Chapter 18

The only thing in the world that the victorious Speed wanted was to lie down and stretch out and allow those glowing coals in his chest to cool off. But rough hands seized him, and he found himself astride of Stover's shoulders and gyrating about the Echo Phonograph in the midst of a war-dance. He kicked violently with his spiked shoes, whereat the foreman bucked like a wild horse under the spur and dropped him, and he staggered out of the crowd, where a girl flew to him.

"Oh, Wally," she cried, "I knew you could!" He sank to the ground, and she knelt beside him.

Skinner was propped against the corral fence opposite, his face distorted with suffering, and Gallagher was rubbing his ankle.

"'Taint broke, I reckon," said Gallagher, rising. "I wish to hell it was!" He stared disgustedly at his fallen champion, and added: "We don't want y'all for a cook no more, Skinner. You never was no good nohow." He turned to Helen and handed her a double handful of bank-notes, as Berkeley Fresno buried his hands in his pockets and walked away. "Here's your coin, miss. If ever you get another hunch, let me know. An' here's yours, Mr. Speed; it's a weddin'-present from the Centipede." He fetched a deep sigh. "Thank the Lord we'll git somethin' fit to eat from now on!"

Speed staggered to Skinner, who was still nursing his injury, and held out his hand, whereat the cook winked his left eye gravely.

"The best man won," said Skinner, "and say--there's a parson at Albuquerque." Then he groaned loudly, and fell to massaging his foot.

There came a fluttering by his side, and Miss Blake's voice said to him, with sweetness and with pity: "I'm so sorry you lost your position, Mr. Skinner. You're a splendid runner!"

"Never mind the job, miss, I've got something to remember it by." He pointed to a sash which lay beside him. "The loser gets the ribbon, miss," he explained gallantly.

Off to the right there came a new outcry, and far across the level prairie a strange sight was revealed to the beholders. A fat man in white flannels was doubling and dodging ahead of two horsemen, and even from a considerable distance it could plainly be seen that he was behaving with remarkable agility for one so heavy. Repeatedly his pursuers headed him off, but he rushed past them, seemingly possessed by the blind sense of direction that guides the homing pigeon or the salmon in its springtime run. He was headed toward the east.

"Why, it's Larry!" ejaculated Speed. "And Cloudy and Carara."

"Wally, your man has lost his reason!" Chapin called.

At that instant the watchers saw the Mexican thunder down upon Glass, his lariat swinging about his head. Lazily the rope uncoiled and settled over the fleeing figure, then, amid a cloud of