A thrill of dismay passed through Matt's nerves. Half-past eleven and the bicycle-race, the last event on the list, was to be at four o'clock! Only four hours and a half! And there was Matt, a prisoner, and twenty miles from Phœnix!
"You seem to be a pretty good fellow," said Matt eagerly, "and why is it you can help Hawley in this cool villainy of his? That bicycle-race means a lot to me! I don't know how much Hawley is paying you to keep me here, but if you will let me go, and give me a few weeks to pay it, I will double the money."
The cowboy shook his head. "I'm some pecooliar, thataway," he observed. "When I give my word I'll do a thing, you can bank on it I'm right thar with the goods. Now, if ye had a million, which it ain't in reason a boy yore age would have, an' if ye offered me half of it, I'd shore spurn yer money. When I hire out I goes ter the highest bidder, an' I sticks thar like a wood-tick ter a yaller dog. Sorry, bub, but that's the way I stack up."
There was no beating down the cowboy's resistance. He was there to do the work Hawley had paid him for, and nothing could swerve him from what he believed to be his duty.
Apparently not caring to have any further conversation with Matt, the cowboy began walking back and forth in the room, whistling to himself and now and then humming a snatch of song. Finally he sat down, picked up his coiled riata and began braiding the brushy end of the rope and overlaying it with twine.
The minutes passed. For a time Matt tried to count them, his heart all the while growing heavier and heavier. This was a time when it was hard indeed to be a "good loser."
There was a tremendous rivalry between the two athletic clubs—a rivalry in which the separate towns that claimed them took active part. In the contests the year before the Prescott club had got the better of the Phœnix club in the matter of points. Phœnix had won the one-mile dash, the broad jump, the bicycle-race and the hammer-throw, but Prescott had cleaned up all the other events. Matt knew how eager the major was to have Phœnix get the better of the rival town, and the loss of the bicycle-race, which counted high in the final summing-up, might turn the scale in favor of Prescott.
In his mind, as he lay helpless there on the floor of that abandoned jacal, the boy pictured the throngs of people moving along Washington Street toward the park. He heard the horns, the megaphones, the band, and he saw the white and blue of Phœnix High waving defiance to the red and white of Prescott High. Above everything came the school yells, and he stifled the groan that rose to his lips. He ought to be there, and he was twenty miles away! Yes, it was hard to be a good loser.
The cowboy must have divined something of what was going on in Matt's mind, for, as he laid aside his repaired riata and got up, he looked toward Matt.
"I'm sorry, bub, honest," said he, "but thar ain't a pesky thing I kin do except watch ye till sundown. Why, I ain't even got a hoss here. It's clost to two o'clock, now, an' if ye was loose ye couldn't git ter Phœnix in time fer that bicycle-race."