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Let's see," he added calculatingly, "how many Y-Bar cattle do you figure you've got running on the Vermejo range five thousand?" "There's that many," Dorsey started to say. "Call it fifty-five hundred!" Old Heck flung at him.
The voice of the owner of Thunderbolt shrieked out in a hoarse bellow: "Hold him to it, Flip! Keep your lead you've got the filly!" The Ramblin' Kid heard again or thought he heard again the voice of the Vermejo cattleman. He caught, as an echo, a note of triumph in it. It was like a tonic to his drug-numbed faculties. Suddenly he saw clearly.
As he finished speaking he turned and looked squarely into the cold gray eyes of Old Heck who, with Skinny, had entered the Amusement Parlor while Dorsey was talking and heard the Vermejo cattleman's sneering insinuation. Old Heck and Skinny had left Ophelia and Carolyn June at the Occidental Hotel, where a room was reserved by Old Heck for the use of the two women during the Rodeo.
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.
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.
To-day the Vermejo cattleman had been worse than usual, due, no doubt, to the rotten boot-leg whisky the brute-like proprietor of Eagle Butte's rather disreputable Amusement Parlor was supposed secretly to dispense to those who had the price and the "honor" to keep sacred the source of supply. Old Heck was sore and he was ready to go the limit in backing the Gold Dust maverick.
"Oh, Queen of th' Range!" he said with a low laugh, unconsciously using the poetical phrase, as he gave the warm cheek of the filly a tender parting pinch before turning away to go to the bunk-house, "we'll whip that devil-horse of th' Vermejo we'll show that Thunderbolt runner what hearts that ain't afraid an' nimble hoofs can do!"
"And I ain't going to miss that, either," Chuck interrupted, "that Y-Bar outfit over on the Vermejo took everything in the two-mile sweepstakes last year and they've been bragging about it ever since. They think that Thunderbolt horse of theirs can't be beat. I was going to put Silver Tip in this year. He can put that black in second place "
"Well, that Vermejo crowd has got a hundred of mine," Chuck said vindictively, "but I don't give a darn for that I'd be willing to lose twice that much again just to set that Thunderbolt horse of theirs back in second place!" "Why don't you run the outlaw filly?" Charley asked coaxingly of the Ramblin' Kid. "Yes, go on and put her in," Skinny urged, " you ought to!"
Lafe Dorsey, owner of the Y-Bar outfit and to whom belonged the black Thunderbolt horse; Newt Johnson, Dave Stover and "Flip" Williams the latter three cowboys on the big Vermejo ranch were playing a four-handed game of billiards at one of the tables near the front of the place.
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