“I refuse pointblank,” he answered, smiling, “to accept any excuse for your wearing the badge. I insist it was a compliment to me and shall interpret it in no other way.”
Her blush deepened, but she made no further protest. General Holden had approached. She turned and took his arm.
“Until tomorrow then,” exclaimed Roderick, raising his hat to both father and daughter.
“Until tomorrow,” she quietly responded.
The morrow brought resumption of the tournament. Gail Holden was to display her prowess in throwing the lariat, while Roderick had entered his name in the bull-dogging event.
In the roping contest Gail was the only lady contestant. The steers were given a hundred feet of start, and then the ropers, swinging their lariats, started after them in a mad gallop.
Gail was again mounted on Fleet foot, and if anything ever looked like attempting an impossibility it was for this slender girl with her neatly gloved little hands, holding a lariat in the right and the reins of the pony in her left, to endeavor to conquer and hogtie a three-year-old steer on the run. And yet, undismayed she undertook to accomplish this very thing. When the word was given she dashed after the fleeing three-year-old, and then as if by magic the lariat sprang away from her in a graceful curve and fell cleverly over the horns of the steer. Immediately Fleetfoot set himself for the shock he well knew was coming.
The steer’s momentum was so suddenly arrested that it was thrown to the ground. Gail sprang from the saddle, and the trained pony as he backed away kept the lariat taut. Thus was the steer hogtied by Gail’s slender hands in 55 3/5 seconds from the time the word was given.
All of the lassoers had been more or less successful, but the crowd stood up and yelled in wildest enthusiasm, and waved their hats and handkerchiefs, as the time for this marvelous feat by Gail was announced from the judges’ stand.
In the afternoon the bull-dogging contest was reached, and Grant Jones said to those about him: “Now get ready for some thrills and breathless moments.”