The look on Childress' face was so akin to genuine surprise that Ethel Andress had difficulty in disbelieving it, although she knew it could not be real. "He adds fine acting to his many other accomplishments," she reflected bitterly. "What a pity he couldn't have been a real man."
"Circumstances beyond his control, eh?" repeated Childress. "Well, now, that's sure too bad. Silver and I don't want any runaway money, do we, boy?" He stroked the stallion's satiny neck meditatively. "Tell you what I'll do; I've got another horse down in the paddock that looks as if he'd be a fit match for the silver one here. I'll lend him to Fitzrapp, and we'll have a race anyway, so long as we're all here."
"Rediculous!" cried the Rafter A manager. "Race against a man with his own horse! Who ever heard of such a thing?"
The other horsemen smiled at the odd proposal.
"Wait until you've seen the horse before you decide," urged Childress. "He sure looks like a winner, and I feel this morning as if nothing but a horse race would satisfy my appetite. Running Silver against time isn't ever going to do it."
He turned to the little Irishman. "Mahaffy, suppose you go back to the stable and bring up my new horse."
While they waited, he entered unconcernedly into the conversation, which was centered upon the fine points of the silver beast. Looking at him and listening to him, the widow could not comprehend how he managed to maintain such poise, considering the strain under which he must be laboring. Nor could she see by what possible expedient he hoped to carry off his effrontery.
Standing a little to one side of the group about the stallion, she was the first to sight the horse which Mahaffy was leading from the paddock. For a moment she stared in silence; then an amazed cry sprang from her lips.
"Look, Tom! Look! There's Canada. The man's bringing on your stolen horse!"
They all turned and saw that the wrangler was advancing with a horse they knew—Canada, the prize-winning black stallion that Thomas Fitzrapp had exhibited so often.