. Therefore they
penalized him on account of his reputation. It would never do for
the Associated Press dispatches to send word all over the East that a
murderous desperado was permitted, unmolested, to walk away with the
championship belt.

"It ain't a square deal," declared McWilliams promptly.

He was sitting beside Nora, and he turned round to express his opinion
to the two sitting behind him in the box.

"We'll not go behind the returns. Y'u won fairly. I congratulate
y'u, Mr. Champion-of-the-world," replied the sheepman, shaking hands
cordially.

"I told you to bring that belt to the Lazy D," smiled his mistress, as
she shook hands.

But in her heart she was crying out that it was an outrage.

CHAPTER 15. JUDD MORGAN PASSES

Gimlet Butte devoted the night of the Fourth to a high old time. The
roping and the other sports were to be on the morrow, and meanwhile the
night hours were filled with exuberance. The cowboy's spree comes
only once in several months, but when it does come he enters into the
occasion with such whole-hearted enthusiasm as to make up swiftly for
lost time. A traveling midway had cast its tents in a vacant square in
competition with the regular attractions of the town, and everywhere the
hard-riding punchers were "night herding" in full regalia.

There was a big masked ball in the street, and another in the Masonic
Hall, while here and there flared the lights of the faker with something
to sell. Among these last was "Soapy" Sothern, doing a thriving business
in selling suckers and bars wrapped with greenbacks. Crowds tramped the
streets blowing horns and throwing confetti, and everywhere was a large
sprinkling of men in high-heeled boots, swinging along with the awkward,
stiff-legged gait of the cowboy. Sometimes a girl was hanging on his
arm, and again he was "whooping it up with the boys"; but in either case
the range-rider's savings were burning a hole through his pockets with
extreme rapidity.

Jim McWilliams and the sheepman Bannister had that day sealed a
friendship that was to be as enduring as life. The owner of the sheep
ranch was already under heavy obligation to the foreman of the Lazy D,
but debt alone is not enough on which to found soul brotherhood. There
must be qualities of kinship in the primeval elements of character. Both
men had suspected that this kinship existed, but to-day they had proved
it in the way that one had lost and the other had won the coveted
cha