another these lean, brown men, chap-clad and bow-legged, came forward dragging their saddles and clamped themselves to the backs of hurricane outlaw

tame horse not to be driven into resistance either by fanning or scratching. Most of the riders emerged from the ordeal victorious. Meanwhile the spectators in t

d each rider no less closely. It chanced that he came last on the programme

next champion of the

with you, old alkali," a small berry-br

weaving and fence-rowing, at last toppled over backward after a frantic leap upward. The rider, long-bodied and lithe, rode like a centaur

, an' he sure can ride. I'll say

ghbor of Sanborn and had his local pride. "From where I come from we'll

ents, top of a bronc or with a lariat either one

. "What's the use o' talkin' foolishness, Ken

Pendleton,

nd was straddling wide-legged toward the group, Kirby threw up a hand

ild Fire," shout

ave guessed him a Southerner. He was lean-loined and broad-shouldered. The long, flowing muscles rippled under his

hat he seemed almost a part of the horse. His reactions appeared to anticipate the impulses of the screaming fiend which he was astride. When Wild Fire jolted him with humpbacked jarring bucks his spine took the shock limply

of the enclosure and crashed through it. Kirby's nerves shrieked with pain, and for a moment everything went black b

gh the shredded fragments of pine in the splintered fence, and the

yenne was full, full to overflowing. The town roared with a high tide of jocund life. From all over Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico hard-bitten, sunburned youths in high-heeled boots and gaudy attire had gathered for the Frontier Day celebration

o Lane. "Place in my car,

t in the tonneau bes

e leg? Hu

in' it some," Kirby

o-morrow. It's you and

uite made up

cars speeding over the prairie, struck the road before the great majorit

here was any mail for Miss Rose McLean. Three letters were han

ndignant. "That doctor talks as though he's going to keep me here a week. Wel

better do as the doc

your young life?"

intend to stay. Why did you li

ed my leg against a fe

hampionship?" the

Sanborn an' me. How's

ches some. Be

. "Stopped to get your mail at the

he envelopes over

Esther," she explaine

her. She's been writi

her face. When she had finished re

ews, p

riend without evasion. It was a heritage of her life in the open th

she-" Rose caught her brea

s anything

ose from the chair. She began to pace up and down t

and all weak creatures. Now Lane knew that the hot blood was rushing stormily to her heart. Her little sister was in danger, the only near relative she had. She would

ping tight her small stron

y gently. "D

in air, but the young woman

I've got to get to Denver on the next train. Find out when it leaves. And

l work out fine. Write your wire an' I'll take it right to th

l, Kirby. I alway

t. That hand was, as Browning has written, a woman in itself, but it was a woman competen

him a swift, unreasoning prescience of impendi