The effort lay in the fact that the ride must be made before a group of critical and interested spectators and with other contestants.
Jeanette glanced toward her stepmother. How undisturbed she appeared, as if the race ahead of them was only the most ordinary amusement, of no greater or less importance than any game played with friends!
A moment Jeanette envied her coolness and then felt a sense of pity. This it must mean to grow old. One felt neither enthusiasm nor excitement. One should not envy such a state of mind or being.
When their race was announced Jeanette noticed her stepmother lean over and whisper to her father. He nodded and smiled, but never lost his grave, almost anxious air.
Jeanette only waved her hand to him in farewell.
He did not go down with them, where their horses were in waiting. John Marshall and Cecil Perry were their escorts.
The fourteen contestants stood laughing and talking together, Jeanette appearing like a little girl among them.
"You deserve to win, Jeanette, for your courage," Mrs. Markham, one of Jeanette's old friends, murmured. "I am afraid with your stepmother as a rival, none of us has a chance. I have never ridden with her, but have always been told she was the best horsewoman in Wyoming."
Jeanette happily had no chance to reply. A bell was ringing and a moment after they stood listening to the rules of their race.
The prize would be awarded the first rider who reached the goal on the opposite side of the field and returned across the same course. There was to be no avoiding of the ditches and fences. The riders were not to impede one another beyond the rules which they understood.