ou'll say that long hair is good to keep him warm in
winter," went on the girl sarcastically. "As far as legs are concerned,
he seems to have about as much as the longest of the mares."

Corson shook his head in depreciation.

"You never can tell what a fool Mexican will do. Most like he's riding
in this race to show off his jacket, not because he has any hope of
winning. That hoss ain't any type of range--"

"Perhaps you think it's a thoroughbred?" asked Marianne.

Corson sighed, feeling that he was cornered.

"Raised on the range, all right," he admitted. "But you'll find freak
hosses anywhere. And that chestnut is just a plug."

"And yet," ventured Marianne, "it seems to me that the horse has some
points."

This remark drew a glance of scorn from the whole Corson family. What
would they think, she wondered, if they knew that her hopes centered on
this very stallion? Silence had spread over the field. The whisper of
Corson seemed loud. "Look how still the range hosses stand. They know
what's ahead. And look at them fool bays prance!"

The Coles horses were dancing eagerly, twisting from side to side at the
post.

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Corson. "What a vicious brute!"

Alcatraz had wakened suddenly and driven both heels at his neighbor.
Luckily he missed his mark, but the starter ran across the track and
lessoned Cordova with a raised finger. Then he went back; there was a
breath of waiting; the gun barked!

The answer to it was a spurt of low-running horses with a white cloud of
dust behind, and Corson laughed aloud in his glee. Every one of the
group in the lead was a range horse; the Coles mares were hanging in the
rear and last of all, obscured by the dust-cloud, Alcatraz ran sulkily.

"But you wait!" said Marianne, sitting tensely erect. "Those ponies with
their short legs can start fast, but that's all. When the mares begin to
run--Now, now, now! Oh, you beauties! You dears!"

The field doubled the first jagged corner of the track and the bay
mares, running compactly grouped, began to gain on the leaders hand over
hand. Looking first at the range hosses and then at the mares, it seemed
that the former were running with twice the speed of the latter, but the
long, rolling gallop of the bays ate up the ground, and bore them down
on the leaders in a bright hurricane. The cowpunchers, hearing that
volleying of hoofbeats, went to spur and quirt to stave off the
inevitable, but at five furlongs Lady Mary left