"What are you tryin' to hand us?" roared Gallagher.
Still Bill was quick to take a cue. "Don't get hectic!" said he. "There's nothin' in the articles about runnin' straight. Let 'em run around the corral." But at this suggestion every voice seemed to break out simultaneously.
"Humpy Joe ran straightaway," declared Gallagher.
"Yes, an' he kept at it," piped Willie. "I favor the idea of them runners comin' back where they start from."
"Listen, all of you," Speed announced. "I am going to run around and around and around this corral. If Mr. Skinner chooses to accompany me, he may trail along; otherwise I shall run alone."
"Never heerd of such a thing!" Gallagher was dancing in his excitement, but Skinner calmed him by announcing, curtly:
"I'll beat him any way he wants to run."
"You couldn't beat a rug," retorted Wally, and Glass suddenly smote his palms together, crying, blankly:
"I forgot the rug!"
"We don't want no arg'ment afterwards. Does the Centipede accept its fate?" Still Bill glared at the faces ringed about him.