se to put agin him. Dave, he won't
crowd ye fur a race, boy. You kin refuse to run yore horse agin him,
like the rest has done. I'll jest lope along t'day and see what yours
kin do."

"Well, all right, then." Bud waited for the old man to ride ahead down
the obscure trail that wound through the brush for half a mile or so
before they emerged into the rough border of the creek bed. Pop reined
in close and explained garrulously to Bud how this particular stream
disappeared into the ground two miles above Little Lost, leaving the
wide, level river bottom bone dry.

Pop was cautious. He rode up to a rise of ground and scanned the country
suspiciously before he led the way into the creek bed. Even then he kept
close under the bank until they had passed two of the quarter-mile posts
that had been planted in the hard sand.

Evidently he had been doing a good deal of thinking during the ride;
certainly he had watched Smoky. When he stopped under the bank opposite
the half-mile post he dismounted more spryly than one would have
expected. His eyes were bright, his voice sharp. Pop was forgetting his
age.

"I guess I'll ride yore horse m'self," he announced, and they exchanged
horses under the shelter of the bank. "You kin take an' ride Boise-an'
I want you should beat me if you kin." He looked at Bud appraisingly.
"I'll bet a dollar," he cried suddenly, "that I kin outrun ye, young
feller! An' you got the fastest horse in Burroback Valley and I don't
know what I got under me. I'm seventy years old come September--when I'm
afoot. Are ye afraid to bet?"

"I'm scared a dollar's worth that I'll never see you again to-day unless
I ride back to find you," Bud grinned.

"Any time you lose ole Pop Truman--shucks almighty! Come on, then--I'll
show ye the way to the quarter-post!"

"I'm right with you, Pop. You say so, and I'm gone!"

They reined in with the shadow of the post falling square across the
necks of both horses. Pop gathered up the reins, set his feet in the
stirrups and shrilled, "Go, gol darn ye!"

They went, like two scared rabbits down the smooth, yellow stretch of
packed sand. Pop's elbows stuck straight out, he held the reins high
and leaned far over Smoky's neck, his eyes glaring. Bud--oh, never worry
about Bud! In the years that lay between thirteen and twenty-one Bud
had learned a good many things, and one of them was how to get out of a
horse all the speed there was in him.

They went past the quarter-pos