“Fun to see her run!” the Ramblin’ Kid interrupted, looking up quickly and straight into the eyes of Carolyn June as he finished the contemptuous quotation of her words, spoken the day before at the corral.  She flushed, but gazed back at him without flinching.  “Well,” he continued, “I reckon you’ll get your wish—­th’ maverick is goin’ to run against th’ Vermejo horse!”

“The Fourth of July is a week from next Wednesday,” Charley said calculatingly.  “The Rodeo starts on Tuesday, the roping and bucking finals come on Thursday.  That makes the big race come Friday—­a week from next Friday, ain’t it?”

“That’s right,” Bert concurred.  “Th’ Ramblin’ Kid’s got nearly two weeks to get the maverick in shape.”

“Nothing will be in shape for anything,” Old Heck broke in, getting up from the table, “unless we move around and get things ready to begin the beef round-up to-morrow morning.  Some of you boys will have to bring in those saddle horses from across the river.  Each one of you can ride your regular ‘string’ this year”—­alluding to the term used to designate the group of several horses used exclusively by each individual rider working on a round-up.  “Skinny won’t be with you, but you’d better take his horses along for extras.  Parker can be getting the grub-wagon in shape—­I reckon you’ll have to work Old Tom and Baldy on it.  Sing Pete ought to be able to handle them.”

“Where do we start in?” Charley asked as they went toward the barn.

“Over in the Battle Ridge country,” Old Heck answered, “and work everything east of the big pasture first.  It’ll take just about a week to clean up that side—­it’s pretty rough riding over there.  Then you can finish the west end after the Rodeo is over.”

“What all you aiming to gather?” Bert queried.

“Everything above a three-year-old,” Old Heck replied in a businesslike way; “pick up the dry cows, too, if they’re fat enough.  Prices are better than usual and I want to sell pretty close on account of that storm knocking the hay the way it did the other night.  There’ll be three hundred and fifty or four hundred good beef critters on the east range.  You ought to have them bunched and in the big pasture by Saturday night.  Then, until the Rodeo is over you can all do what you darn’ please—­”

“I know what I’m going to do,” Chuck laughed.

“What?” Bert asked.

“Draw all my wages, borrow all I can, and make a clean-up on that Y-Bar outfit on the race between the Gold Dust maverick and Thunderbolt!” he exclaimed vindictively.

“Probably there will be some of the rest of us have a little Quarter Circle KT money up on that race, too,” Charley insinuated.

“I know blamed well there will be!” Old Heck added earnestly as they scattered to go about their respective employments.