"We're betting on you, Bud Oliver," came other shouts. The Texas men were not over-popular in Arizona, and yet it was a sportsmanlike crowd.
The babel of voices ceased sharply. A wiry little steer, red and white, shot into the field as if catapulted. Turk McGlory observed how like an antelope it ran—long-legged and as easily as the wind blows. The flag fell, and Bud was off; the judges riding after him were blurred in his dust. There was no roper like Bud. He waited long before raising his rope, bending close to his saddle and riding hard; then in what curious, loose, slow coils he swung it! Would he ride clean over his steer? There! he had reached out as if to catch the steer by the tail, and the rope had gone over his head like a hoop, horns and all. Now he was paying out to trip up the steer. How they were running! Turk McGlory rose suddenly in his saddle.
"Look out for the fence," he roared.
But Bud had seen it, too, and the little roan squatted like a rabbit. The steer, reaching the rope's end, doubled up and fell—but fell against the fence. There had not been quite room enough. Bud was off saddle, and the little roan, knowing well what was going on, walked away like a man, pulling hard on the rope to keep the steer down. If it had been a larger steer or a fatter one, there would have been no trouble; but this one fought like a cat, now on its knees, now on its feet. Bud seized it by the tail, and with a single fierce toss he laid it flat, then he tied—and arms up. Turk McGlory waited with hands clenched to hear the time.
"Fifty seconds."
So Bud was beaten by a second, and beaten because he didn't have a fair field. How the crowd howled for the Arizona champion. Bud came up smiling and unconcerned.
"Now, McGlory," he said, "you must make a showing for Texas."
"What am I offered on Turk McGlory against the field?" shouted the pool-seller. "Now's your last chance."
"Hurrah for the kid from Texas!" shouted other voices.
Turk McGlory was at the line, astonished to find himself coiling his rope with so much ease. He felt that he wasn't doing it himself, but that some one else was working in him. The sun blazed hot on the field, but everything seemed dim and indistinct. To him all the voices kept shouting: