“No more horse-huntin’ for me,” declared Slone.  “An’ as for findin’ one like Wildfire—­that’d never be.”

“Suppose I won’t accept him?”

“How could you refuse?  Not for me but for Wildfire’s sake! . . .  But if you could be mean an’ refuse, why, Wildfire can go back to the desert.”

“No!” exclaimed Lucy.

“I reckon so.”

Lucy paused a moment.  How dry her tongue seemed!  And her breathing was labored!  An unreal shimmering gleam shone on all about her.  Even the red stallion appeared enveloped in a glow.  And the looming monuments looked down upon her, paternal, old, and wise, bright with the color of happiness.

“Wildfire ought to have several more days’ training—­then a day of rest—­and then the race,” said Lucy, turning again to look at Slone.

A smile was beginning to change the hardness of his face.  “Yes, Lucy,” he said.

“And I’ll have to ride him?”

“You sure will—­if he’s ever to beat the King.”

Lucy’s eyes flashed blue.  She saw the crowd—­the curious, friendly Indians—­the eager riders—­the spirited horses—­the face of her father—­and last the race itself, such a race as had never been ran, so swift, so fierce, so wonderful.

“Then Lin,” began Lucy, with a slowly heaving breast, “if I accept Wildfire will you keep him for me—­until . . . and if I accept him, and tell you why, will you promise to say—­”

“Don’t ask me again!” interrupted Slone, hastily.  “I will speak to Bostil.”

“Wait, will you . . . promise not to say a word—­a single word to me—­till after the race?”

“A word—­to you!  What about?” he queried, wonderingly.  Something in his eyes made Lucy think of the dawn.

“About—­the—­Because—­Why, I’m—­I’ll accept your horse.”

“Yes,” he replied, swiftly.

Lucy settled herself in the saddle and, shortening the bridle, she got ready to spur Sarchedon into a bolt.

“Lin, I’ll accept Wildfire because I love you.”

Sarchedon leaped forward.  Lucy did not see Slone’s face nor hear him speak.  Then she was tearing through the sage, out past the whistling Wildfire, with the wind sweet in her face.  She did not look back.

CHAPTER XI

All through May there was an idea, dark and sinister, growing in Bostil’s mind.  Fiercely at first he had rejected it as utterly unworthy of the man he was.  But it returned.  It would not be denied.  It was fostered by singular and unforeseen circumstances.  The meetings with Creech, the strange, sneaking actions of young Joel Creech, and especially the gossip of riders about the improvement in Creech’s swift horse—­these things appeared to loom larger and larger and to augment in Bostil’s mind the monstrous idea which he could not shake off.  So he became brooding and gloomy.

It appeared to be an indication of his intense preoccupation of mind that he seemed unaware of Lucy’s long trips down into the sage.  But Bostil had observed them long before Holley and other riders had approached him with the information.