n to bet!"

"Bostil, I 'most forgot," went on Brackton, "Cordts sent word by the
Piutes who come to-day thet he'd be here sure."

Bostil's face subtly changed. The light seemed to leave it. He did not
reply to Brackton--did not show that he heard the comment on all sides.
Public opinion was against Bostil's permission to allow Cordts and his
horse-thieves to attend the races. Bostil appeared grave, regretful.
Yet it was known by all that in the strangeness and perversity of his
rider's nature he wanted Cordts to see the King win that race. It was
his rider's vanity and defiance in the teeth of a great horse-thief.
But no good would come of Cordts's presence--that much was manifest.

There was a moment of silence. All these men, if they did not fear
Bostil, were sometimes uneasy when near him. Some who were more
reckless than discreet liked to irritate him. That, too, was a rider's
weakness.

"When's Creech's hosses comin' over?" asked Colson, with sudden
interest.

"Wal, I reckon--soon," replied Bostil, constrainedly, and he turned
away.

By the time he got home all the excitement of the past hour had left
him and gloom again abided in his mind. He avoided his daughter and
forgot the fact of her entering a horse in the race. He ate supper
alone, without speaking to his sister. Then in the dusk he went out to
the corrals and called the King to the fence. There was love between
master and horse. Bostil talked low, like a woman, to Sage King. And
the hard old rider's heart was full and a lump swelled in his throat,
for contact with the King reminded him that other men loved other
horses.

Bostil returned to the house and went to his room, where he sat
thinking in the dark. By and by all was quiet. Then seemingly with a
wrench he bestirred himself and did what for him was a strange action.
Removing his boots, he put on a pair of moccasins. He slipped out of
the house; he kept to the flagstone of the walk; he took to the sage
till out of the village, and then he sheered round to the river trail.
With the step and sureness and the eyes of an Indian he went down
through that pitch-black canyon to the river and the ford.

The river seemed absolutely the same as during the day. He peered
through the dark opaqueness of gloom. It moved there, the river he
knew, shadowy, mysterious, murmuring. Bostil went down to the edge of
the water, and, sitting there, he listened. Yes--the voices of the
stream were the same. But afte