back with a kitchen
knife all for the pleasure and glory of a righteous God! I don't want
any more of it, Belle; _I won't go!_ You've told me often enough that my
instincts are better than my judgment, and my instincts tell me to stay
right here," and his face flushed red with passion.

"Dear boy! Don't you know I'm trying to help you? Don't you know I mean
to keep you here? You know that we can get anything we want, if we are
willing to pay the price, and _will_ have it. I mean to keep you here;
only I am trying not to pay too high a price."

She laid her hand on his. He reached out and put an arm about her. She
said nothing, and did nothing. She knew that he must blow off this
fierce steam, and that the reaction would then set in with equal force.

They rode for a mile in silence; she wanted him to speak first.

"You always help me," he said at last, heaving a great sigh. "You are
wiser than I am."

She gently patted his cheek. He went on: "What do you think I should
do?"

"Nothing for three days; then we'll see."

They galloped for half a mile, and every sign of worry was gone from his
face as they reined their horses in at the stable of Fort Ryan.

CHAPTER XXXV

When the Greasewood is in Bloom

Big things were in the air, as all the horsemen knew. Blazing Star had
wintered well and, being a four-and-a-half-year-old, was in his prime.
Red Rover in the adjoining stable was watched with equal care. Prairie
hay was judged good enough for the country horses; but baled timothy, at
shocking prices, was brought from Pierre for the two racers; and, after
a brief period of letdown on clover and alfalfa, the regular routine
diet of a race horse was begun, as a matter of course. Little Breeches
had left, chiefly because of unpleasant remarks that he continued to
hear in the stable. He had taken a springtime job among the cattle. So
Peaches, having no other string to his bow, allowed the officers "to
secure his services as second assistant trainer," as he phrased it, or,
as they with brutal simplicity put it, "as stable boy." He accepted this
gravely responsible position on the explicit understanding that
allusions to the late race were in bad taste.

Why should these two horses be so carefully trained? There was no race
on the calendar. No, but every one assumed that there would be a
challenge, and nobody dreamed of declining it. So, one day when all the
plains were spangle-glint with grass and bloom, the