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As she moved away Carolyn June felt something snap at her knee. She did not stop. Reaching down she gathered the soft folds of the loose gown about her and hurried away from the corral. "God!" the Ramblin' Kid whispered as he straightened up, "she's built like th' Gold Dust maverick an' just as game! They was made for each other."
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.
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.
"No," the Ramblin' Kid answered slowly, "money ain't no object with me in a horse-race. I don't run 'em for that purpose. Anyhow, poker is my favorite method of gamblin'!" Dorsey and Flip whirled angrily out of the office and walked rapidly toward the stables where they had left their horses.
Sabota staggered back and, would have fallen had he not crashed against the hardwood bar. As the Greek reeled away from the garter the Ramblin' Kid stooped quickly forward, picked up the elastic and dropped it again into his pocket. With a roar like a mad bull Sabota rushed his slight antagonist. Lunging forward, blind with rage, he aimed a murderous blow at the head of the Ramblin' Kid.
"He sure did," Bert continued, while Carolyn June listened intently, "and was plumb wild to bu'st down the pen and be free again. Charley nor me didn't want him and so th' Ramblin' Kid said he'd take him. Just then Tony Malush we was punchin' for him come riding up and was going to shoot Captain Jack on account of wanting to clean the range of the outlaw stallions.
Both he and Skinny had purposely refrained from mentioning the horse the Ramblin' Kid would enter. The fame of the outlaw filly extended throughout all of southwestern Texas and if the Vermejo crowd had learned that the Ramblin' Kid had finally caught her and was intending to put her against Thunderbolt it was doubtful if the black horse would be entered at all in the sweepstakes.
It's worth twice as much 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.
As he pulled the leather into place the sound of nervous hoofs kicking the gravel on the grade that led to the ridge on which he stood shattered the silence around him. The Ramblin' Kid whirled and faced the direction in which the approaching horse, would appear. His hand dropped to his gun and without raising the weapon from his hip he leveled it to cover the turn in the road a few feet away.
Dorsey, who was standing with Mike Sabota, in a box-seat just below the judges' stand, shouted as he saw the Ramblin' Kid, even in his half-conscious condition, reining the Gold Dust maverick with consummate skill into position, "her rider's drunk!" The Ramblin' Kid heard the voice and by some miracle of the mind recognized it, although his eyes, set and glassy, could not see the speaker.
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