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fence and then the other, to be opposed at each essay with whoops and yells, so that when the outer bars were finally withdrawn he shot forth, a tawny streak of maddened Texas steer.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.