aight into the eyes of Carolyn June as he finished the
contemptuous quotation of her words, spoken the day before at the
corral. She flushed, but gazed back at him without flinching. "Well," he
continued, "I reckon you'll get your wish--th' maverick is goin' to run
against th' Vermejo horse!"

"The Fourth of July is a week from next Wednesday," Charley said
calculatingly. "The Rodeo starts on Tuesday, the roping and bucking
finals come on Thursday. That makes the big race come Friday--a week
from next Friday, ain't it?"

"That's right," Bert concurred. "Th' Ramblin' Kid's got nearly two weeks
to get the maverick in shape."

"Nothing will be in shape for anything," Old Heck broke in, getting up
from the table, "unless we move around and get things ready to begin the
beef round-up to-morrow morning. Some of you boys will have to bring in
those saddle horses from across the river. Each one of you can ride your
regular 'string' this year"--alluding to the term used to designate the
group of several horses used exclusively by each individual rider
working on a round-up. "Skinny won't be with you, but you'd better take
his horses along for extras. Parker can be getting the grub-wagon in
shape--I reckon you'll have to work Old Tom and Baldy on it. Sing Pete
ought to be able to handle them."

"Where do we start in?" Charley asked as they went toward the barn.

"Over in the Battle Ridge country," Old Heck answered, "and work
everything east of the big pasture first. It'll take just about a week
to clean up that side--it's pretty rough riding over there. Then you can
finish the west end after the Rodeo is over."

"What all you aiming to gather?" Bert queried.

"Everything above a three-year-old," Old Heck replied in a businesslike
way; "pick up the dry cows, too, if they're fat enough. Prices are
better than usual and I want to sell pretty close on account of that
storm knocking the hay the way it did the other night. There'll be three
hundred and fifty or four hundred good beef critters on the east range.
You ought to have them bunched and in the big pasture by Saturday night.
Then, until the Rodeo is over you can all do what you darn' please--"

"I know what I'm going to do," Chuck laughed.

"What?" Bert asked.

"Draw all my wages, borrow all I can, and make a clean-up on that Y-Bar
outfit on the race between the Gold Dust maverick and Thunderbolt!" he
exclaimed vindictively.

"Probably there will be some of the re