“Three minutes an’ forty-three seconds!” announced the Mayor.  “Git ready for the next one. . . . Go git him!”

This time the feat was accomplished in a little over two minutes and the successful cowboy was greeted with a round of applause.  Several others missed their throws or got into difficulty, and Purdy turned to the girl: 

“If I got any luck at all I’d ort to grab off this here contest.  They hain’t be’n no fancy ropin’ done yet.  If I c’n hind-leg mine they won’t be nothin’ to it.”  He rode swiftly away and a moment later, to the Mayor’s “Go git him!” dashed out after a red and white steer that plunged down the field with head down and tail lashing the air.  Purdy crowded his quarry closer than had any of the others and with a swift sweep of his loop enmeshed the two hind legs of the steer.  The next moment the animal was down and the cowpuncher had a hind foot fast in the tie rope, Several seconds passed as the man fought for a fore foot—­seconds which to the breathlessly watching girl seemed hours.  Suddenly he sprang erect.  “One minute an’ forty-nine seconds!” announced the Mayor and the crowd cheered wildly.

Upon the lumber pile Alice Marcum ceased her handclapping as her eyes met those of a cowboy who had ridden up unobserved and sat his horse at almost the exact spot that had, a few moments before, been occupied by Purdy.  She was conscious of a start of surprise.  The man sat easily in his saddle, and his eyes held an amused smile.  Once more the girl found herself resenting the smile that drew down the corner of the thin lips and managed to convey an amused tolerance or contempt on the part of its owner toward everything and everyone that came within its radius.

“If they hain’t no one else wants to try their hand,” began the Mayor, when the Texan interrupted him: 

“Reckon I’ll take a shot at it if you’ve got a steer handy.”

“Well, dog my cats!  If I hadn’t forgot you!  Where you be’n at?  If you’d of got here on time you’d of stood a show gittin’ one of them steers that’s be’n draw’d.  You hain’t got no show now ’cause the onliest one left is a old long-geared roan renegade that’s on the prod——­”

Tex yawned:  “Jest you tell ’em to run him in, Slim, an’ I’ll show you how we-all bust ’em wide open down in Texas.”

Three or four cowpunchers started for the corral with a whoop and a few minutes later the men who had been standing about in groups began to clamber into wagons or seek refuge behind the wheels as the lean roan steer shot out onto the flat bounding this way and that, the very embodiment of wild-eyed fury.  But before he had gone twenty yards there was a thunder of hoofs in his wake and a cow-horse, his rider motionless as a stone image in his saddle, closed up the distance until he was running almost against the flank of the frenzied renegade.  There was no preliminary whirling of rope.  The man rode with his eyes fixed on the flying hind hoofs while a thin loop swung from his right hand, extended low and a little back.