"I'm tryin' to remember somethin' I heerd at the Ford. I meant to ask you—" Suddenly he turned to her with animation. He who had been so gloomy and lusterless and dead showed a bright eagerness. "I heerd you beat the King on a red hoss—a wild hoss! ... Thet must have been a joke—like one of Joel's."
"No. It's true. An' Dad nearly had a fit!"
"Wal!" Creech simply blazed with excitement. "I ain't wonderin' if he did. His own girl! Lucy, come to remember, you always said you'd beat thet gray racer.... Fer the Lord's sake tell me all about it."
Lucy warmed to him because, broken as he was, he could be genuinely glad some horse but his own had won a race. Bostil could never have been like that. So Lucy told him about the race—and then she had to tell about Wildfire, and then about Slone. But at first all of Creech's interest centered round Wildfire and the race that had not really been run. He asked a hundred questions. He was as pleased as a boy listening to a good story. He praised Lucy again and again. He crowed over Bostil's discomfiture. And when Lucy told him that Slone had dared her father to race, had offered to bet Wildfire and his own life against her hand, then Creech was beside himself.
"This hyar Slone—he CALLED Bostil's hand!"
"He's a wild-horse hunter. And HE can trail us!"
"Trail us! Slone? Say, Lucy, are you in love with him?"
Lucy uttered a strange little broken sound, half laugh, half sob. "Love him! Ah!"
"An' your Dad's ag'in him! Sure Bostil'll hate any rider with a fast hoss. Why didn't the darn fool sell his stallion to your father?"
"He gave Wildfire to me."