Carolyn June and raising his hat to the two women
passed on with the remark: "I reckon I'll go on over an' see what
they're doin'."

"Has he entered the outlaw filly for the sweepstakes, yet?" Old Heck
asked Chuck as the Ramblin' Kid reined Captain Jack down the race track.

"Yes," Chuck answered, "he signed her up."

"Did he name her as the Gold Dust maverick?" Old Heck inquired
anxiously.

"No," Chuck grinned, "he called her 'Ophelia!'"

Old Heck leaned back in the seat and roared with laughter in which
Carolyn June and the widow joined.

"Dorsey was there," Chuck said with another grin, "he'd just finished
entering Thunderbolt for the big race when th' Ramblin' Kid and me got
to the registering office. I bet him two hundred dollars. He was
bragging a good deal--"

Old Heck's eyes flashed and the mirth left them.

"He was blowing, was he?" he said with a hard laugh, "the damn--darned
fool!" he corrected, remembering Ophelia at his side. "Well, 'egg' him
on--the higher he flies the worse he'll flop when he bu'sts a wing!"

In the parade Skinny rode with Carolyn June. Parker and the Quarter
Circle KT cowboys were in a group directly behind them. The Vermejo
crowd, with Dorsey himself mounted on Thunderbolt, had a place just
ahead of Skinny and Carolyn June. The beautiful black Y-Bar stallion was
really a wonderful horse. Speed, strength and endurance radiated with
every movement of the glossy, subtle body. Without doubt he was the most
handsome animal on the grounds. Dorsey was a splendid rider and a
man--he was in the early forties--of striking appearance. He was fully
conscious of the magnificent showing he made on Thunderbolt. The racer
danced proudly, prancing forward in short, graceful leaps as the column
swept past the grandstand and the consolidated Eagle Butte and Vegas
bands crashed out the strains of a stirring march. A ripple of applause
ran over the crowd in the grandstand as Dorsey, at the head of the
Vermejo cowboys, rode by the judges' box. He lifted his sombrero and
waved it in pleased acknowledgment.

The Ramblin' Kid was in line a little distance behind Carolyn June,
Skinny and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys. He rode alone just back of a
quartette of Indians from down on the Chickasaw.

His plain rigging, the slick, smoothly worn, leather chaps, the
undecorated saddle, bridle and spurs, his entire work-a-day outfit
contrasted vividly with the gaudy get-up of most of the other riders.
Capta