goin' to ride him in the race. She
offered to bet on him--against the King! It certainly beat me all
hollow. But see here, Van. I've a hunch there's a dark hoss goin' to
show up in this race. So don't underrate Lucy an' her mount, whatever
he is. She calls him Wildfire. Ever see him?"

"I sure haven't. Fact is, I haven't seen Lucy for days an' days. As for
the hunch you gave, I'll say I was figurin' Lucy for some real race.
Bostil, she doesn't MAKE a hoss run. He'll run jest to please her. An'
Lucy's lighter 'n a feather. Why, Bostil, if she happened to ride out
there on Blue Roan or some other hoss as fast I'd--I'd jest wilt."

Bostil uttered a laugh full of pride in his daughter. "Wal, she won't
show up on Blue Roan," he replied, with grim gruffness. "Thet's sure as
death.... Come on out now. I want a look at the King."

Bostil went into the village. All day long he was so busy with a
thousand and one things referred to him, put on him, undertaken by him,
that he had no time to think. Back in his mind, however, there was a
burden of which he was vaguely conscious all the time. He worked late
into the night and slept late the next morning.

Never in his life had Bostil been gloomy or retrospective on the day of
a race. In the press of matters he had only a word for Lucy, but that
earned a saucy, dauntless look. He was glad when he was able to join
the procession of villagers, visitors, and Indians moving out toward
the sage.

The racecourse lay at the foot of the slope, and now the gray and
purple sage was dotted with more horses and Indians, more moving things
and colors, than Bostil had ever seen there before. It was a spectacle
that stirred him. Many fires sent up blue columns of smoke from before
the hastily built brush huts where the Indians cooked and ate. Blankets
shone bright in the sun; burros grazed and brayed; horses whistled
piercingly across the slope; Indians lolled before the huts or talked
in groups, sitting and lounging on their ponies; down in the valley,
here and there, were Indians racing, and others were chasing the wiry
mustangs. Beyond this gay and colorful spectacle stretched the valley,
merging into the desert marked so strikingly and beautifully by the
monuments.

Bostil was among the last to ride down to the high bench that
overlooked the home end of the racecourse. He calculated that there
were a thousand Indians and whites congregated at that point, which was
the best vantage-ground