There was a clatter at the pen, and the steer shot past him. Instantly he saw all its points--horns, legs, tail--and they spoke to him with the meaning of familiarity. So might the old knight have looked for the points of his adversary's armour. Now that he was off, Turk's head cleared to his work. The steer ran with hind feet swinging sideways, hog-like. He remembered a steer in the Lazy A outfit that had the same habit, and a bad one it was, too. How strange that he should think of such things at such a time! The steer was swerving swiftly to the left. The pinto, nose forward and dilating, instantly slackened pace, swerving in the same direction and cutting off distance. It was much to have a horse, pinto though he be, that knew his business. Turk's rope began to swing, but he was wholly unconscious of it. He seemed now to see only the legless body of a steer swimming on a billow of dust. The fence! He saw it with a throb, and he was yet too far off to throw. And there was the grand stand above it, the men rising, half in terror, and a color of women. The steer had swung almost round. It was a low rail fence, and between it and the grand stand lay the racing track. Dimly McGlory heard shouts of warning. Would the steer plunge into the stand? Dimly, too, glancing back, he saw the other cow-men charging after him to the rescue. There was a crash; the steer had gone through the fence as if it were pasteboard, and the pinto was now close behind. There was all too little room here in the track. The steer would evidently plunge full into the crowd. Turk McGlory's arm shot forward and the rope sped. The pinto sat sharply back, throwing McGlory well over the pommel. To those in the grand stand it seemed as if the steer, all horns and eyes, was plucked out of their faces. When they looked again, McGlory was tying, and the judges and the other punchers were swarming through the gap in the fence. Hands up; and the pinto easing away on the rope! It was all lost, McGlory felt. The fence had been in the way. Why couldn't they provide an open field, as in Texas? These Arizona men couldn't conduct a contest. The timer lifted his hand, and the shouting stopped. "Thirty-six seconds," he announced. "What a fool of a timer," thought Turk McGlory. "It can't be so." Then he saw Bud Oliver stride up with outstretched hand, and a lump came in his throat. "Good boy!" said Bud. "You've saved the day for Texas." And then the crowd pounced on him and hooted and shouted, "McGlory! McGlory!" until he was dizzy with it all. It was not as he thought it would be. Two hundred dollars won! And he, Turk McGlory! And then a saucy, flushed face looking up at him. "I knew you would do it, Mr. Texas," she said. And with that she pinned a blue and white ribbon on his vest, and he looked off over her head, and trembled. "DAVID GRAYSON."