"No, no! Not you! Me! I must win!" Speed clutched his caller desperately.
"All right, I'll frame anything; but I can't run any slower than
I did with Joe and make a live of it. They'd shoot us both."
"But there's a girl in this-a girl I love. It means more than mere life."
Skinner was plainly becoming nervous at the length of the interview.
"Couldn't you fall down?" inquired the younger man, timidly.
The cook laughed derisively. "I could fall down twice and beat you in fifteen." After an instant's thought:
"Say, there's one chance, if we don't run straight away. There's a corral out where we race; you insist on running around it, see? There's nothing in the articles about straight-aways. That'll kid 'em on the time. If I get too far ahead, I'll fall down."
"B-but will you stay down? Till I catch up?"
"Sure! Leave it to me."
"You won't forget, or anything like that?"