“An’ here comes Lucy coaxin’ the stallion back,” added Holley.

“A wild stallion never clear broke!” ejaculated Cordts.

All the men looked and all had some remark of praise for Lucy and her mount.

Bostil gazed with a strange, irresistible attraction.  Never had he expected to live to see a wild stallion like this one, to say nothing of his daughter mounted on him, with the record of having put Sage King out of the race!

A thousand pairs of eyes watched Wildfire.  He pranced out there beyond the crowd of men and horses.  He did not want to come closer.  Yet he did not seem to fight his rider.  Lucy hung low over his neck, apparently exhausted, and she was patting him and caressing him.  There were horses and Indians on each side of the race track, and between these lines Lucy appeared reluctant to come.

Bostil strode down and, waving and yelling for everybody to move back to the slope, he cleared the way and then stood out in front alone.

“Ride up, now,” he called to Lucy.

It was then Bostil discovered that Lucy did not wear a spur and she had neither quirt nor whip.  She turned Wildfire and he came prancing on, head and mane and tail erect.  His action was beautiful, springy, and every few steps, as Lucy touched him, he jumped with marvelous ease and swiftness.

Bostil became all eyes.  He did not see his daughter as she paraded the winner before the applauding throng.  And Bostil recorded in his mind that which he would never forget—­a wild stallion, with unbroken spirit; a giant of a horse, glistening red, with mane like dark-striped, wind-blown flame, all muscle, all grace, all power; a neck long and slender and arching to the small, savagely beautiful head; the jaws open, and the thin-skinned, pink-colored nostrils that proved the Arabian blood; the slanting shoulders and the deep, broad chest, the powerful legs and knees not too high nor too low, the symmetrical dark hoofs that rang on the little stones—­all these marks so significant of speed and endurance.  A stallion with a wonderful physical perfection that matched the savage, ruthless spirit of the desert killer of horses!

Lucy waved her hand, and the strange rider to whom Holley had called attention strode out of the crowd toward Wildfire.

Bostil’s gaze took in the splendid build of this lithe rider, the clean-cut face, the dark eye.  This fellow had a shiny, coiled lasso in hand.  He advanced toward Wildfire.  The stallion snorted and plunged.  If ever Bostil saw hate expressed by a horse he saw it then.  But he seemed to be tractable to the control of the girl.  Bostil swiftly grasped the strange situation.  Lucy had won the love of the savage stallion.  That always had been the secret of her power.  And she had hated Sage King because he alone had somehow taken a dislike to her.  Horses were as queer as people, thought Bostil.

The rider walked straight up to the trembling Wildfire.  When Wildfire plunged and reared up and up the rider leaped for the bridle and with an iron arm pulled the horse down.  Wildfire tried again, almost lifting the rider, but a stinging cut from the lasso made him come to a stand.  Plainly the rider held the mastery.