thing that'll
save you will be your dust."

So saying Ike slouched off down the street, keeping his eye on Shock's
buckboard. He watched him go into the Royal and in a few minutes come
out again, followed him to the International, and soon after to the
Ranchers' Roost.

"Guess he's purty nigh tangled up now," said Ikey, with considerable
satisfaction. He had a scheme of his own in mind. "There aint a
six-foot hole in this hull town, and he'd take purty nigh seven. Now,
what's his next move?"

Shock appeared undecided. There was evidently no place for him in the
town. He had a deepening sense of being not wanted. The town was
humming with life, but in that life there was no place for him.
Awakening a strange sense of fellowship the word came to him, "He was
rejected of men."

XI

"I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN"

As Shock stood, uncertain as to his next move, he noticed that out of
the confused mingling of men and horses order began to appear. The
course was once more being cleared. The final heat, which the Swallow
had won, and which had been protested by the owner of the Demon, on the
ground that his course had been blocked by Shock and his cayuse, was to
be run again. Shock was too much occupied with his own disappointment
and uncertainty to take much interest in the contest that was the
occasion of such intense excitement to the throngs on the street. With
languid indifference he watched the course being cleared and the
competitors canter back to the starting point. Behind them followed a
cavalcade of horsemen on all sorts of mounts, from the shaggy little
cayuse, with diminishing rump, to the magnificent thoroughbred
stallion, stall-fed and shining. In the final heat it was the custom
for all the horsemen in the crowd to join at a safe distance behind the
contestants, in a wild and tumultuous scramble.

Shock's attention was arrested and his interest quickened by the
appearance of Ike in the crowd, riding a hard-looking, bony, buckskin
broncho, which he guessed to be Slipper.

In a short time the Demon and the Swallow were in their places. Far
behind them bunched the motley crowd of horsemen.

The start was to be by the pistol shot, and from the scratch. So
intense was the stillness of the excited crowd that, although the
starting point was more than half a mile out on the prairie, the crack
of the pistol was clearly heard.

In immediate echo the cry arose, "They're off! They're off!" and