a tight squeeze just before running lightly back to the house. "I hope you beat that old Y-Bar horse so bad he'll never want to run again!
The bull-like guffaw of Mike Sabota, the gorilla-built, half-Greek proprietor of the Amusement Parlor roared out above the ripple of laughter from the others. The racing feud between the Y-Bar and the Quarter Circle KT was well known to all and Sabota himself had cleaned up a neat sum when the black horse from the Vermejo had outstepped the runner from the Quarter Circle KT.
"I know you're not," Old Heck interrupted, "and that's the reason I tore up that bill of sale!" "Old Heck," Dorsey said, his voice trembling, "you're white! I'd like to shake " The rival cattlemen gripped hands and the racing feud between the Quarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar was ended.
Naming them in their order from the pole: Thunderbolt, black Y-Bar stallion, Flip Williams, rider; Say-So, roan gelding, from the Pecos River, Box-V outfit, Jess Curtis, rider; Ophelia, Gold Dust filly, the Cimarron outlaw from the Quarter Circle KT, th' Ramblin' Kid, rider; Prince John, sorrel gelding, from Dallas, Texas, 'Snow' Johnson, rider; Dash-Away, bay mare, from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Slim Tucker, rider.
Even the humiliation of seeing his best horse put in second place by the Y-Bar animal had been endured philosophically and without malice because he believed the thing had been run square and the faster horse had won. But Dorsey on every occasion since had, drunk or sober, boasted of Thunderbolt's victory and taken a devilish delight in rubbing it in on the owner of the Quarter Circle KT.
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