I wish you'd put on the
brakes."

The Colonel either could not, or would not; for the excitement grew as
the day came near. As a last effort the Indian agent, one of the few who
were conscientiously doing their best for the Indians, went to Red Cloud
to protest and warn him that the whites were laying a trap for him and
his people and would clean them out of everything.

Red Cloud's eyes twinkled as he said: "Yes, they always do."

"I mean on the horse race; they will skin you; don't you know they've
had your horse out in a trial race with theirs, and that it's no race at
all?"

Again the Chief's eyes lighted up. He gave a little grunt and said.
"Mebbe so."

Hartigan suffered all the agonies of crucified instincts in this
excitement. He longed to be in everything, to bet and forecast and play
the game with them all. What would he not have given to be the selected
jockey, to smell the hot saddle every day, to hear the sweet squeak of
the leather or feel the mighty shoulder play of the noble racing beast
beneath him. But such things were not for him. He was shut in, as never
monk was held, from earthly joy; not by material bars and walls, but by
his duty to the Church, by his word as a man, by the influence of Belle.

She trembled in her thought for him at times, his racing blood was so
strong. She often rode by his side to Fort Ryan and watched him as he
looked on at the training of the Rover. His every remark was a comment
of the connoisseur. "Look at that, look at that, Belle. That's right, he
stopped to change his feet. He's a jockey all right. He ought not to do
that tap-tapping with the quirt--the horse doesn't understand it, it
worries him. I don't like to see a man knee-pinch a horse in that way;
it tells on a two-mile run. He's heavy-handed on the reins; some horses
need it, but not that one," and so on without pause.

Never once did his conversation turn on the Church or its work; and
Belle was puzzled and uneasy. Then, one day when she and Hartigan were
to have ridden out, he sent a note to say that he was in trouble.
Blazing Star was hurt. Belle went at once to the stable and there she
found the Preacher on his knees, in an armless old undershirt, rubbing
linament on to some slight bump on Blazing Star's nigh hock. A sculptor
would have paused to gaze at the great splendid arms--clean and white
and muscled like Theseus--massive, supple, and quick. Hartigan was very
serious.

"I don't know just what