lame. Dave looked at him
and at Bud, and grinned. "I guess that forfeit money's mine," he said in
his laconic way. "No use running that horse. I could beat him afoot."

This was but the beginning. Others began to banter and jeer Bud, Jeff's
crowd taunting him with malicious glee. The singin' kid was going to
have some of the swelling taken out of his head, they chortled. He had
been crazy enough to put up a forfeit on to-day's race, and now his
horse had just three legs to run on.

"Git out afoot, kid!" Jeff Hall yelled. "If you kin run half as fast as
you kin talk, you'll beat Boise four lengths in the first quarter!"

Bud retorted in kind, and led Smoky around the corral as if he hoped
that the horse would recover miraculously just to save his master's
pride. The crowd hooted to see how Smoky hobbled along, barely touching
the toe of his lame foot to the ground. Bud led him back to the manger
piled with new hay, and faced the jeering crowd belligerently. Bud
noticed several of the Muleshoe men in the crowd, no doubt drawn to
Little Lost by the talk of Bud's spectacular winnings for two Sundays.
Hen was there, and Day Masters and Cub. Also there were strangers who
had ridden a long way, judging by their sweaty horses. In the midst of
the talk and laughter Dave led out Boise freshly curried and brushed and
arching his neck proudly.

"No use, Bud," he said tolerantly. "I guess you're set back that forfeit
money--unless you want to go through the motions of running a lame
horse."

"No, sir, I'm not going to hand over any forfeit money without making
a fight for it!" Bud told him, anger showing in his voice. "I'm no such
piker as that. I won't run Smoky, lame as he is "--Bud probably nudged
his own ribs when he said that!--"but if you'll make it a mile, I'll
catch up my old buckskin packhorse and run the race with him, by
thunder! He's not the quickest horse in the world, but he sure can run a
long while!"

They yelled and slapped one another on the back, and otherwise comported
themselves as though a great joke had been told them; never dreaming,
poor fools, that a costly joke was being perpetrated.

"Go it, kid. You run your packhorse, and I'll rive yuh five to one on
him!" a friend of Jeff Hall's yelled derisively.

"I'll just take you up on that, and I'll make it one hundred dollars,"
Bud shouted back. "I'd run a turtle for a quarter, at those odds!"

The crowd was having hysterics when Bud straddled a Littl