up against the tree and it’ll drop in their mouths. We’ve got to have that roan. I’ll pay you a good price for him, Whitmore, if you won’t let him go any other way. We’ve got a reporter up there that can do him up brown in a special article, and people will come in bunches to see a horse with that kind of a pedigree. Is it Green, here, that knows the horse and what he’ll do? You’re sure of him, are you, Green?”
Andy took time to roll a cigarette. He had not expected any such development as this, and he needed to think of the best way out. All he had wanted or intended was to discourage the others from claiming the blue roan; he wanted him in his own string. Afterwards, when they had pestered him about the roan’s record, he admitted to himself that he had, maybe, overshot the mark and told it a bit too scarey, and too convincingly. Under the spell of fancy he had done more than make the roan unpopular as a roundup horse; he had made him a celebrity in the way of outlaw horses. And they wanted him in the rough-riding contest! Andy, perhaps, had never before been placed in just such a position.
“Are you sure of what the horse will do?” Mr. Coleman repeated, seeing that Andy was taking a long time to reply.
Andy licked his cigarette, twisted an end and leaned backward while he felt in his pocket for a match. From the look of his face you never could have told how very uncomfortable he felt “Naw,” he drawled. “I ain’t never sure of what any hoss will do. I’ve had too much dealings with ’em for any uh that brand uh foolishness.” He lighted the cigarette as if that were the only matter in which he took any real interest, though he was thinking fast.
Mr. Coleman looked nonplussed. “But I thought—you said—”
“What I said,” Andy retorted evenly, “hit the blue roan two years ago; maybe he’s reformed since then; I dunno. Nobody’s rode him, here.” He could not resist a sidelong glance at Happy Jack. “There was some talk of it, but it never come to a head.”
“Yuh offered me a hundred dollars—” Happy Jack began accusingly.
“And yuh never made no move to earn it, that I know of. By gracious, yuh all seem to think I ought to mind-read that hoss! I ain’t seen him for two years. Maybe so, he’s a real wolf yet; maybe so, he’s a sheep.” He threw out both his hands to point the end of the argument—so far as he was concerned—stuck them deep into his trousers’ pockets and walked away before he could be betrayed into deeper deceit. It did seem to him rather hard that, merely because he had wanted the roan badly enough to—er—exercise a little diplomacy in order to get him, they should keep harping on the subject like that. And to have Coleman making medicine to get the roan into that contest was, to say the least, sickening. Andy’s private belief was that a twelve-year-old girl could go round up the milk-cows on that horse. He had never known him to make a crooked move, and he had ridden beside him all one summer and had seen him in all places and under all possible conditions. He was a dandy cow-horse, and dead gentle; all this talk made him tired. Andy had forgotten that he himself had started the talk.
Coleman went often to the corral when the horses were in, and looked at the blue roan. Later he rode on to other ranches where he had heard were bad horses, and left the roan for further consideration. When he was gone, Andy breathed freer and put his mind to the coming contest and the things he meant to do with the purse and with the other contestants.
“That Diamond G twister is going t’ ride,” Happy Jack announced, one day when he came from town. “Some uh the boys was in town and they said so. He can ride, too. I betche Andy don’t have no picnic gitting the purse away from that feller. And Coleman’s got that sorrel outlaw uh the HS. I betche Andy’ll have to pull leather on that one.” This was, of course, treason pure and simple; but Happy Jack’s prophecies were never taken seriously.
Andy simply grinned at him. “Put your money on the Diamond G twister,” he advised calmly. “I know him—he’s a good rider, too. His name’s Billy Roberts. Uh course, I aim to beat him to it, but Happy never does like to have a sure-thing. He wants something to hang his jaw down over. Put your money on Billy and watch it fade away, Happy.”
“Aw, gwan. I betche that there sorrel—”
“I rode that there sorrel once, and combed his forelock with both spurs alternate,” Andy lied boldly. “He’s pickings. Take him back and bring me a real hoss.”
Happy Jack wavered. “Well, I betche yuh don’t pull down that money,” he predicted vaguely. “I betche yuh git throwed, or something. It don’t do to be too blame sure uh nothing.”
Whereat Andy laughed derisively and went away whistling. “I wish I was as sure uh living till I was a thousand years old, and able to ride nine months out of every year of ’em,” he called back to Happy. Then he took up the tune where he had left off.
For the days were still crisp at both ends and languorous in the middle, and wind and grasses hushed and listened for the coming of winter. And because of these things, and his youth and his health, the heart of Andy Green was light in his chest and trouble stood afar off with its face turned from him.
It was but three days to the opening of the fair when Coleman, returning that way from his search for bad horses, clattered, with his gleanings and three or four men to help drive them, down the grade to the Flying U. And in the Flying U coulee, just across the creek from the corrals, still rested the roundup tents for a space. For the shipping was over early and work was not urgent, and Chip and the Old Man, in their enthusiasm for the rough-riding contest and the entry of their own man, had decided to take the wagons and crew entire to Great Falls and camp throughout the four days of the fair. The boys all wanted to go, anyway, as did everybody else, so that nothing could be done till it was over. It was a novel idea, and it tickled the humor of the Happy Family.
The “rough string,” as the bad horses were called, was corralled, and the men made merry with the roundup crew. Diamond G men they were, loudly proclaiming their faith in Billy Roberts, and offering bets already against Andy, who listened undisturbed and had very little to say. The Happy Family had faith in him, and that was enough. If everybody, he told them, believed that he would win, where would be the fun of riding and showing them?
It was after their early supper that Coleman came down to camp at the heels of Chip and the Old Man. Straightway he sought out Andy like a man who has something on his mind; though Andy did not in the least know what it was, he recognized the indefinable symptoms and braced himself mentally, half suspecting that it was something about that blue roan again. He was getting a little bit tired of the blue roan—enough so that, though he had chosen him for his string, he had not yet put saddle to his back, but waited until the roundup started out once more, when he would ride him in his turn.
It was the blue roan, without doubt. Coleman came to a stop directly in front of Andy, and as directly came to the point.
“Look here, Green,” he began. “I’m shy on horses for that contest, and Whitmore and Bennett say I can have that roan you’ve got in your string. If he’s as bad as you claim, I certainly must have him. But you seem to have some doubts of what he’ll do, and I’d like to see him ridden once. Your shingle is out as a broncho-peeler. Will you ride him this evening, so I can size him up for that contest?”
Andy glanced up under his eyebrows, and then sidelong at the crowd. Every man within hearing was paying strict attention, and was eyeing him expectantly; for broncho-fighting is a spectacle that never palls.
“Well, I can ride him, if yuh say so,” Andy made cautious answer, “but I won’t gamble he’s a bad hoss now—that is, bad enough to take to the Falls. Yuh don’t want to expect—”
“Oh, I don’t expect anything—only I want to see him ridden once. Come on, no time like the present. If he’s bad, you’ll have to ride him at the fair, anyhow, and a little practice won’t hurt you; and if he isn’t, I want to know it for sure.”
“It’s a go with me,” Andy said indifferently, though he secretly felt much relief. The roan would go off like a pet dog, and he could pretend to be somewhat surprised, and declare that he had reformed. Bad horses do reform, sometimes, as Andy and every other man in the crowd