entually have become tiresome to watch had not both horse and
rider soon showed effects of the work. Every leap of Rickety's was
shorter. Sweat shone on his thick body. He was killing Arizona but he
was also breaking his own heart. Arizona weakened fast under that
continual battering at the base of his brain. His eyes rolled. He no
longer pretended to ride straight up, but clung to pommel and cantle. A
trickle of blood ran from his mouth. Marianne turned away only to find
that mild old Corson was crying: "Watch his head! When it begins to roll
then you know that he's stunned and the next jump or so will knock him
out of the saddle as limp as a half filled sack."

"It's too horrible!" breathed the girl. "I can't watch!"

"Why not? You liked it when a man beat a hoss. Now the tables are turned
and the hoss is beating the man. Ah, I thought so. There goes his head!
Rolls as if his neck was broken. Now! Now!"

Arizona Charley toppled loose-limbed from the saddle and lay twisted
where he fell, but it had taken the last of Rickety's power. His legs
were now braced, his head untriumphantly low, and the sweat dripped
steadily from him. He had not enough energy to flee from those who
approached to lift Arizona from the ground. Corson was pounding his knee
with a fat fist.

"Ever see a fight like that in your life? Nope, you never did! Me
neither! But Lord, Lord, won't Red Jim Perris take a mule-load of coin
out of Glosterville! They been giving five to one agin him. I was
touched a bit myself."

For the moment, Marianne was more keenly interested in the welfare of
Arizona Charley. Perris, with others following, reached him first and
strong hands carried the unconscious champion towards that corner of the
field where the Corson buckboard stood; for there were the
water-buckets. They were close to the goal when Arizona recovered
sufficiently to kick himself loose feebly from his supporters.

"What the hell's all this?" Marianne heard him say in a voice which he
tried to make an angered roar but which was only a shrill quaver from
his weakness. "Maybe I'm a lady? Maybe I've fainted or something? Not by
a damned sight! Maybe I been licked by that boiled-down bit of hell,
Rickety, but I ain't licked so bad I can't walk home. Hey, Perris, shake
on it! You trimmed me, all right, and you collect off'n me and a pile
more besides me. Here's my boodle."

At the mention of the betting a little circle cleared around Perris and
from e