“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. “You got him going,” a man whispered in Jeff's ear. “The kid's crazy mad. He'll bet the shirt off his back if yuh egg him on a little more.” Jeff must have decided to “egg” Bud on. By the time the crowd had reached the course, and the first, more commonplace races were over, the other half of his money was in the hands of the stake-holder, who happened on this day to be Jerry. And the odds varied from four to one up to Jeff Hall's scornful fifteen. “Bet yuh five hundred dollars against your bay horse,” Lew offered when Bud confessed that he had not another dollar to bet.-- “All right, it's a go with me,” Bud answered recklessly. “Get his hundred, Jerry, and put down Stopper.” “What's that saddle worth?” another asked meaningly. “One hundred dollars,” snapped Bud. “And if you want to go further, there are my chaps and spurs and this silver-mounted bridle-and my boots and hat-and I'll throw in Sunfish for whatever you say his hide's worth. Who wants the outfit?” “I'll take 'em,” said Jeff, and permitted Jerry and Dave to appraise the outfit, which Bud piled contemptuously in a heap. He mounted Sunfish bareback with a rope halter. Bud was bareheaded and in his sock feet. His eyes were terribly blue and bright, and his face was flushed as a drunken man's. He glanced over to the bank where the women and children were watching. It seemed to him that one woman fluttered her handkerchief, and his heart beat unevenly for a minute.