"You're a pretty good sport, after all, Dorsey," Old Heck said quietly. "I'll cash this check"--glancing at the yellow slip of paper--"and this thing, here--we'll just tear it up!" as he reduced the bill of sale to fragments. "Keep your cattle, Dorsey," he added, "ten thousand dollars is enough for you to pay for your lesson!" Dorsey flushed a dull red. "I ain't asking--" "I know you're not," Old Heck interrupted, "and that's the reason I tore up that bill of sale!" "Old Heck," Dorsey said, his voice trembling, "you're white! I'd like to shake--" The rival cattlemen gripped hands and the racing feud between the Quarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar was ended. A week later Dorsey sent Flip Williams to the Quarter Circle KT. The Vermejo cowboy led the beautiful black stallion that had mastered Quicksilver and had in turn been whipped by the Gold Dust maverick. "Dorsey said, Tell Old Heck Thunderbolt's a pretty good saddle horse,'" Flip explained, "'and he'd do to change off with Quicksilver once in a while! So he sent him over as a sort of keepsake!'" The Ramblin' Kid did not return to the Quarter Circle KT until late Sunday night. After the two-mile sweepstakes he was horribly ill. All Friday night he laid, in a semi-conscious condition, in the stall with Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick. Parker and some of the cowboys visited the stall after the race, but they thought the Ramblin' Kid was drunk and the best thing was to allow him to sleep it off. "I can't figure it out," Chuck said as they turned away, "he never did get drunk before that I knew of--" "You can't tell what he's liable to do," Charley interrupted, "he sure took an awful chance getting on a tear at the time he did!" "Well, he won the race," Parker said admiringly, "drunk or sober, you've got to give him credit for that!" Saturday the Ramblin' Kid got Pedro to stay with the horses while he went over to the Elite Amusement Parlor. He had nothing to say to Sabota or any of the loafers in the place. He was looking for Gyp Streetor. Until Sunday afternoon he searched Eagle Butte, trying to find the tout. All he wanted was to locate the man who had sold him that cup of coffee--he could remember drinking the coffee; after that until the following morning all was hazy. But Gyp was gone. When the Gold Dust maverick, with the Ramblin' Kid swaying uncertainly on her back, had appeared on the track for the two-mile run, the tout, his eyes like those of a harried rat, sneaked out of the crowd in front of the book-makers' booths and hurried toward the Santa Fe railroad yards. An hour later he slipped into an empty freight car--part of a train headed for the West--and Eagle Butte saw him no more. It was midnight Sunday when the Ramblin' Kid reached the Quarter Circle KT, turned Captain Jack and the outlaw filly into the circular corral, and without disturbing Old Heck, Parker, or the cowboys, already asleep in the bunk-house, sought his bed.