"No," answered Still Bill. "Humpback is lucky. We called him Humpy Joe because when it came to running he could sure get up and hump himself." "Soon after Joseph went to work," Jean continued, "the Centipede outfit hired a new cook. You know the Centipede Ranch--the one you see over yonder by the foot-hills." "It wasn't 'soon after,' it was simuletaneous," said Stover, darkly. "We're beginnin' to see plain at last." He went on as if to air the injury that was gnawing him. "One day we hear that this grub-slinger over yonder thinks he can run, which same is as welcome to us as the smell of flowers on a spring breeze, for Humpy Joe had amused us in his idle hours by running jack-rabbits to earth--" "Not really?" said Miss Blake. "Well, no, but from what we see we judge he'd ought to limp a hundred yards in about nothing and three-fifths seconds, so we frame a race between him and the Centipede cook." "As a matter of fact, there has been a feud for years between the two outfits," Jean offered. "With tumulchous joy we bet our wages and all the loose gear we have, and in a burst of childish enthusiasm we put up--the talking-machine." "A phonograph?" "Yes. An Echo Phonograph," said Miss Chapin. "Of New York and Paris," added Stover. "Our boys won it from this very Centipede outfit at a bronco-busting tournament in Cheyenne." "Wyoming." Stover made the location definite. "The Centipede crowd took their defeat badly on Frontier Day, and swore to get even." "And was Humpy Joe defeated?" asked Helen. "Was he?" Still Bill shook his head sadly, and sighed for a third time. "It looked like he was running backward, miss." "But really he was only beaten a foot. It was a wonderful race. I saw it," said Jean. "It made me think of the races at college." Miss Blake puckered her brows trying to think. "Joseph," she said. "No, I don't think I have seen him." Stover's lips met grimly. "I don't reckon you have, miss. Since that race he has been hard to descry. He passed from view hurriedly, so to speak, headed toward the foot-hills, and leaping from crag to crag like the hardy shamrock of the Swiss Yelps." Miss Blake giggled. "What made him hurry so?" "Us!" Stover gazed at her solemnly. "We ain't none of us been the same since that foot-race. You see, it ain't the financial value of that Echo Phonograph, nor the 'double-cross' that hurts: it's the fact that the mangiest outfit in the Territory has trimmed us out of the one thing that stands for honor and excellence and 'scientific attainment,' as the judge said when we won it. That talking-machine meant more to us than you Eastern folks can understand, I reckon." "If I were you I would cheer up," said Miss Blake, kindly, and with some importance. "Miss Chapin has a college friend coming this week, and he can win back your trophy." Stover glanced up at Jean quickly. "Is that right, Miss Chapin?" "He can if he will," Jean asserted. "Can he run?"