“He looks it!” Carolyn June exclaimed, with the uncomfortable feeling that the big Greek’s look had touched her with something vile and unclean.

After the parade disbanded Carolyn June and Skinny rode back to the car where Old Heck and Ophelia had remained.

“You made a darned good-looking cowgirl!” Old Heck said proudly to her as she stopped Red John by the side of the Clagstone “Six.”

“She and Skinny both presented a very fine appearance!” the widow added, while Carolyn June playfully blew a kiss at each in acknowledgment of the compliment.  Skinny sat on Old Pie Face and felt a warm glow of satisfaction at the words of Old Heck and Ophelia.  He had known all the time that Carolyn June and he had shown up well, but he was glad to find that others besides himself had noticed it.

Dorsey, on a black stallion, cantered past.

A moment later the Ramblin’ Kid came jogging off the race course on Captain Jack.  He threw up his hand in greeting and passed on out of the grounds.

Parked next to the Clagstone “Six” was a handsome touring car, occupied by a party consisting of a girl about Carolyn June’s own age, a woman a few years older and a couple of immaculately dressed young men who wore flaring brimmed black felt hats that contrasted absurdly with their expensively tailored suits.  Evidently all were “big town” people from a distance—­very “superior” and patronizing in their attitude toward the “natives.”  They had been free and voluble in their comments on the various riders.  Dorsey, on the magnificent Thunderbolt, drew a murmur of admiration from the lips of the girl.  As the Ramblin’ Kid, the next moment, rode by on Captain Jack one of the young fellows said loudly and with a laugh of ridicule: 

“Look at that one, Bess,” addressing the girl; “there’s the ’wild and woolly’ West for you!  I’ll bet if that horse sneezed he’d fall down and the lonesome-looking little runt that’s riding him would tumble off and root his nose in the dust!”

A cackle of derisive laughter greeted the cheap witticism.

Before any of the others could speak Carolyn June’s eyes blazed with sudden wrath.  She turned her body in the saddle and faced the speaker, her hands tightly clenched, her cheeks white with passion and her lip curling wickedly.

“Which shows,” she said slowly, every word stinging like the bite of a whip-lash, “that you are running, true to form and there is one fool, at least, still unslaughtered!  That”—­she continued with a proud toss of her head—­“‘lonesome-looking little runt’ is the Ramblin’ Kid!  Not another man in Texas can ride the horse he is on—­and there is not a horse in Texas that he can’t ride!”

She turned again toward the Quarter Circle KT group and a shamed silence settled over the swell “out-of-town” car.

Old Heck chuckled with delight at Carolyn June’s show of temper.

A whirlwind program of racing, roping, bull-dogging—­this event is that in which a rider springs from a running horse, grasps by the horns a wild steer running at his side, twists the animal’s head up and backward and so throws it down and then holds the creature on the ground—­rough-riding and other Rodeo sports followed immediately after the parade.