n the instant when the smoke curled up in a little, balloon-like
puff, turned and leaped into the saddle. The duel of riatas was begun.

CHAPTER XXIV

FOR LOVE AND A MEDAL

Down the roped lane thundered Jose, whirling his riata over his head
till the loop had taken full twenty of the sixty feet of rawhide.

Galloping to meet him, Jack gave his rope a forward, downward fling and
formed a little loop--a loop not one-third the size of Jose's--and held
it dangling beside Surry's shoulder. So, at the very start, they showed
themselves different in method, even though they might be the same in
skill.

They met, with fifteen feet between them as they flashed past. Jose
flung out his lifted hand. The loop hissed and shot straight for Jack's
head.

Jack flung out his little loop, struck the big one fairly, and threw it
aside. Even so, the end might have caught him, but for the lengthening
lunge which Surry made in mid-air. The loop flecked Surry's crinkled
tail and he fled on to the far end and stopped in two short,
stiff-legged jumps.

As Jack coiled his riata and slid off he heard the caballeros yelling
praise of Jose. But he did not mind that in the least. In that one throw
he had learned Jose's method; the big loop, the overhead swirl--direct,
bullet-swift, deadly in its aim. He knew now what Dade had wanted to
tell him--what it was vital that he should know. And--he hugged the
thought--Jose did not know his method; not yet.

A shot, and he was off again with his little loop. Jose, like a great,
black bird, flew towards him with the big loop. As they neared he saw
Jose's teeth show in the smile of hate. He waited, his little loop ready
for the fling should his chance come.

Jose was over-eager. The great, rawhide hoop whistled and shot down
aslant like the swoop of a nighthawk. Surry's eye was upon it
unwinkingly. He saw where the next leap would bring him within its
terrible grip, and he made that leap to one side instead, so that the
rawhide thudded into the dust alongside his nose. He swerved again lest
Jose in jerking it up should catch his feet, and went on with an
exultant toss of his white head. It was the game he knew--the game Diego
had played with him many times, to the discomfiture of the peon.

"He is a devil--that white caballo!" cried a chagrined voice from among
the vaqueros crowding the ropes so that they bulged inward.

"Hah! devil or no, they will go down, those two white ones! Saw you