"I'd have done the same. Wal, now, when you git back home what's comin' of it all?" Lucy shook her head sorrowfully. "God only knows. Dad will never own Wildfire, and he'll never let me marry Slone. And when you take the King away from him to ransom me--then my life will be hell, for if Dad sacrifices Sage King, afterward he'll hate me as the cause of his loss." "I can sure see the sense of all that," replied Creech, soberly. And he pondered. Lucy saw through this man as if he had been an inch of crystal water. He was no villain, and just now in his simplicity, in his plodding thought of sympathy for her he was lovable. "It's one hell of a muss, if you'll excuse my talk," said Creech. "An' I don't like the looks of what I 'pear to be throwin' in your way.... But see hyar, Lucy, if Bostil didn't give up--or, say, he gits the King back, thet wouldn't make your chance with Slone any brighter." "I don't know." "Thet race will have to be ran!" "What good will that do?" cried Lucy, with tears in her eyes. "I don't want to lose Dad. I--I--love him--mean as he is. And it'll kill me to lose Lin. Because Wildfire can beat Sage King, and that means Dad will be forever against him." "Couldn't this wild-horse feller LET the King win thet race?" "Oh, he could, but he wouldn't." "Can't you be sweet round him--fetch him over to thet?" "Oh, I could, but I won't." Creech might have been plotting the happiness of his own daughter, he was so deeply in earnest. "Wal, mebbe you don't love each other so much, after all.... Fast hosses mean much to a man in this hyar country. I know, fer I lost mine! ... But they ain't all.... I reckon you young folks don't love so much, after all." "But--we--do!" cried Lucy, with a passionate sob. All this talk had unnerved her. "Then the only way is fer Slone to lie to Bostil." "Lie!" exclaimed Lucy. "Thet's it. Fetch about a race, somehow--one Bostil can't see--an' then lie an' say the King run Wildfire off his legs." Suddenly it occurred to Lucy that one significance of this idea of Creech's had not dawned upon him. "You forget that soon my father will no longer own Sage King or Sarchedon or Dusty Ben--or any racer. He loses them or me, I thought. That's what I am here for." Creech's aspect changed. The eagerness and sympathy fled from his face, leaving it once more hard and stern. He got up and stood a tall, dark, and gloomy man, brooding over his loss, as he watched the canyon. Still, there was in him then a struggle that Lucy felt. Presently he bent over and put his big hand on her head. It seemed gentle and tender compared with former contacts, and it made Lucy thrill. She could not see his face. What did he mean? She divined something startling, and sat there trembling in suspense. "Bostil won't lose his only girl--or his favorite hoss! ... Lucy, I never had no girl. But it seems I'm rememberin' them rides you used to have on my knee when you was little!"