Gunsight Pass | Page 5

the pinto was three lengths to
the good. Dave, flying toward the halfway post, heard his friend Hart's
triumphant "Yip yip yippy yip!" coming to him on the wind.
He leaned forward, patting his horse on the shoulder, murmuring words
of encouragement into its ear. But he knew, without turning round, that
the racer galloping at his heels was drawing closer. Its long shadow
thrown in front of it by the westering sun, reached to Dave's stirrups,
crept to Chiquito's head, moved farther toward the other shadow
plunging wildly eastward. Foot by foot the distance between the horses
lessened to two lengths, to one, to half a length. The ugly head of the
racer came abreast of the cowpuncher. With sickening certainty the
range-rider knew that his Chiquito was doing the best that was in it.
Whiskey Bill was a faster horse.
Simultaneously he became aware of two things. The bay was no longer
gaining. The halfway mark was just ahead. The cowpuncher knew
exactly how to make the turn with the least possible loss of speed and
ground. Too often, in headlong pursuit of a wild hill steer, he had
whirled as on a dollar, to leave him any doubt now. Scarce slackening
speed, he swept the pinto round the clump of mesquite and was off for
home.
Dave was halfway back before he was sure that the thud of Whiskey
Bill's hoofs was almost at his heels. He called on the cowpony for a last
spurt. The plucky little horse answered the call, gathered itself for the
home stretch, for a moment held its advantage. Again Bob Hart's yell
drifted to Sanders.
Then he knew that the bay was running side by side with Chiquito, was
slowly creeping to the front. The two horses raced down the stretch
together, Whiskey Bill half a length in the lead and gaining at every
stride. Daylight showed between them when they crossed the line.
Chiquito had been outrun by a speedier horse.

CHAPTER III
DAVE RIDES ON HIS SPURS
Hart came up to his friend grinning. "Well, you old horn-toad, we got
no kick comin'. Chiquito run a mighty pretty race. Only trouble was his
laigs wasn't long enough."
The owner of the pony nodded, a lump in his throat. He was not
thinking about his thirty-five dollars, but about the futile race into
which he had allowed his little beauty to be trapped. Dave would not be
twenty-one till coming grass, and it still hurt his boyish pride to think
that his favorite had been beaten.
Another lank range-rider drifted up. "Same here, Dave. I'll kiss my
twenty bucks good-bye cheerful. You 'n' the li'l hoss run the best race,
at that. Chiquito started like a bullet out of a gun, and say, boys! how
he did swing round on the turn."
"Much obliged, Steve. I reckon he sure done his best," said Sanders
gratefully.
The voice of George Doble cut in, openly and offensively jubilant. "Me,
I'd ruther show the way at the finish than at the start. You're more liable
to collect the mazuma. I'll tell you now that broomtail never had a
chance to beat Whiskey Bill."
"Yore hoss can run, seh," admitted Dave.
"I know it, but you don't. He didn't have to take the kinks out of his legs
to beat that plug."
"You get our money," said Hart quietly. "Ain't that enough without
rubbin' it in?"
"Sure I get yore money--easy money, at that," boasted Doble. "Got any
more you want to put up on the circus bronc?"

Steve Russell voiced his sentiments curtly. "You make me good and
tired, Doble. There's only one thing I hate more'n a poor loser--and
that's a poor winner. As for putting my money on the pinto, I'll just say
this: I'll bet my li'l' pile he can beat yore bay twenty miles, a hundred
miles, or five hundred."
"Not any, thanks. Whiskey Bill is a racer, not a mule team," Miller said,
laughing.
Steve loosened the center-fire cinch of his pony's saddle. He noted that
there was no real geniality in the fat man's mirth. It was a surface thing
designed to convey an effect of good-fellowship. Back of it lay the chill
implacability of the professional gambler.
The usual give-and-take of gay repartee was missing at supper that
night. Since they were of the happy-go-lucky, outdoor West it did not
greatly distress the D Bar Lazy R riders to lose part of their pay checks.
Even if it had, their spirits would have been unimpaired, for it is written
in their code that a man must take his punishment without whining.
What hurt was that they had been tricked, led like lambs to the killing.
None of them doubted now that the pack-horse of the gamblers was a