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Updated: June 12, 2025
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.
As Old Heck said "dirty" the picture of Mike Sabota flashed into Carolyn June's mind. Some intuition seemed to couple, in her inner consciousness, the big Greek with the Ramblin' Kid's disappearance. The horses for the two-mile sweepstakes were already beginning to come on to the track.
Half-way down the room at one side against the wall a mechanical player piano was grinding out garish, hurdy-gurdy music. "Red" Jackson was dispensing soft drinks from behind the bar. Sabota himself, with one heel caught on the brass foot-rail, was leaning indolently but with a lordly air against the front of the polished, imitation mahogany counter.
Said Sabota hired him to put 'knock-out' in some coffee for th' Ramblin' Kid and he reckoned the dose wasn't big enough or something.
The Ramblin' Kid barely glanced at the sea of faces, a faint smile hung for an instant on his lips, as he jerked his hand, the one in which he held the cigarette, to the brim of his hat when he came opposite the judges' stand. When the parade swung down the wide, one-sided, main street of Eagle Butte, Mike Sabota, from the door of the Elite Amusement Parlor, watched it pass.
A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink bar. Sabota was not there. "What's happened to everybody?"
He had been drinking and was in his shirt-sleeves. As Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped into the pool-room Sabota glanced around. For an instant he eyed the Ramblin' Kid keenly while a nasty sneer curled his lips. As they approached he turned the grin into a hypocritical smile of welcome. The Ramblin' Kid barely noticed the Greek and passed on to where the card game was in progress.
The blow went home. A film, like a veil drawn across the fiendish glare in them, spread over the eyes of Sabota, his grip on the throat of the cowboy relaxed and as a bull, struck by the hammer of the butcher, he dropped to the floor. The Ramblin' Kid crouched, panting, over the massive bulk. Sabota slowly opened his eyes and started to raise his battered head.
If he had gone as far as he ought to you wouldn't be laying there they'd just about now be hiding your dirty carcass under six feet of 'dobe!" Sabota mumbled some guttural, unintelligible reply. "Listen, you infernal skunk," Old Heck went on coldly, "as quick as you're able to travel you'll find Eagle Butte's a right good place to get away from! You understand what I mean.
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.
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