ost under her window and
rolled a cigarette, quite withdrawn from the crowd which was working
over his victim.

Marianne began to feel that all she had seen was an ordinary chapter in
his life; yet in the mere crossing of that street he had lost his spurs
on a bet; saved a youngster from death at the risk of his own head,
battled with a monster and now rolled a cigarette cheerily complacent.
If fifty feet of his life made such a story what must a year of it be?

As though he felt her wonder above him, he raised his head in the act of
lighting his cigarette and Marianne was looking down into bright,
whimsical blue eyes. She was utterly unconscious of it at the moment but
at the sight of that happy face and all the dust-dimmed finery of the
cavalier, Marianne involuntarily smiled. She knew what she had done the
moment he grinned in response and began to whistle, and whistle he did,
keeping the rhythm with the sway of his head:

"At the end of the trail I'll be weary riding
But Mary will wait with a smile at the door;
The spurs and the bit had been chinking and chiding
But the end of the trail--"

Marianne stepped back from the window with the blood tingling in her
face. She was terribly ashamed, for some reason, because she knew the
words of that song.

"A cowpuncher--actually _whistling_ at me!" she muttered, "I've never
known a red-headed man who wasn't insolent!"

The whistling died out, a clear-ringing baritone began a new air:

"Oh, father, father William, I've seen your daughter dear.
Will you trade her for the brindled cow and the yellow steer?
And I'll throw in my riding boots and...."

Marianne slammed down the window. A moment later she was horrified to
find herself smiling.

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING FIGHTERS

The race-track had come into existence by grace of accident for it
happened that a lane ran a ragged course about a big field taking the
corners without pretense of making true curves, with almost an
elbow-turn into the straightaway; but since the total distance around was
over a mile it was called the "track." The sprints were run on the
straightaway which was more than the necessary quarter of a mile but
occasionally there was a longer race and then the field had to take that
dangerous circuit, sloppy and slippery with dust. The land enclosed was
used for the bucking contest, for the two crowning events of the
Glosterville fiesta, the race and the horse-breaking, had been