Chapter 24

FOR LOVE AND A MEDAL

Down the roped lane thundered José, whirling his riata over his head till the loop had taken full twenty of the sixty feet of rawhide.

Galloping to meet him, Jack gave his rope a forward, downward fling and formed a little loop--a loop not one-third the size of José's--and held it dangling beside Surry's shoulder. So, at the very start, they showed themselves different in method, even though they might be the same in skill.

They met, with fifteen feet between them as they flashed past. José flung out his lifted hand. The loop hissed and shot straight for Jack's head.

Jack flung out his little loop, struck the big one fairly, and threw it aside. Even so, the end might have caught him, but for the lengthening lunge which Surry made in mid-air. The loop flecked Surry's crinkled tail and he fled on to the far end and stopped in two short, stiff-legged jumps.

As Jack coiled his riata and slid off he heard the caballeros yelling praise of José. But he did not mind that in the least. In that one throw he had learned José's method; the big loop, the overhead swirl--direct, bullet-swift, deadly in its aim. He knew now what Dade had wanted to tell him--what it was vital that he should know. And--he hugged the thought--José did not know his method; not yet.

A shot, and he was off again with his little loop. José, like a great, black bird, flew towards him with the big loop. As they neared he saw José's teeth show in the smile of hate. He waited, his little loop ready for the fling should his chance come.

José was over-eager. The great, rawhide hoop whistled and shot down aslant like the swoop of a nighthawk. Surry's eye was upon it unwinkingly. He saw where the next leap would bring him within its terrible grip, and he made that leap to one side instead, so that the rawhide thudded into the dust alongside his nose. He swerved again lest José in jerking it up should catch his feet, and went on with an exultant toss of his white head. It was the game he knew--the game Diego had played with him many times, to the discomfiture of the peon.

"He is a devil--that white caballo!" cried a chagrined voice from among the vaqueros crowding the ropes so that they bulged inward.

"Hah! devil or no, they will go down, those two white ones! Saw you the look of José as he passed? He has been playing with them for the sport of the people. Look you! I have gold on that third throw. The next time--it is as José chooses--"

The bark of the pistol cut short the boastings of that vaquero. This was the third pass, and much Spanish gold would be lost upon that throw if José missed.

"Three to one, m' son," bawled Bill Wilson remindingly, as Jack loped past with his little loop hanging beside him, ready but scarcely seeming