“Why, I’ve seen that hoss—­” Andy Green, once fairly started in the fascinating path of romance, invented details for the pure joy of creation.  If he had written some of the tales he told, and had sold the writing for many dollars, he would have been famous.  Since he did not write them for profit, but told them for fun, instead, he earned merely the reputation of being a great liar.  A significant mark of his genius lay in the fact that his inventions never failed to convince; not till afterward did his audience doubt.

That is why the blue roan was not chosen in any of the strings, but was left always circling in the corral after a loop had settled.  That is why the Flying U boys looked at him askance as they passed him by.  That is why, when a certain Mr. Coleman, sent by the board of directors to rake northern Montana for bad horses, looked with favor upon the blue roan when he came to the Flying U ranch and heard the tale of his exploits as interpreted—­I should say created—­by Andy Green.

“We’ve got to have him,” he declared enthusiastically.  “If he’s as bad as all that, he’ll be the star performer at the contest, and make that two-hundred-dollar plum a hard one to pick.  Some of these gay boys have entered with the erroneous idea that that same plum is hanging loose, and all they’ve got to do is lean up against the tree and it’ll drop in their mouths.  We’ve got to have that roan.  I’ll pay you a good price for him, Whitmore, if you won’t let him go any other way.  We’ve got a reporter up there that can do him up brown in a special article, and people will come in bunches to see a horse with that kind of a pedigree.  Is it Green, here, that knows the horse and what he’ll do?  You’re sure of him, are you, Green?”

Andy took time to roll a cigarette.  He had not expected any such development as this, and he needed to think of the best way out.  All he had wanted or intended was to discourage the others from claiming the blue roan; he wanted him in his own string.  Afterwards, when they had pestered him about the roan’s record, he admitted to himself that he had, maybe, overshot the mark and told it a bit too scarey, and too convincingly.  Under the spell of fancy he had done more than make the roan unpopular as a roundup horse; he had made him a celebrity in the way of outlaw horses.  And they wanted him in the rough-riding contest!  Andy, perhaps, had never before been placed in just such a position.

“Are you sure of what the horse will do?” Mr. Coleman repeated, seeing that Andy was taking a long time to reply.

Andy licked his cigarette, twisted an end and leaned backward while he felt in his pocket for a match.  From the look of his face you never could have told how very uncomfortable he felt “Naw,” he drawled.  “I ain’t never sure of what any hoss will do.  I’ve had too much dealings with ’em for any uh that brand uh foolishness.”  He lighted the cigarette as if that were the only matter in which he took any real interest, though he was thinking fast.