LITMIR.BIZ

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of hearing, threw away his cigarette and yielded to temptation. "Glory?" he snorted with a fine contempt. "Why, Glory's—a—lamb beside that blue roan! Why, that hoss throwed Buckskin Jimmy clean out of a corral—Did yuh ever see Buckskin Jimmy ride? Well, say, yuh missed a pretty sight, then; Jimmy's a sure-enough rider. About the only animal he ever failed to connect with for keeps, is that same cow-backed hoss yuh see over there. Happy says he's got a kind eye in his head—" Andy stopped and laughed till they all laughed with him. "By gracious, Happy ought to step up on him, once, and see how kind he is!" He laughed again until Happy, across the corral saddling the horse he had chosen, muttered profanely at the derision he knew was pointed at himself.

      "Why, I've seen that hoss—" Andy Green, once fairly started in the fascinating path of romance, invented details for the pure joy of creation. If he had written some of the tales he told, and had sold the writing for many dollars, he would have been famous. Since he did not write them for profit, but told them for fun, instead, he earned merely the reputation of being a great liar. A significant mark of his genius lay in the fact that his inventions never failed to convince; not till afterward did his audience doubt.

      That is why the blue roan was not chosen in any of the strings, but was left always circling in the corral after a loop had settled. That is why the Flying U boys looked at him askance as they passed him by. That is why, when a certain Mr. Coleman, sent by the board of directors to rake northern Montana for bad horses, looked with favor upon the blue roan when he came to the Flying U ranch and heard the tale of his exploits as interpreted—I should say created—by Andy Green.

      "We've got to have him," he declared enthusiastically. "If he's as bad as all that, he'll be the star performer at the contest, and make that two-hundred-dollar plum a hard one to pick. Some of these gay boys have entered with the erroneous idea that that same plum is hanging loose, and all they've got to do is lean up against the tree and it'll drop in their mouths. We've got to have that roan. I'll pay you a good price for him, Whitmore, if you won't let him go any other way. We've got a reporter up there that can do him up brown in a special article, and people will come in bunches to see a horse with that kind of a pedigree. Is it Green, here, that knows the horse and what he'll do? You're sure of him, are you, Green?"

      Andy took time to roll a cigarette. He had not expected any such development as this, and he needed to think of the best way out. All he had wanted or intended was to discourage the others from claiming the blue roan; he wanted him in his own string. Afterwards, when they had pestered him about the roan's record, he admitted to himself that he had, maybe, overshot the mark and told it a bit too scarey, and too convincingly. Under the spell of fancy he had done more than make the roan unpopular as a roundup horse; he had made him a celebrity in the way of outlaw horses. And they wanted him in the rough-riding contest! Andy, perhaps, had never before been placed in just such a position.

      "Are you sure of what the horse will do?" Mr. Coleman repeated, seeing that Andy was taking a long time to reply.

      Andy licked his cigarette, twisted an end and leaned backward while he felt in his pocket for a match. From the look of his face you never could have told how very uncomfortable he felt "Naw," he drawled. "I ain't never sure of what any hoss will do. I've had too much dealings with 'em for any uh that brand uh foolishness." He lighted the cigarette as if that were the only matter in which he took any real interest, though he was thinking fast.

      Mr. Coleman looked nonplussed. "But I thought—you said—"

      "What I said," Andy retorted evenly, "hit the blue roan two years ago; maybe he's reformed since then; I dunno. Nobody's rode him, here." He could not resist a sidelong glance at Happy Jack. "There was some talk of it, but it never come to a head."

      "Yuh offered me a hundred dollars—" Happy Jack began accusingly.

      "And yuh never made no move to earn it, that I know of. By gracious, yuh all seem to think I ought to mind-read that hoss! I ain't seen him for two years. Maybe so, he's a real wolf yet; maybe so, he's a sheep." He threw out both his hands to point the end of the argument—so far as he was concerned—stuck them deep into his trousers' pockets and walked away before he could be betrayed into deeper deceit. It did seem to him rather hard that, merely because he had wanted the roan badly enough to—er—exercise a little diplomacy in order to get him, they should keep harping on the subject like that. And to have Coleman making medicine to get the roan into that contest was, to say the least, sickening. Andy's private belief was that a twelve-year-old girl could go round up the milk-cows on that horse. He had never known him to make a crooked move, and he had ridden beside him all one summer and had seen him in all places and under all possible conditions. He was a dandy cow-horse, and dead gentle; all this talk made him tired. Andy had forgotten that he himself had started the talk.

      Coleman went often to the corral when the horses were in, and looked at the blue roan. Later he rode on to other ranches where he had heard were bad horses, and left the roan for further consideration. When he was gone, Andy breathed freer and put his mind to the coming contest and the things he meant to do with the purse and with the other contestants.

      "That Diamond G twister is going t' ride," Happy Jack announced, one day when he came from town. "Some uh the boys was in town and they said so. He can ride, too. I betche Andy don't have no picnic gitting the purse away from that feller. And Coleman's got that sorrel outlaw uh the HS. I betche Andy'll have to pull leather on that one." This was, of course, treason pure and simple; but Happy Jack's prophecies were never taken seriously.

      Andy simply grinned at him. "Put your money on the Diamond G twister," he advised calmly. "I know him—he's a good rider, too. His name's Billy Roberts. Uh course, I aim to beat him to it, but Happy never does like to have a sure-thing. He wants something to hang his jaw down over. Put your money on Billy and watch it fade away, Happy."

      "Aw, gwan. I betche that there sorrel—"

      "I rode that there sorrel once, and combed his forelock with both spurs alternate," Andy lied boldly. "He's pickings. Take him back and bring me a real hoss."

      Happy Jack wavered. "Well, I betche yuh don't pull down that money," he predicted vaguely. "I betche yuh git throwed, or something. It don't do to be too blame sure uh nothing."

      Whereat Andy laughed derisively and went away whistling. "I wish I was as sure uh living till I was a thousand years old, and able to ride nine months out of every year of 'em," he called back to Happy. Then he took up the tune where he had left off.

      For the days were still crisp at both ends and languorous in the middle, and wind and grasses hushed and listened for the coming of winter. And because of these things, and his youth and his health, the heart of Andy Green was light in his chest and trouble stood afar off with its face turned from him.

      It was but three days to the opening of the fair when Coleman, returning that way from his search for bad horses, clattered, with his gleanings and three or four men to help drive them, down the grade to the Flying U. And in the Flying U coulee, just across the creek from the corrals, still rested the roundup tents for a space. For the shipping was over early and work was not urgent, and Chip and the Old Man, in their enthusiasm for the rough-riding contest and the entry of their own man, had decided to take the wagons and crew entire to Great Falls and camp throughout the four days of the fair. The boys all wanted to go, anyway, as did everybody else, so that nothing could be done till it was over. It was a novel idea, and it tickled the humor of the Happy Family.

      The "rough string," as the bad horses were called, was corralled, and the men made merry with the roundup crew. Diamond G men they were, loudly proclaiming their faith in Billy Roberts, and offering bets already against Andy, who listened undisturbed and had very little to say. The Happy Family had faith in him, and that was enough. If everybody, he told them, believed that he would win, where would be the fun of riding and showing them?

      It was after their early supper that Coleman came down to camp at the heels of Chip and the Old Man. Straightway he sought out Andy like a man who has something on his mind; though Andy did not in the least know what it was, he recognized the indefinable symptoms and braced himself mentally, half suspecting that it was something about that blue roan again. He

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