"Some one said that you were going to start things with a purse of five hundred," remarked Hume. "I don't do business on that scale. I'll lay you an even thousand."
"I'm pretty close up right now," was Shandon's answer. "I've spent a good bit lately and I don't want to sacrifice any more cattle. But—"
"Oh, well," laughed Hume, "it doesn't make any difference. I thought that you might have a little sporting blood, you know. You must have done a lot of talking, Shandon."
"—but," Shandon went on, his voice raised to cut into the other's jibe, "I can sell a few cows if necessary. And while I'm doing it it is just as easy to raise five thousand as one."
"Oho!" cried Hume. "Little Saxon is proving up, eh?"
"Little Saxon can beat his brother Endymion any day in the week in the sort of race we're going to run. It's going to be ten miles, across country, across the damndest country you ever saw, Sledge Hume! It's going to be a distance race and an endurance race. And since it's going to be here in the West it's going to be Western. I don't care if you run or don't run and I don't care if it is for five cents or for five thousand dollars."
There crept into Sledge Hume's cold eyes a look of such shrewdness that Shandon was struck by it then, and remembered it long afterward.
"When I go into a deal," was Hume's swift answer, "it's because there's something in it. You put up your five thousand if you're so cocksure, and put it up now and I'll cover it! With one thoroughly understood provision, Shandon. The man who comes in first at the end of that ten miles, be it you or me, gets the money. There's going to be no chance to get cold feet and pull out. If you don't ride at all, if you get scared and decide to get sick or break a leg to save five thousand, I ride alone and get it just the same. Remember I didn't ride over this morning for love of racing or for love of anything else; I saw a chance for some money, easy money."
"Draw up an agreement to that effect," answered Shandon, a darkening of his eyes showing that Hume's taunt had stung. "I'll sign it. Find a trustworthy man to hold stakes and I'll put up my five thousand within ten days after you put yours up. Is that satisfactory?"
Hume answered that it was, and named two or three men in El Toyon as possible stake holders. When he mentioned Charlie Granger, proprietor of the El Toyon hotel, Shandon said curtly,