This was but the beginning. Others began to banter and jeer Bud, Jeff's crowd taunting him with malicious glee. The singin' kid was going to have some of the swelling taken out of his head, they chortled. He had been crazy enough to put up a forfeit on to-day's race, and now his horse had just three legs to run on.
"Git out afoot, kid!" Jeff Hall yelled. "If you kin run half as fast as you kin talk, you'll beat Boise four lengths in the first quarter!"
Bud retorted in kind, and led Smoky around the corral as if he hoped that the horse would recover miraculously just to save his master's pride. The crowd hooted to see how Smoky hobbled along, barely touching the toe of his lame foot to the ground. Bud led him back to the manger piled with new hay, and faced the jeering crowd belligerently. Bud noticed several of the Muleshoe men in the crowd, no doubt drawn to Little Lost by the talk of Bud's spectacular winnings for two Sundays. Hen was there, and Day Masters and Cub. Also there were strangers who had ridden a long way, judging by their sweaty horses. In the midst of the talk and laughter Dave led out Boise freshly curried and brushed and arching his neck proudly.
"No use, Bud," he said tolerantly. "I guess you're set back that forfeit money--unless you want to go through the motions of running a lame horse."
"No, sir, I'm not going to hand over any forfeit money without making a fight for it!" Bud told him, anger showing in his voice. "I'm no such piker as that. I won't run Smoky, lame as he is "--Bud probably nudged his own ribs when he said that!--"but if you'll make it a mile, I'll catch up my old buckskin packhorse and run the race with him, by thunder!
He's not the quickest horse in the world, but he sure can run a long while!"
They yelled and slapped one another on the back, and otherwise comported themselves as though a great joke had been told them; never dreaming, poor fools, that a costly joke was being perpetrated.
"Go it, kid. You run your packhorse, and I'll rive yuh five to one on him!" a friend of Jeff Hall's yelled derisively.
"I'll just take you up on that, and I'll make it one hundred dollars," Bud shouted back. "I'd run a turtle for a quarter, at those odds!"
The crowd was having hysterics when Bud straddled a Little Lost horse and, loudly declaring that he would bring back Sunfish, led Smoky limping back to he pasture. He returned soon, leading the buckskin. The crowd surged closer, gave Sunfish a glance and whooped again. Bud's face was red with apparent anger, his eyes snapped. He faced them defiantly, his hand on Sunfish's thin, straggling mane.
"You're such good sports, you'll surely appreciate my feelings when I say that this horse is mine, and I'm going to run him and back him to win!" he cried. "I may be a darn fool, but I'm no piker. I know what this horse can do when I try to catch him up on a frosty morning--and I'm going to see if he can't go just as fast and just as long when I'm on him as he can when I'm after him."
"We'll go yuh, kid! I'll bet yuh five to one," a man shouted. "You name the amount yourself."
"Fifty," said Bud, and the man nodded and jotted down the amount.
"Bud, you're a damn fool. I'll bet you a hundred and make it ten to one," drawled Dave, stroking Boise's face affectionately while he looked superciliously at Sunfish standing half asleep in the clamor, with his head sagging at the end of his long, ewe neck. "But if you'll take my advice, go turn that fool horse back in the pasture and run the bay if you must run something."
"The bay's a rope horse. I don't want to spoil him by running him. That little horse saved my life, down in the Sinks. No, Sunfish has run times enough from me--now he 's got to run for me, by thunder. I'll bet on him, too!"
Jeff pushed his way through to Bud. He was smiling with that crafty look in his eyes which should have warned a child that the smile went no deeper than his lips.
"Bud, doggone it, I like yore nerve. Besides, you owe me something for the way you trimmed me last Sunday. I'll just give you fifteen to one, and you put up Skeeter at seventy-five, and as much money as yo're a mind to. A pile of it come out of my pocket, so-"
"Well, don't holler your head off, Jeff. How's two hundred?"
"Suits me, kid." He winked at the others, who knew how sure a thing he had to back his wager. "It 'll be a lot of money if I should lose--" He turned suddenly to Dave. "How much was that you put up agin the kid, Dave?"
"One hundred dollars, and a ten-to-one shot I win," Dave drawled. "That ought to satisfy yuh it ain't a frame-up. The kid's crazy, that's all."
"Oh! Am I?" Bud turned hotly."Well, I've bet half of all the money I have in the world. And I'm game for the other half--"
He stopped abruptly, cast one look at Sunfish and another at Boise, stepping about uneasily, his shiny coat rippling, beautiful. He turned and combed Sunfish's scanty mane with his gloved fingers. Those nearest saw that his lips were trembling a little and mistook his hidden emotion for anger.
