and later would chafe at the justice of a verdict
not to be denied.

Ned Bannister rose from his seat beside Helen. "Wish me luck," he said,
with his gay smile.

"I wish you all the luck you deserve," she answered.

"Oh, wish me more than that if y'u want me to win."

"I didn't say I wanted you to win. You take the most unaccountable
things for granted."

"I've a good mind to win, then, just to spite y'u," he laughed.

"As if you could," she mocked; but her voice took a softer intonation as
she called after him in a low murmur: "Be careful, please."

His white teeth flashed a smile of reassurance at her. "I've never been
killed yet."

"Ned Bannister on Steamboat," sang out the megaphone man.

"I'm ce'tainly in luck. Steamboat's the worst hawss on the range," he
told himself, as he strode down the grand stand to enter the arena.

The announcement of his name created for the second time that day a stir
of unusual interest. Everybody in that large audience had heard of Ned
Bannister; knew of his record as a "bad man" and his prowess as the king
of the Shoshone country; suspected him of being a train and bank robber
as well as a rustler. That he should have the boldness to enter the
contest in his own name seemed to show how defiant he was of the public
sentiment against him, and how secure he counted himself in flaunting
this contempt. As for the sheepman, the notoriety that his cousin's
odorous reputation had thrust upon him was extremely distasteful as well
as dangerous, but he had done nothing to disgrace his name, and he meant
to use it openly. He could almost catch the low whispers that passed
from mouth to mouth about him.

"Ain't it a shame that a fellow like that, leader of all the criminals
that hide in the mountains, can show himself openly before ten thousand
honest folks?" That he knew to be the purport of their whispering, and
along with it went a recital of the crimes he had committed. How he
was a noted "waddy," or cattle-rustler; how he and his gang had held
up three trains in eighteen months; how he had killed Tom Mooney, Bob
Carney and several others--these were the sorts of things that were
being said about him, and from the bottom of his soul he resented his
impotency to clear his name.

There was something in Bannister's riding that caught Helen's fancy at
once. It was the unconscious grace of the man, the ease with which he
seemed to make himself a very part of the horse. He attempted n