adies' Riding Contest, Fireworks, AND
FREE BARBECUE!!!! EVERYBODY COME AND TURN YOUR WOLF LOOSE.

A sudden thud of pounding hoofs, a snatch of ragtime, and her foreman
swept up in a cloud of white dust. His pony came from a gallop to an
instant halt, and simultaneously Mac landed beside her, one hand holding
the wide-brimmed hat he had snatched off in his descent, the other
hitched by a casual thumb to the belt of his chaps.

She laughed. "You really did it very well."

Mac blushed. He was still young enough to take pride in his picturesque
regalia, to prefer the dramatic way of doing a commonplace thing. But,
though he liked this girl's trick of laughing at him with a perfectly
grave face out of those dark, long-lashed eyes, he would have liked
it better if sometimes they had given back the applause he thought his
little tricks merited.

"Sho! That's foolishness," he deprecated.

"I suppose they got you to sit for this picture;" and she indicated the
poster with a wave of her hand.

"That ain't a real picture," he explained, and when she smiled added,
"as of course y'u know. No hawss ever pitched that way--and the saddle
ain't right. Fact is, it's all wrong."

"How did it come here? It wasn't here last night."

"I reckon Denver brought it from Slauson's. He was ridin' that country
yesterday, and as the boys was out of smokin' he come home that way."

"I suppose you'll all go?"

"I reckon."

"And you'll ride?"

"I aim to sit in."

"At the roping, too?"

"No, m'm. I ain't so much with the rope. It takes a Mexican to snake a
rope."

"Then I'll be able to borrow only a thousand dollars from you to help
buy that bunch of young cows we were speaking about," she mocked.

"Only a thousand," he grinned. "And it ain't a cinch I'll win. There are
three or four straightup riders on this range. A fellow come from the
Hole-in-the-Wall and won out last year."

"And where were you?"

"Oh, I took second prize," he explained, with obvious indifference.

"Well, you had better get first this year. We'll have to show them the
Lazy D hasn't gone to sleep."

"Sure thing," he agreed.

"Has that buyer from Cheyenne turned up yet?" she asked, reverting to
business.

"Not yet. Do y'u want I should make the cut soon as he comes?"

"Don't you think his price is a little low--twenty dollars from brand
up?"

"It's a scrub bunch. We want to get rid of them, anyway. But you're the
doctor," he concluded slangily.

She