August was advancing with everything shaping for a great local event. The Corn Dance of the Indians to celebrate the first of the new crop was an old festival and brought hundreds of them together. In addition, the government had selected September fifteenth for the semi-annual issue of the treaty money. This was a coincidence of festivals that insured a great attendance and at all such times horse-racing was the favourite sport. On the Fourth of July of that year the Indians had produced an extraordinary buckskin cayuse which, in spite of its humble origin and raw exterior, had proved speedy enough to defeat all opposition and capture the big purse. Interest in the opportunity for revenge had grown every day since, and the fact that each Indian family was to get one hundred dollars in cash, enhanced the chances of a fat purse. A winning horse was the first need of the ranchmen and they turned at once to Hartigan and Blazing Star. They were much taken aback to receive from him a flat refusal to enter or to let any one else enter Blazing Star for a race. In vain they held out great inducements, possibilities of a huge fortune, certainly of a big lump sum down in advance, or almost any price he chose to ask for Blazing Star. Hartigan's reply was an emphatic "No." And that was the end of it. There was nothing for the whites to do but find another racer. There certainly was no such horse as they needed in all the country; had there been, they would have known it; and those who took the matter to heart were planning a visit to Illinois or Kentucky even, where it was simply a matter of money to get a blooded horse that would settle the issue. While on a long hard trip for the spiritual help of brethren in the South, Jim was left for a day at Chadron, Nebraska, a distributing point for settlers coming to the Platte. With the instinct born of his Western life, Jim made for the big horse corral, which is always on the outskirts of a prairie town and where he knew he could pass a pleasant hour or more. It was, as usual, crowded with horses of low and middle class degree--some old and worn, some young and raw, many extraordinary pintos, one or two mounts above the average of size or beauty, but nothing to secure more than passing attention. The scene in and about the corral held a great fascination for Jim. There were cowboys and stable hands; farmers whose horses were in the corral or whose homes were in the prairie schooners anchored on the plain near-by; men were coming and going, and groups of children rollicked about the camp fire.