His voice was drowned in the mighty roar that surged from five thousand throats and rolled in waves of echoing and re-echoing sound across the field. "He's ridin' round 'em!" "Th' Ramblin' Kid is goin' around them!" "Great heavens! Look at that horse go!" "She's a-flyin'! _She's a-flyin_'!" The Gold Dust maverick closed the gap--she caught Dash-Away--she evened up with Prince John--she left the big sorrel behind--she passed Say-So--nose to nose for a few rods she ran opposite the black wonder--the Thunderbolt horse from the Vermejo. Flip Williams, spurs raking the flanks of Dorsey's stallion, looked around. The Ramblin' Kid leaned toward him: "Hell--why--don't you--_make that--thing run_!" he sneered at the Y-Bar rider. The next instant the Gold Dust maverick's neck and shoulders showed in the lead of the Y-Bar stallion. At the turn for the home stretch the outlaw filly shot ahead of the wonderful black horse from the Vermejo, swung close to the inside rail, and like a flash of gold-brown darted down the track toward the wire. The grandstand was turned into a madhouse of seething humanity. The immense crowd came to its feet roaring and shrieking with frenzy. Men smashed their neighbors with clenched fists--not knowing or caring how hard or whom they struck--or that they themselves were being hit. Women screamed frantically, hysterically, tears streaming from thousands of eyes because of sheer joy at the wonderful thing the Gold Dust maverick was doing. Even the stolid Sing Pete was jumping up and down, shouting: "_Come on--come on--Lamblin' Kid! Beat 'em--beatee hell out of 'em_!" Full three lengths in the lead of the "unbeatable" Thunderbolt the Gold Dust maverick flashed under the wire in front of the judges! Dorsey, shaken in every nerve, lips blue as though he were stricken with a chill, reeled out of the box from which he had watched his whole fortune swept away by the speed of the Cimarron mare. At his side, profaning horrible, obscene oaths staggered Mike Sabota. Old Heck, white-faced, but his lips drawn in a smile of satisfaction, stood up in the Clagstone "Six" and watched the Ramblin' Kid--his eyes set and staring, his body twitching convulsively, check the filly, swing her around, ride back to the judges' stand, weakly fling up a hand in salute and then, barely able to sit in the saddle, rein the Gold Dust maverick off the track and ride toward the box stall. Skinny drew a hand across his eyes and looked at Carolyn June. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. CHAPTER XVII OLD HECK GOES TO TOWN