“Don’t squirm like that, Hildegarde,” remonstrated Miss Van Brunt.

Hilda’s dilated eyes were questing wildly for Uncle Hank among the group of horsemen. He was gone. If she asked Aunt Val she would never be allowed to leave; so without a word she slipped away in search, and presently found him at the corrals. Before him Shorty stood, nursing upon his broad breast, with his left hand, something wrapped in a blood-stained handkerchief.

And that something? Oh, surely it was not Shorty’s own right hand—the hand which could cast the swiftest, cunningest lariat in western Texas—the only one which could write, with a twirl of the looped rope, the children’s formal deed to the dear, dear carriage! Yet it must be so, for Shorty, a grown man, was crying. Down his cheeks the big tears of anger and humiliation and disappointment were following each other, and he groaned:

“Oh, durn a fool—they ain’t worth raisin’! Here I been working my arms and legs off for weeks to get a fine edge on for this roping match—Hank, I ought to have better sense than to let them Romeros get me into a scrimmage—I knew well enough they was out after the carriage for the Matador. Now I’ve busted my hand on Juan Romero’s jaw. None of our boys is readied up to ride for the Sorrows. There’s nobody to get that carriage for the kids. Hank—you ought to fire me.”

Uncle Hank’s back was to Hilda. Unseen, unsuspected she stood there, a small but excellent statue of Dismay. Here, at one blow, all hope and delight were struck out of life. Quite blind with despair, she turned and made a stumbling and uncertain way back to the grand stand, squeezing into her place beside Aunt Val and Burchie, carefully drawing her little dusty feet as far as possible from that lady’s flounced skirts.

Darkness had fallen upon her world. Did these people about her think that the sun shone and that they were having a fair? Within Hilda’s mind final disaster had arrived. Listlessly she sat beside her aunt, watching heavy-eyed while the preparations for the favorite event were made. She saw the wild outlaw steers, that had been gathered from all the ranches about, driven in, fighting, bellowing, protesting, as they poured into the oval in-field of the race-track, where they were held in a large pen from which a smaller one opened by heavy bars. This should have been a glorious sight, but now it was only part of the pageant of Hilda’s defeat.

Even when Colonel Jack Peyton, formerly of Kentucky, rode out upon his gold-dust sorrel with the cream-colored mane, and, lifting high his hat with a double-curved sweep, announced that the roping match was about to begin, she just let him be Colonel Peyton. If Shorty couldn’t ride, it was no use summoning The-Boy-On-The-Train to be judge. The crowd cheered him, as it always cheered the pictorial Kentuckian. Peyton bowed, flashed his white teeth in a smile beneath his dark mustache and recited the terms:

Each man should have only one trial, thus making the struggle short and sharp, and tincturing it with the stimulating element, chance. For the battle was lost to him who failed to get a quick start after the steer at the outset, who missed his cast too often, or whose horse stumbled in a prairie-dog hole. From the mouth of the smaller pen, a steer was to be loosed to each contestant, and the moment his steer crossed the chalk-line he should be free to follow.

The contestants rode out and arranged themselves in front of the judge’s stand. Hilda loved the sight of mounted men, accoutered as she was used to see them, for action. But she gave these a leaden glance—Shorty was not there. Young Doctor Ellis was near the center; he had a ranch of his own—maybe he’d win, and his little girls would ride in that carriage and never know that it belonged to Hilda and Burch—that it belonged to them “thrice over.” Dark and hateful looked the faces of the Romero brothers; Hilda would have had no trouble in placing them in her ballad world just then. They were “the enemy.”

Suddenly she straightened up, trembling. Her heart gave a vicious buck and seemed to stand still; for, the last of the line (apparently a hasty afterthought in the entries), rode—Uncle Hank on Buckskin!

A breeze of bantering applause greeted the old man. Some of it came from the grandstand.

“Go it, Hank!”

“Hi, Pearsall, hi!”

“Say, Hank, whirl in and learn the boys how to rope a steer and tie him.”

One strange, squeaking, falsetto voice, the mere sound of which called out peals of mirth, piped:

“Well, I’ll be hanged—from head to foot! If old Hank Pearsall ain’t a-linin’ out after that kerridge.”

At the ludicrous tone and the laughter that answered it, a familiar voice bawled:

“Yes, and watch him get it too!”

Hilda looked to where Shorty stood, just below. She was thankful for a champion who could make himself heard. The great black eyes in her little peaked face flashed, and her lip trembled. They’d better not treat her Uncle Hank disrespectfully! But no—it was all right; the old man was laughing.

He took off his sombrero and bowed, with a touch of burlesque in his manner, in response to the familiar, hearty rallying. Even on horseback, his commanding six-foot-two of stature made itself noticed, while his hard leanness and his tremendous reach of arm were unmatched in that group of more youthful candidates.

The riders drew back to station; the bars between the two pens were let down and a steer was admitted into the smaller enclosure—a lean, sorrel-colored animal which ran instantly to the farther extremity of the pen, found it closed, and turned to rush back the way he had come. A mounted man with a big whip held him in check till the dividing bars were up. The bony, yellow brute whirled, and leaped from side to side of the little pen, attempting first one fence and then the other, to be opposed at each essay with whoops and yells, so that when the outer bars were finally withdrawn he shot forth, a tawny streak of maddened Texas steer.

At the pen’s mouth waited Jim Tazewell, from the Quien Sabe, on his nervous bay cutting pony, Rusty. As the horse made after the yellow streak, Jim sitting easily in the saddle, his rope swinging about his head, over all the great assembly there was silence so intense that the soft noise made by the irregular thudding of those eight flying hoofs sounded curiously distinct. Tazewell had a pretty good start; Rusty was swift and dexterous. But there was a good deal of galloping and several thwarted attempts before the cast was successfully made; then came the moment of suspense when the pony was straining every nerve to keep with the steer, while both horse and rider watched for a chance to throw him.

When they had succeeded, Tazewell leaped from the saddle to tie the animal, sprang erect and held up his hands, signaling that the business was done. The applause which followed its successful completion quieted down, the judge read out Tazewell’s time—sixty-two seconds.

Throughout this spectacle, Hilda had sat bent forward, scarcely breathing. Her cold little hands were clutched tightly together. Her heart was torn between the very real demands of neighborly kindness (for this was Kenny Tazewell’s papa) and her fierce loyalty to Uncle Hank. Even the carriage was forgotten in the new emotion—this passion of blind partisanship, this spirit of crude, savage competition. Rose Marie, love’s martyr, clutched to strangulation in an unconscious grasp, made never a sign to betray her agonies.

But now the yelling and whooping was renewed; a piebald steer galloped swiftly away from the outlet bars, followed by the rider from the Matador, young Lee Romero, nicknamed “the Kid,” a boy yet in the early twenties.

Lee had ridden the range since he could crawl up on a horse, and was a crack roper, proud buster of broncos and of more than one faro bank. He made very certain, in his heart, of carrying the prize home to Velva Ortez of the Matador, and, as Hilda looked piteously at him, her own heart sank still lower. She secretly confessed that perhaps he was right.

When the piebald shot across the chalk-line, Romero, upon Nig, his black horse, close after him, tears rose and swam in Hilda’s eyes; and when, with no mishap whatever, Lee made his cast and the noose settled as though predestined about the curving horns, the little girl’s throat ached, a great tear splashed into Rose Marie’s skittish gamboge hair, and she murmured bitterly, beneath her breath:

“But—but Uncle Hank’s older. He—Lee Romero ought not to—They might know—Uncle Hank can’t—”

Her chest contracted spasmodically and cut the poor sentences in two with painful gasps. And the last, choking, whispering cry was always:

“He—Uncle Hank—he’s older’n they are!”

Meantime Lee had dropped into the carelessness of the cock-sure. As the steer fell heavily to the jerk of his staunch pony, he took two or three dallies round the saddle-horn with an off-hand flourish, skipped smiling from horse, and hastened, cord in hand, to tie his victim. But the instant the steer felt the hand of man upon him, he surged to his feet, casting Romero into a somewhat unsightly wad on the dusty turf. Of Hilda’s emotions at this sudden collapse of Lee Romero’s fortunes probably least said is best.

Nig pulled backward on the rope, but the Kid’s hasty dallies had not made it fast to the horn. With the first jerk it tautened, gave, gave yet again, and at the final vicious lunge, came off the saddle entirely, the piebald steer going over and over sidewise, Nig falling backward, just as young Romero was rising, somewhat dazed.

A roar of amusement went up from the crowd; for nobody was hurt, and it would have been hard to say which of the three looked most sheepish, as they all got to their ten feet at once, the spotted steer, the vain-glorious Kid, or the pony, which had nowise been at fault. Hilda laughed and trembled and cried all together. She prayed, too, a little, under her breath and doubtfully, fearing that it might not be altogether respectful to approach God in such a connection. Yet refrain entirely, she could not.

The next man was a rider of the C Bar C, Clarke Capadine’s ranch. He missed his throw repeatedly, and time was finally called upon him from the judge’s stand.

There followed Zeph Baird, for the Bar 99, on his little horse, Scotty. When Baird at last negotiated a successful cast of the rope, the big, heavy steer, with a tremendous plunge, jerked the light horse and rider forward on to their heads. Baird rolled free. There were exclamations and cries of distress as pony and steer struggled to their feet and, connected by the lariat, ran and pulled back and forth dangerously near the prostrate man.

At sight of him lying there, a sense of bloodguiltiness was upon Hilda, from which she was only rescued by mounted men going out and bringing him back, not seriously hurt.

Meanwhile the pony, Scotty, seizing his chance when the lariat trailed beneath the big steer, suddenly “set back on the rope,” and the animal went over in a somersault, whereupon there broke out a perfect storm of relieved laughter, hand-clapping and cheering, amid which Scotty—true to his name—continued with great caution to move slowly backwards, keeping the rope taut, dragging the steer, inch by inch, until a man rode out and tied the animal’s feet.

Here was a triumph which Hilda might praise with a light heart—Scotty was not a contestant with Uncle Hank. She clapped her hands and shouted generously, till Aunt Valeria fretfully bade her be still.

Jack Pardon of the Cross K, MacGregor’s ranch, rode next, and there was much noisy enthusiasm at the announcement of his record of sixty seconds, which bettered Jim Tazewell’s time by two seconds. There followed several riders whose respective performances were not especially notable, and none of whom succeeded in lowering Pardon’s record.

At last, standing up on her strained tip-toes, looking over the heads of those in front, Hilda could see that there was just one steer in the pen; she had already noted, with wildly beating pulses, that only one rider was left. In Lame Jones County’s great premier roping contest, with Jack Pardon’s time of sixty seconds so far the best, there remained but one round to be fought: old Hank Pearsall, on Buckskin, the party of the first part; a long-horned, wild-eyed steer of the original Texas type, fleet, savage, knowing, the party of the second part.

The tall, gaunt, brindled steer, at the yelling set up by the drivers, leaped over the lowered poles into the small pen and flung himself half across the outlet bars, refusing to be beaten back, bursting through them before they could be taken down. Pearsall, somewhat delayed in getting his start after the animal, was received with a laugh. It was undeniable that both Buckskin and his rider bore a touch of the antiquated, which, despite old Hank’s look of the thoroughbred cowman, was irresistibly suggestive of humor in such a connection—a graybeard at the Olympic games.

Hilda felt her chest swell and pinch in—swell and pinch in—not as though she were really breathing at all. Her throat seemed to close up altogether. A dimness was over her vision as she watched Uncle Hank, who, with his long loop swinging free from his right hand, the rein hanging as loosely in the left, leaned forward, very upright and at an angle with his saddle, speaking a low word to Buckskin, while that worthy made for the flying steer. Hilda saw his lips move, and wondered if he, too, were praying, but decided against the likelihood of it.

This steer was a notorious outlaw, which had made more than one roping match interesting. As Buckskin and Uncle Hank drew toward his left quarter, he whirled suddenly upon them. Hilda thrust Rose Marie down on the bench and sat on her and never knew it. She cried aloud, and was not aware of it. She instantly trafficked with Heaven, in a desperate panic of love and terror, proffering back all hope of the precious, much-needed, long-desired carriage, if Uncle Hank were only permitted to return safely to her. A carriage one might forgo; it was in the nature of a luxury; Uncle Hank was the very groundwork and underpinning of existence.

But Hilda had not reckoned with Buckskin, just as the brindled steer had not. If the steer was a survivor of numerous encounters, Buckskin was no less seasoned a warrior. Disciplined cow pony that he was, veteran of many a roundup, wise, alert, quick as a cat and of an indomitable spirit, able to whirl where he stood almost like a man, Buckskin, whose eyes had never left the steer and whose instinct had warned him in advance of the big brute’s intended maneuver, made of the apparent check his rider’s opportunity.

The movements were too quick for the eye to follow, but when again Hilda saw the group clearly, Buckskin had evaded those long, sharp horns and was once more upon the steer’s quarter, well back of him. Uncle Hank’s right arm lifted, the swinging coil of rope rose to the horizontal, sang round and round and out of it a line darted forward, exactly as the serpent sends forth its length from the spring of its coil.

The noose opened like a live thing, dropped, clutched and fastened upon those spreading horns. Buckskin swerved in behind the running steer; Uncle Hank allowed the rope’s length to drop to the ground, and the steer, in his stride, ran over it, so that it trailed back to the rider’s hand from between the galloping hind feet.

Instantly, Buckskin “set back on the rope,” with crouched haunches and braced forefeet. The line tautened; the brindled nose shot to earth; the hind feet rose and cut through the air in a half-circle, and the beast, having turned a somersault, alighted upon his back with such a thump that it seemed his spine must have cracked.

There was hesitant cheering; Uncle Hank slipped from the saddle and ran to tie those four motionless feet. A sea of gratitude went over Hilda. Just as the old man’s weight was thrown upon him, the steer, which had been stunned for a moment, recovered breath and consciousness and reared, tumultuously. But no cocksureness had been Hank’s. If he failed this day, please Heaven, it should be because he could not possibly win through, the best that he and Buckskin could do. The rope had been made firmly fast to the saddle-horn—the rope which, prepared for Shorty’s use, they had tested and tried for this very exigency. With the creature’s first wild plunge, Buckskin heaved himself backward, while Uncle Hank’s strong arm grappled the big horns, and all his weight was flung upon the rearing head, which once more went down flat upon the plain, the long, brindled neck stretched out to Buckskin’s zealous pull.

Once more the clapping and cheering broke forth, but this time with no assistance from Hilda. She was past speech. The sudden relief had left her weak. To an accompaniment of friendly applause, Uncle Hank tied his steer’s feet, sprang erect and threw up his hands. The cheerful noise held for a moment, then all was intensely still as Colonel Peyton was seen to ride up to the judge’s stand, stop-watch in hand.

Judge Eldredge leaned across and spoke to the colonel. There was a brief space of uncertainty, during which Hilda was sure she aged rapidly; several voices were heard in unofficial statements, which cleft her heart like so many swords.

“Sixty-two seconds, I make it,” announced one. “It’s a tie with Tazewell’s time.”

“Better’n that,” declared another. “Pearsall made it in exactly—”

Old man Morrison broke in with: “Oh, no, you’re ’way off. Hank’s time is only sixty seconds—jest one plumb minute. My watch—”

“Ssh!” cried the crowd as one man, for Colonel Peyton and the gold-dust sorrel were coming forward.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Kentuckian began, as he bowed, smiling, “friends and fellow-citizens of our new county, I think we have all been given a surprise.”

A vague murmur arose. The smiling speaker waited a moment, then continued:

“I take pride in stating that the best time made to-day is fifty-eight seconds. The winner distanced all other contestants by just two seconds. Ladies and gentlemen—”

The dark eyes enjoyingly swept the mute expectant faces before him—none knew better than Colonel Peyton of Kentucky how to heighten an effect by dramatic delay.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure in announcing to you that the prize goes to Henry J. Pearsall, riding for the Ranch of the Three Sorrows.”

Colonel Jack Peyton smiled and pranced away on his gold-dust sorrel, without the least suspicion that he had just made an appearance and uttered a speech that would, by comparison, leave all after efforts of his life vain and useless.

Meantime, the surprise and approval which The-Boy-On-The-Train’s understudy had bespoken, had answered the announcement. Uncle Hank, quietly leading in Buckskin, was met and hailed and pounded on the back, as he made his way toward the grand stand, where a small girl with very large dark eyes stood up on the seat and unconsciously cried aloud her inmost heart, mopping the tears from her face with a rag-doll’s gamboge hair.