The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
horse!"
So they talked, while the cowgirls rode bronks unheeded. To the party occupying the north end of the official's box just south of the gate into the arena, the rodeo had resolved itself chiefly into the presence and the performance of one slim young fellow who never glanced their way if he could help it.
The Little Doctor relapsed unconsciously into a maternal solicitude that concerned itself with little things.
"I wonder where he got that peacock-blue shirt," she said. "I never saw it before—and he's too dark for that shade of blue."
Chapter XII. The Kid Goes After His Shirt
Out in the field, midway between the chutes and the Indian camp, the flagman on the big sturdy bay dropped the white flag as the Kid flung both hands aloft, stepping back away from the huddled black calf on the ground. A pause, and the booming voice of the announcer:
"Mon-tana Kid-d—t-i-m-e—twen-ty-n-i-n-e and four-fifths sec-onds!"
Not so good. The perfunctory applause that followed told how the crowd had failed to thrill over the Kid's calf roping. It ought to have been better; it would have been, if the Kid had not missed his first throw. Those black calves were quicker to duck aside than the tame bull calves the Kid had been practising on at home, and this one fooled the Kid. He untied the little beast, all but yielding to the impulse he had to lift it on the toe of his boot for the trick it had played him, and rode scowling back to the chutes. No day money for him on this event; already his time had been beaten by a lanky man from Oklahoma. The Happy Family were crowing themselves hoarse over the bloomer he pulled, he thought savagely, and tied Sunup to the fence for Walt to ride back if he wanted to. The Kid went over and stood beside Billy and Beck, who were not contesting this event, and tormented himself with imagining what that bunch over in the box was thinking. It's rather a pity that the Kid could not have overheard a few of the remarks.
"Fast work, that—considering he blew his first loop," was Weary's comment. "Prettiest throw and tie I've seen, so far."
Chip, beside him, gave a nod and a snort.
"Darned chump! If he'd told me what he was up to I could have put him wise to the fact that those bulls are slower than contest calves," he grumbled. "What he should have done was give them a longer start. But that's it—you can't tell a young rooster like him anything!"
"Wonderful horse he's got," the Native Son observed. "I wonder if he'd let me use it in a few roping scenes to-morrow morning. He'd photograph like a million. And that other one, the little sorrel—"
"Stardust, he calls the sorrel," Chip supplied wistfully. "Trained them himself, as near as I can find out—"
The Little Doctor gave a sudden exclamation, pointing to a certain name on her program.
"He's going to ride bronks!" she cried tragically. "Chip, can't you go to the judges and forbid him to ride? Why, he isn't of age! He can't ride without your consent, can he?"
"I guess he can," Chip told her dryly. "I sure am not going to try and halterbreak him now, at this late day. Let him ride if he wants to—he won't be the first young gander to get piled. Do him good. Knock a little sense into him, maybe."
"Oh, I want to see him ride a bronk!" Miss Dulcie Harlan eagerly exclaimed. "I'm sorry you don't want him to, Mrs. Bennett—and I'm afraid you must blame me, really. He hadn't entered for bronk riding, but I got him to do it. He's really riding for my sake, sort of—"
"Why, when did you meet Claude? I didn't know—"
"Oh, ages ago," said Miss Dulcie sweetly—as her name implied. "I think your son is the best-looking thing, Mrs. Bennett! I'm crazy about him, really. But when Dad told me he knew your brother long ago, and asked if I might stay with you, I never dreamed Montana Kid was your son that had run away from home. He'll be simply paralyzed when he discovers—well, I think he must suspect something already, for he looked straight at me, here with you, and he had the funniest expression on his face! I'm simply dying to see him ride a bucking horse; I bet him he'd fall off. I do hope he does!"
"Well, I don't," his mother retorted, rather too sharply for perfect politeness. "A bucking horse nearly killed his father, and I saw the whole thing. I shall never get over the horror of it, I think. If Claude should be thrown and hurt—"
"Say, he plays football, and that's a darn sight more dangerous," Chip broke in upon her worrying. "I wish I had a dollar for every time I've been thrown off a horse!" His eyes went to Weary and Andy Green.
"Same here," Andy spoke up promptly. "Why, getting piled is part of a kid's education. Why—"
"Dog-gone it, the Kid ain't piled, yet!" The Old Man glared around at them. "No use hollerin' before you're hurt, Dell. He ain't piled, and he ain't goin' to be piled, neither!"
So the squaw race went lurching past before their inattentive eyes while they argued and discussed the Kid, whose chagrin magnified his failure to make good and sent him into the bronk riding in the mood to do or die.
Billy Perry and Walt Myers rode first, and caused a flutter of excitement in the box because of the blue shirts they wore.
"There he goes!" squealed Dulcie, regardless of the announcer's statement that Walter Myers was riding Dun Gone out of chute Number Five.
"That's not the Kid," the Native Son corrected her. "Too stocky for him."
Two other riders hurtled from the chutes with more or less skill and courage, and then another blue shirt of a certain unusual shade; but it clothed Billy Perry's wiry little torso and drew upon that innocent youth the scathing sarcasm of Miss Harlan.
"Blue is being worn this season," she opined, and got a worried little smile from her chaperon.
"I don't mind it—on other young men," she said whimsically. "But I do object to blue satin on my son!"
"He must look darling in a dinner jacket," mused Dulcie irrelevantly, dreaming aloud, it may be.
"Mon-tana Kid! Riding Invalid—outa chute Number Four!"
Abrupt silence in the box, while their gaze fixed intently upon chute Number Four. Through the stout bars of the gate a heaving brown body could be glimpsed. A dull wooden clatter, a dark head thrust suddenly up above the top bar. More clatter.
"Oh, don't let Claude ride that outlaw!" the Little Doctor cried under her breath to Chip.
"By golly, that Invalid is working off all his steam before he starts!" Weary exclaimed in a purposely exuberant tone. "Bet he won't more than crow-hop when they let him out."
"There he goes, climbing up now to get on!" cried Dulcie, wriggling in her chair with anticipatory excitement, as the Kid climbed the gate and sat astride the top, waiting a chance to lower himself into the saddle. If she could only have read the Kid's thoughts just then!
"Mon-tana Kid, folks—chute Number Four," the amplifiers admonished.
The Little Doctor's hands clenched together in her lap as the blue satin shirt slowly disappeared within the chute. She could see it now between the bars—the Kid setting his weight carefully in the saddle, fitting his feet to the stirrups. The Happy Family, knowing of old just what was taking place in those few preparatory seconds, leaned forward in strained silence.
In the chute the Kid settled himself, picked up the one rein in his left hand—purposely leaving it loose—pulled off his hat and held it aloft in his right hand and grinned through at the gate tender.
"Let 'er go!"
The gate was yanked open. For a taut second horse and rider stood framed within the narrow pen, then with a squeal of rage and a high forward leap, Invalid dashed into the open. The Kid reached forward with his wrapped spur rowels, high on the shoulders with a backward swing. One, two, three, four, five—"scratching