on the
Fourth of July that an Indian on a rough-looking buckskin pony had won,
over all the field that year, a purse containing five hundred dollars.
The whites, who had their racers set at naught, were ready for almost
any scheme that promised them revenge, and they made an ill-favoured and
sulky lot as they sat on the shady side of the movable saloon that
lingered still on the racing plain. Their eyes were pinched at the
corners with gazing at the sunlight, and their ragged beards were like
autumn grass. A horseman appeared in the distance, and ambled toward
them. This was a common enough sight, but the easy pace was pleasing to
the eye, and when he drew near these men of the saddle found a
horseman's pleasure in the clean-limbed steed so easily ridden.

"Guess it's the new preacher," said one with a laugh. "He's come down
from Cedar Mountain to save us from Hell, as if Hell could be any worse
than this."

Hartigan drew up to inquire the direction to a certain cabin and when he
learned the way he rode on.

"Looks to me like he would have made a cowboy, if they had ketched him
young."

"Do you see that horse? Ain't there some blood there?"

"Yes, there is," said Long Bill, "and it strikes me it is worth
following up. Let's have another look."

The group sauntered to where the Preacher was making a call and one of
them began:

"Say, mister, that's quite a horse you've got there; want to sell him?"

"No."

"Looks like a speeder."

"Yes, there's nothing in Cedar Mountain to touch him."

"Say, mister," said cattleman Kyle, "if he's a winner, here's your
chance to roll up a wad."

Hartigan stared and waited. The cult of the horse is very ancient, but
its ways are ever modern.

"You say he's a great speeder; will you try him against Kyle's horse?"
said Long Bill.

Jim looked a rebuff and shook his head.

"Oh, just a friendly race," the man went on; "Kyle thinks he has the
best American horse in town." And as various members of the party looked
more critically at Blazing Star and felt his limbs they became more
insistent.

When Jim had joined the Church, horse-racing was one of the deadly sins
he had abjured. So while he refused to enter a race, he was easily
persuaded to ride his horse against Kyle's for a friendly mile. Whether
begun as a race or not, it was in deadly earnest after the first fifty
yards and it proved just what they needed to know: that Kyle's horse,
which had been a good second best