CHAPTER 14. FOR THE WORLD'S CHAMPIONSHIP
The scene on which Helen Messiter's eyes rested that mellow Fourth ofJuly was vivid enough to have interested a far more jaded mind thanhers. Nowhere outside of Cattleland could it have been duplicated.Wyoming is sparsely populated, but the riders of the plains thinknothing of traveling a hundred miles in the saddle to be present at a"broncobusting" contest. Large delegations, too, had come in by railroadfrom Caspar, Billings, Sheridan, Cheyenne and a score of other points,so that the amphitheatre that looked down on the arena was filled to itscapacity.
All night the little town had rioted with its guests. Everything waswide open at Gimlet Butte. Saloons were doing a land-office business andgambling-houses coining money. Great piles of gold had passed to and froduring the night at the roulette wheel and the faro table. But with thecoming of day interest had centered on the rough-riding contest for theworld's championship. Saloons and dance halls were deserted, and theuniversal trend of travel had been toward the big grand stands, fromwhich the sport could be best viewed.
It was afternoon now. The preliminaries had been ridden, and half adozen of the best riders had been chosen by the judges to ride againfor the finals. Helen was wonderfully interested, because in the six whowere to ride again were included the two Bannister cousins, her foreman,McWilliams, the young man "Texas," whom she had met the day of herarrival at Gimlet Butte, and Tom Sanford, who had last year won thechampionship.
She looked down on the arena, and her heart throbbed with the purejoy of life. Already she loved her West and its picturesque, chap-cladpopulation. Their jingling spurs and their colored kerchiefs knottedround sunburned necks, their frank, whole-hearted abandon to theinterest of the moment, led her to regard these youths as schoolboys.Yet they were a hard-bitten lot, as one could see, burned to a brick-redby the untempered sun of the Rockies; with muscles knit like steel,and hearts toughened to endure any blizzard they might meet. Only thehumorous wrinkles about the corners of their eyes gave them away for thecheerful sons of mirth that they were.
"Bob Austin on Two-Step," announced the megaphone man, and a little stireddied through the group gathered at the lane between the arena and thecorral.
A meek-looking buckskin was driven into the arena. The embodiment oflistlessness, it apparently had not ambition enough to flick a fly fromits flank with its tail. Suddenly the bronco's ears pricked, its sharpeyes dilated. A man was riding forward, the loop of a lariat circlingabout his head. The rope fell true, but the wily pony side-stepped, andthe loop slithered to the ground. Again the rope shot forward, droppedover the pony's head and tightened. The roper's mustang braced itsforefeet, and brought the buckskin up short. Another rope swept over itshead. It stood trembling, unable to move without strangling itself.
A picturesque youth in flannel shirt and chaps came forward, draggingblanket, saddle and bridle. At sight of him the horse gave a spasmodicfling, then trembled again violently. A blind was coaxed over its eyesand the bridle slipped on. Quickly and warily, with deft fingers, theyoung man saddled and cinched. He waved a hand jauntily to the ropers.The lariats were thrown off as the puncher swung to the saddle. For aninstant the buckskin stood bewildered, motionless as a statue. There wasa sudden leap forward high in air, and Bob Austin, alias "Texas," swunghis sombrero with a joyous whoop.
"Fan him! Fan him!" screamed the spectators, and the rider's quirt wentup and down like a piston-rod.
Round and round went Two-Step in a vicious circle, "swapping ends" withdizzying rapidity. Suddenly he went forward as from a catapult, and cameto sudden halt in about five seconds. But Texas's knees still clung,viselike, to the sides of the pony. A series of quick bucks followed,the buckskin coming down with back humped, all four legs stiff as ironposts. The jar on the rider would have been like a pile-driver fallingon his head had he not let himself grow limp. The buckskin plungedforward again in frenzied leaps, ending in an unexpected jump to oneside. Alas for Texas! One moment he was jubilantly plying quirt andspurs, the next he found himself pitching sideways. To save himself hecaught at the saddle-horn.
"He's hunting leather," shouted a hundred voices.
One of the judges rode out and waved a hand. Texas slipped to the grounddisqualified, and made his dejected way back to his deriding comrades.Some of them had endured similar misfortunes earlier in the day.Therefore they found much pleasure in condoling with him.
"If he'd only recollected to saw off the horn of his saddle, thenhe couldn't 'a' found it when he went to hunt leather," mournfullycommented one puncher in a shirt of robin's egg blue.
"'Twould have been most as good as to take the dust, wouldn't it?"retorted Texas gently, and the laugh was on the gentleman in blue,because he had been thrown earlier in the day.
"A fellow's hands sure get in his way sometimes. I reckon if you'd tiedyour hands, Tex, you'd been riding that rocking-hawss yet," suggestedDenver amiably.
"Sometimes it's his foot he puts in it. There was onct a gentdisqualified for riding on his spurs," said Texas reminiscently.
At which hit Denver retired, for not three hours before he had beendetected digging his spurs into the cinch to help him stick to thesaddle.
"Jim McWilliams will ride Dead Easy," came the announcement through themegaphone, and a burst of cheering passed along the grand stand, for thesunny smile of the foreman of the Lazy D made him a general favorite.Helen leaned forward and whispered something gaily to Nora, who sat inthe seat in front of her. The Irish girl laughed and blushed, but whenher mistress looked up it was her turn to feel the mounting color creepinto her cheeks. For Ned Bannister, arrayed in all his riding finery,was making his way along the aisle to her.
She had not seen him since he had ridden away from the Lazy D ten daysbefore, quite sufficiently recovered from his wounds to take up theroutine of life again. They had parted not the best of friends, for shehad not yet forgiven him for his determination to leave with his cousinon the night that she had been forced to insist on his remaining. He hadput her in a false position, and he had never explained to her why. Norcould she guess the reason--for he was not a man to harvest credit forhimself by explaining his own chivalry.
Since her heart told her how glad she was he had come to her box to seeher, she greeted him with the coolest little nod in the world.
"Good morning, Miss Messiter. May I sit beside y'u?" he asked.
"Oh, certainly!" She swept her skirts aside carelessly and made room forhim. "I thought you were going to ride soon."
"No, I ride last except for Sanford, the champion. My cousin rides justbefore me. He's entered under the name of Jack Holloway."
She was thinking that he had no business to be riding, that his woundswere still too fresh, but she did not intend again to show interestenough in his affairs to interfere even by suggestion. Her heart hadbeen in her mouth every moment of the time this morning while he hadbeen tossed hither and thither on the back of his mount. In his deliriumhe had said he loved her. If he did, why should he torture her so? Itwas well enough for sound men to risk their lives, but--
A cheer swelled in the grand stand and died breathlessly away.McWilliams was setting a pace it would take a rare expert to equal. Hewas a trick rider, and all the spectacular feats that appealed to theonlooker were his. While his horse was wildly pitching, he drank abottle of pop and tossed the bottle away. With the reins in his teethhe slipped off his coat and vest, and concluded a splendid exhibition ofskill by riding with his feet out of the stirrups. He had been smoking acigar when he mounted. Except while he had been drinking the pop it hadbeen in his mouth from beginning to end, and, after he had vaulted fromthe pony's back, he deliberately puffed a long smoke-spiral into theair, to show that his cigar was still alight. No previous rider hadearned so spontaneous a burst of applause. "He's ce'tainly a pure whenit comes to riding," acknowledged Bannister. "I look to see him geteither first or second."
"Whom do you think is his most dangerous rival?" Helen asked.
"My cousin is a stra
ight-up rider, too. He's more graceful than Mac, Ithink, but not quite so good on tricks. It will be nip and tuck."
"How about your cousin's cousin?" she asked, with bold irony.
"He hopes he won't have to take the dust," was his laughing answer.
The next rider suffered defeat irrevocably before he had been thirtyseconds in the saddle. His mount was one of the most cunning of theoutlaw ponies of the Northwest, and it brought him to grief by jamminghis leg hard against the fence. He tried in vain to spur the bronco intothe middle of the arena, but after it drove at a post for the third timeand ground his limb against it, he gave up to the pain and slipped off.
"That isn't fair, is it?" Helen asked of the young man sitting besideher.
He shrugged his lean, broad shoulders. "He should have known how to keepthe horse in the open. Mac would never have been caught that way."
"Jack Holloway on Rocking Horse," the announcer shouted.
It took four men and two lariats to subdue this horse to a conditionsufficiently tame to permit of a saddle being slipped on. Even then thiscould not be accomplished without throwing the bronco first. The resultwas that all the spirit was taken out of the animal by the preliminaryordeal, so that when the man from the Shoshone country mounted, hissteed was too jaded to attempt resistance.
"Thumb him! Thumb him!" the audience cried, referring to the cowboytrick of running the thumbs along a certain place in the shoulder tostir the anger of the bucker.
But the rider slipped off with disgust. "Give me another horse," hedemanded, and after a minute's consultation among the judges a secondpony was driven out from the corral. This one proved to be a Tartar. Itwent off in a frenzy of pitching the moment its rider dropped into thesaddle.
"Y'u'll go a long way before you see better ridin' than his and Mac's.Notice how he gives to its pitching," said Bannister, as he watched hiscousin's perfect ease in the cyclone of which he was the center.
"I expect it depends on the kind of a 'hawss,'" she mocked. "He's ridingwell, isn't he?"
"I don't know any that ride better."
The horse put up a superb fight, trying everything it knew to unseatthis demon clamped to its back. It possessed in combination all theworst vices, was a weaver, a sunfisher and a fence-rower, and neverhad it tried so desperately to maintain its record of never havingbeen ridden. But the outlaw in the saddle was too much for the outlawunderneath. He was master, just as he was first among the ruffians whomhe led, because there was in him a red-hot devil of wickedness thatwould brook no rival.
The furious bronco surrendered without an instant's warning, and itsrider slipped at once to the ground. As he sauntered through the dusttoward the grand stand, Helen could not fail to see how his vanitysunned itself in the applause that met his performance. His equipmentwas perfect to the least detail. The reflection from a lady'slooking-glass was no brighter than the silver spurs he jingled on hissprightly heels. Strikingly handsome in a dark, sinister way, one wouldsay at first sight, and later would chafe at the justice of a verdictnot 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 unaccountablethings 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 asshe called after him in a low murmur: "Be careful, please."
His white teeth flashed a smile of reassurance at her. "I've never beenkilled yet."
"Ned Bannister on Steamboat," sang out the megaphone man.
"I'm ce'tainly in luck. Steamboat's the worst hawss on the range," hetold 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 stirof unusual interest. Everybody in that large audience had heard of NedBannister; knew of his record as a "bad man" and his prowess as the kingof the Shoshone country; suspected him of being a train and bank robberas well as a rustler. That he should have the boldness to enter thecontest in his own name seemed to show how defiant he was of the publicsentiment against him, and how secure he counted himself in flauntingthis contempt. As for the sheepman, the notoriety that his cousin'sodorous reputation had thrust upon him was extremely distasteful as wellas dangerous, but he had done nothing to disgrace his name, and he meantto use it openly. He could almost catch the low whispers that passedfrom mouth to mouth about him.
"Ain't it a shame that a fellow like that, leader of all the criminalsthat hide in the mountains, can show himself openly before ten thousandhonest folks?" That he knew to be the purport of their whispering, andalong with it went a recital of the crimes he had committed. How hewas a noted "waddy," or cattle-rustler; how he and his gang had heldup three trains in eighteen months; how he had killed Tom Mooney, BobCarney and several others--these were the sorts of things that werebeing said about him, and from the bottom of his soul he resented hisimpotency to clear his name.
There was something in Bannister's riding that caught Helen's fancy atonce. It was the unconscious grace of the man, the ease with which heseemed to make himself a very part of the horse. He attempted no tricks,rode without any flourishes. But the perfect poise of his lithe body asit gave with the motions of the horse, proclaimed him a born rider; sofinished, indeed, that his very ease seemed to discount the performance.Steamboat had a malevolent red eye that glared hatred at the oppressorman, and to-day it lived up to its reputation of being the most viciousand untamed animal on the frontier. But, though it did its best tounseat the rider and trample him underfoot, there was no moment when theissue seemed in doubt save once. The horse flung itself backward in asomersault, risking its own neck in order to break its master's. Buthe was equal to the occasion; and when Steamboat staggered again to itsfeet Bannister was still in the saddle. It was a daring and magnificentpiece of horsemanship, and, though he was supposed to be a desperadoand a ruffian, his achievement met with a breathless gasp, followed bythunderous applause.
The battle between horse and man was on again, for the animal was asstrong almost in courage as the rider. But Steamboat's confidence hadbeen shaken as well as its strength. Its efforts grew less cyclonic.Foam covered its mouth and flecked its sides. The pitches were easy toforesee and meet. Presently they ceased altogether.
Bannister slid from the saddle and swayed unsteadily across the arena.The emergency past, he had scarce an ounce of force left in him. JimMcWilliams ran out and slipped an arm around his shoulders, regardlessof what his friends might think of him for it.
"You're all in, old man. Y'u hadn't ought to have ridden, even thoughy'u did skin us all to a finish."
"Nonsense, Mac. First place goes to y'u or--or Jack Holloway."
"Not unless the judges are blind."
But Bannister's prediction proved true. The champion, Sanford, had beentraveling with a Wild West show, and was far too soft to compete withthese lusty cowboys, who had kept hard from their daily life on theplains. Before he had ridden three minutes it was apparent that he stoodno chance of retaining his title, so that the decision narrowed itselfto an issue between the two Bannisters and McWilliams. First place wasawarded to the latter, the second prize to Jack Holloway and the thirdto Ned Bannister.
But nearly everybody in the grand stand knew that Bannister had beendiscriminated against because of his unpopularity. The judges werenot local men, and had nothing to fear from the outlaw. Therefore theypenalized him on account of his reputation. It would never do forthe Associated Press dispatches to send word all over the East that amurderous desperado was permitted, unmolested, to walk away with thechampionship belt.
"It ain't a square deal," declared McWilliams promptly.
He was sitting beside Nora, and he turned round to express his opinionto the two sitting behind him in the box.
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"We'll not go behind the returns. Y'u won fairly. I congratulatey'u, Mr. Champion-of-the-world," replied the sheepman, shaking handscordially.
"I told you to bring that belt to the Lazy D," smiled his mistress, asshe shook hands.
But in her heart she was crying out that it was an outrage.