The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
out of sight. He went hopping on one foot, his teeth gritted, his breath hissing between them.
In one of the suitcases he had a few simple first-aid articles for use on the trail; bandages, iodine, a bland, soothing salve, liniment and the like. He had been thinking mostly of the horses when he bought the stuff, but now he wondered if some guiding intelligence had directed the purchase for this particular need. He did not want to go to the Red Cross station and be pawed over and his name recorded, and his hurt. The news would be sure to spread, and although the Kid had only the haziest conception of the power of thought, he shunned the idea of having every one talking about him and watching to see if he could go through.
His leg was not broken, he felt sure of that. Something had gone wrong with his knee. A bad bruise, probably. It hurt like the very devil, but not enough to stop him at this stage of the game. When he bared his leg and saw how the knee was puffed, however a thin edge of doubt crept insidiously into his resolute optimism concerning it. Looked bad, he had to admit it; but he did not admit that it looked bad enough to put him out of the contest.
So he massaged it with gentle finger tips which he could scarcely bear upon the hurt, poured on a liniment warranted not to blister, and used a whole roll of three-inch bandage upon it; though that, too, he could scarcely bear. But afterwards, when he essayed walking he found that the bandage helped him to set his weight on that foot. Yes, he could manage the contest, he was sure. Maybe a night's rest and more liniment in the morning would reduce the swelling and he'd be all right. He'd have to cut out some of his best stuff in the trick riding to-night, though. He didn't feel as if he could manage that two-way jump, clean over Stardust and back again; no, just the thought of that made him wince. But he could do the crawl, he guessed, and he could stand on his head all right, and do the pivot in the saddle—he'd fill in with that; turning round and round, facing backward and then forward.
And, with that stubborn determination which, if it is born of strength instead of overweening conceit, can rise to the sublimity of high courage, he did manage a very creditable performance that night. The Happy Family, watching him without comment, knew that the bronk had not slammed him into the fence without effect, but even they did not guess the truth. Chip wondered when that darned kid was ever going to play himself out; twice a day for six days was going it pretty strong, and it seemed to him that the kid wasn't holding up any too well. The Little Doctor felt a poignant relief because Claude didn't seem to have been hurt after all. And as for Dulcie Harlan, who can guess accurately what is passing in the mind of a girl with eyes like hers? The Old Man had remained at the hotel, one show a day being as much as he could stand, so he did not know anything about it.
"Slowed you down, didn't it, Kid?" Walt commented after the performance. "You go to bed and I'll look after the ponies. How's your leg, honest?"
"Black and blue, feels like," the Kid replied casually and with a diction his English professor would have railed at. "All right, Walt, you keep an eye on the horses, will you? I want to keep off my darned leg all I can."
Then Billy and Beck marched in and got their grips, loftily informing Walt and the Kid that they had a swell room up town. The total disruption of the team was to Walt a tragedy which dwarfed mere bruises to insignificance. The Kid's stiff-legged hobble did not seem as serious as it would otherwise have done.
How he ever rode the relay race next day, the Kid could not afterwards have told. His knee had throbbed all night and the hours had passed in a half-waking nightmare. But he rode the race, and by sheer pluck in the resaddling he came in second. Even Walt never knew what it cost him.
The calf roping he missed altogether. He knew that his painful hobbling from horse to calf would merely drag out the time and advertise his hurt. He didn't want that. Once the crowd knew he was crippled, he might as well quit. And he didn't want his mother to worry; Dad and the rest of them would say it served him right, but his mother always worried so if the least little thing got the matter with him. So he failed to appear when his name was called for the calf roping, and that, of course, automatically disqualified him. Too bad, but he couldn't help it—and anyway, he had won quite a nice little bunch of money from day to day with his rope. It was not a dead loss.
How he ever managed the bronk riding he did not know. It had been straight hell. But the horse he drew was a "straight pitcher" and not so hard to ride as he looked. When the whistle blew and the helpers rode in, the Kid eased over behind one of the riders and so rode back to the chutes, which was his privilege.
Then he had more than half an hour before the trick riding, and he went through it. He was down to three stunts now, for he couldn't manage the crawl, and he couldn't stand on his head. He didn't dare. He was afraid he would get so dizzy he'd fall off, which would disgrace him before the multitude.
As it was, the multitude wagged their heads and said Montana Kid was drunk. The blue shirts were letting themselves go, and it was a shame when they had done so well. And this seemed to be the truth, for Billy and Beck, having broken training, went the limit and betrayed their condition beyond all doubt.
That night they were at least sober, and their work was better. But Montana Kid—so said the wise ones—was so drunk he could hardly get on his horses in the relay race. He came trailing in third, and he wouldn't have done that well if Stardust and Sunup had not laid back their ears and given all that was in them—because horses have their pride too, and these were not accustomed to see themselves running in the dust of their rivals. It would not have been so bad, perhaps, if the gossip had not gone on within hearing of that box where Montana Kid was something more than a picturesque name. The Little Doctor heard, and turned to glare at the traducers; but afterward she watched the Kid worriedly. Was it possible that Claude had fallen in with a bad crowd and was drinking? She saw Billy Perry go staggering to the fence after a steer had piled him in the second jump—Billy and Beck persisted in wearing their blue shirts, so there was no mistaking them. She did not see her Claude stagger, because she did not see him on the ground, but he certainly was not acting like himself. And beside her Dulcie Harlan was staring with wide, hard eyes and her hands clenched together in her lap. Chip did not say a word, but his face was dark and somber. It was a silent party in the box that night, and afterward in the taxi the Little Doctor and Chip came nearer quarreling than they had in many a day, because she thought Chip ought to talk to Claude and Chip flatly refused to do it. Let the young whelp learn by experience; it was the only way he ever would learn, since no one could tell him anything. The Little Doctor cried herself to sleep that night, and Chip lay for hours awake, staring miserably at the reflection of the street lamps which shone on the wall, wondering what a father should do or could do with a boy as unruly as the Kid. His instinct was to wait; to give him more rope and let him have his fling. But that was pretty hard on Dell, he thought. He'd talk it over with the boys. Maybe they'd know what to do.
That night the Kid lay feverishly awake, his mind shuttling back and forth over the different events next day, and how best he could get through them without making an awful flop. His leg was swollen so much that he had twice been compelled to loosen the bandage. His knee had disappeared altogether beneath a great discolored cushion of distended tissue. Walt could no longer be kept in ignorance of his condition, and he waited on him and worried over him until he might almost as well have been crippled himself, his anguish was so real.
"It's a darned, rotten shame!" he said over and over. "Let me ride relay to-morrow, Kid. You've got the right to put in a substitute if you're hurt, you know. I'll go tell Tex—"
"The stuff's off between us, Walt, if you do," the Kid threatened with a note of hysteria in his voice. "I can go through with it all right. You keep your mouth shut to Tex."
"Can I bring you anything, Kid? Some coffee and a sandwich?"
"No. Bottle of milk—and aspirin. Scads of aspirin. And water, Walt. Couldn't you get hold of a bucket and fill it with ice water without having it spread all over the front page of the papers?"
"There's no damn sense in killing yourself, Kid! I can get in the relay, and you can let the rest go. Hell, it's no disgrace to be hurt, you big sap!"
"Aw, can it, Walt! Go get me that stuff and shut up. I'm—I'll be all right to-morrow."
So, while his distressed parents pictured