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Updated: June 25, 2025
And the occasion of his arrival, for all the gaiety, was one of dignity and importance. If Bostil reveled in anything it was in an hour like this. His liberality made this event a great race-day. The thoroughbreds were all there, blanketed, in charge of watchful riders. In the center of the brow of this long bench lay a huge, flat rock which had been Bostil's seat in the watching of many a race.
Why not pack up an outfit of clothes? Bostil had a stock-room full of such accessories for his men. Then Lucy, glowing with the thought, hurried to Bostil's stock-room, and with deft hands and swift judgment selected an outfit for the rider, even down to a comb and razor.
"If she meets him again I'll rope her in the house," declared Bostil. Another clear-eyed rider drew Bostil's attention from the gray waste of rolling sage. "Bostil, look! Look at the King! He's watchin' fer somethin'.... An' so's Sarch." The two horses named were facing a ridge some few hundred yards distant, and their heads were aloft and ears straight forward.
Bostil shook his huge frame, and he rubbed his eyes as if they had become dim, and he stared again. "Who's thet up on him?" "Slone. I never seen his like on a hoss," replied Holley. "An' what's he packin'?" queried Bostil, huskily. Plain to all keen eyes was the glint of Lucy Bostil's golden hair. But only Holley had courage to speak. "It's Lucy! I seen thet long ago."
He could not believe. After all the weeks of preparation, of excitement, of suspense only this! There was no race. The King was out! The thing did not seem possible. A thousand thoughts flitted through Bostil's mind. Rage, impotent rage, possessed him. He cursed Van, he swore he would kill that red stallion. And some one shook him hard.
Bostil's face turned dark-blood color and his neck swelled. "By Gawd, Sears! You ain't a-goin' to steal this boy's hoss!" "Shut up!" hissed the horse-thief. He pushed a gun close to Bostil. "I've always laid fer you! I'm achin' to bore you now. I would but fer scarin' this hoss. If you yap again I'll KILL YOU, anyhow, an' take a chance!"
Van's story of the accident vindicated Bostil's doubts. A new horse had appeared on the scene, wild and swift and grand, but Sage King was still unbeaten in a fair race. There would come a reckoning, Bostil grimly muttered. Who owned this Wildfire? Holley might as well have read his mind.
"Me an' Oldrin' wasn't exactly strangers some years back when he drove cattle into Bostil's Ford, at the head of the Rio Virgin. But he got harassed there an' now he drives some place else." "Lassiter, you knew him? Tell me, is he Mormon or Gentile?" "I can't say. I've knowed Mormons who pretended to be Gentiles." "No Mormon ever pretended that unless he was a rustler," declared Venters.
'Wal, I'm not powerful glad to know thet.... I hear Creech's blue hoss will race the King this time. How about it? 'Sure an' certain this year. I've Creech's an' Bostil's word for thet. Cordts put his hand on my shoulder.
Bostil stretched his neck, looked out, and in the red earth beneath the window he saw fresh tracks of Lucy's boots. Then he roared for Jane. She came running, and between Bostil's furious questions and her own excited answers there was nothing arrived at. But presently she spied the white dress, and then she ran to Lucy's closet. From there she turned a white face to Bostil.
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