nswer. "I've spent a
good bit lately and I don't want to sacrifice any more cattle. But--"

"Oh, well," laughed Hume, "it doesn't make any difference. I thought
that you might have a little sporting blood, you know. You must have
done a lot of talking, Shandon."

"--but," Shandon went on, his voice raised to cut into the other's
jibe, "I can sell a few cows if necessary. And while I'm doing it it
is just as easy to raise five thousand as one."

"Oho!" cried Hume. "Little Saxon is proving up, eh?"

"Little Saxon can beat his brother Endymion any day in the week in the
sort of race we're going to run. It's going to be ten miles, across
country, across the damndest country you ever saw, Sledge Hume! It's
going to be a distance race and an endurance race. And since it's
going to be here in the West it's going to be Western. I don't care if
you run or don't run and I don't care if it is for five cents or for
five thousand dollars."

There crept into Sledge Hume's cold eyes a look of such shrewdness that
Shandon was struck by it then, and remembered it long afterward.

"When I go into a deal," was Hume's swift answer, "it's because there's
something in it. You put up your five thousand if you're so cocksure,
and put it up now and I'll cover it! With one thoroughly understood
provision, Shandon. The man who comes in first at the end of that ten
miles, be it you or me, gets the money. There's going to be no chance
to get cold feet and pull out. If you don't ride at all, if you get
scared and decide to get sick or break a leg to save five thousand, I
ride alone and get it just the same. Remember I didn't ride over this
morning for love of racing or for love of anything else; I saw a chance
for some money, easy money."

"Draw up an agreement to that effect," answered Shandon, a darkening of
his eyes showing that Hume's taunt had stung. "I'll sign it. Find a
trustworthy man to hold stakes and I'll put up my five thousand within
ten days after you put yours up. Is that satisfactory?"

Hume answered that it was, and named two or three men in El Toyon as
possible stake holders. When he mentioned Charlie Granger, proprietor
of the El Toyon hotel, Shandon said curtly,

"Charlie's all right. He's square."

So the matter was decided as coolly, and apparently with as much
indifference, as if it had been a matter of no particular importance.
Hume made no pretence of desiring to continue a conversation that w