"Oh, no, you can't work me like that, Cap. They were five feet apart when the flag fell."
"I tell yer I see it with my own eyes. 'Twas a foul, an' I claim ther race, er it hez got ter be run over ag'in."
"Never, on yer life. The race goes to the young lady. But I'm not going to stand here and chew the thing over with you. It's up to the judges."
They all approached the judges' stand, where apparently a lively argument was in progress.
Ben and the big man who had been chosen by Norris were talking excitedly, and the other man was listening.
All about the stand an angry crowd of men was surging, all talking at once, so that nothing could be made out of the babel of shouts, except when some person with unusually good lungs made himself heard in a denunciation of one or the other riders.
Ted had joined the crowd, waiting for the arrival of Bud and Stella. Bud was walking by the side of Stella, whose face showed the disappointment she felt at not being declared at once the winner.
It was so evidently a job to steal the race from Hatrack that the leader of the broncho boys was both angry and disgusted.
"This is what you get for having anything to do with this mob of gamblers and thieves," he said to Kit, who was standing by his side.
"What's that you said, young feller?" said a man, edging up.