The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
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him? Why, I think he's terribly funny!" She laughed quite convincingly when she said it, but there were teeth marks in her under lip, and there was a look in her eyes, as she watched the Kid mount his horse and ride out through the gate, that boded no good for him when they met again. And she hoped it would be soon.
The Kid did not share that hope. On the contrary, he was thinking how he hoped some one would shoot him if he ever spoke to her again, or gave his dad another chance to insult him like that. When the little trick-roper eased her horse closer and sent him her shy, wistful smile, the Kid smiled back and, because they were within speaking distance of the press box, rode boldly to her side and stayed there until they were called for the roping event. He could not afterwards recall their conversation, but he learned that her name was Joella Germain, a jingly combination which he remembered.
But Joella could not erase his resentment for Dulcie, nor his hot anger against his dad. He went to the trick roping half hating it because he felt his father's scoffing gaze upon him. He was probably saying—or at least thinking—that the Kid was out there showing off. There was no danger, no risk, not even an element of chance in this performance. The Kid was sorry he had entered for this particular contest. It came too close to the relay race, anyway.
While he hopped in and out of his whirling loops, gyrated and stood on his head and turned somersaults, the Kid made up his mind that this was the last time he'd do it. He had thought it was easy money, and it was for one of his agile skill. But it was taking just so much energy, and he was going to need it for the other events; especially now that he had taken on the bronk riding, which he hadn't intended to do.
He had to think of the relay race which followed immediately. He had to beat that fast string, the black and the pinto. Using Stardust in this roping act and then putting him right out against that black horse—the others he dismissed from his mind—was asking too much of any horse. It was asking too much of himself, for that matter. This was hard work, and while he liked it, he had to use some sense. It was the relay race that counted most in the beginning of the program.
He did not own to himself that he couldn't face the prospect of clowning out there before his folks and Dulcie Harlan, but he was conscious of their scornful regard and he hated every minute of the act. The applause was too loud and too continuous—it sounded to him derisive; especially when he knew he was not doing as well as he could; not half as well, for he was leaving Stardust out of it except at the last, when he let the horse gallop back and forth a few times, more to warm him up for the race than for any other reason. And he couldn't get away from it—the clapping was out of all proportion. He didn't like it.
What the Kid did not know was that the rodeo had a keen and enterprising publicity man who had told the story of the robbery, the Kid's exploit in the taxi, the blue shirt and all—told it arrestingly into a dozen pairs of ears best fitted to receive it in the proper spirit. The Kid never dreamed that every broadcasting station in town had repeated that story during their dinner program. It was legitimate news, so fresh that it had not yet seen print. It was picturesque, it was amusing, it was just the kind of thing that could be talked about and laughed at over the dinner tables of Chicago. Think of the very name of the hero—Montana Kid! Montana Kid, hot in pursuit of a blue satin shirt, jumping into a yellow cab and tackling one of Chicago's most dangerous crooks as he was making his get-away from one of his most daring robberies! It tickled Chicago, the sophisticated, weary of gang wars. Families who had not thought of going to the rodeo that night put on their hats and hailed the early busses so as to avoid the crowd. They went because they wanted to see Montana Kid, and his blue shirt that he valued so highly. Even those blasé sceptics who declared it was all framed, a publicity stunt pulled off to bring out the crowds, even they went, some of them, just to see how many dumb-bells had fallen for the story, anyway. You know it really is amazing how little it takes sometimes to start the world running after a hero; or any man, for that matter.
But the Kid did not know all that. When he lined up with his rivals for the relay race, he had no idea what the crowd was yelling about. Had any one told him the truth, that they were yelling at him and his blue satin shirt, he would have taken it for granted he was being razzed for some reason, but it never would have occurred to him to believe the statement.
Once more Stardust got away cleanly and left the field streaming behind like the lengthening tail of a comet, with the black two lengths ahead. And a roar of voices kept pace with them, like a tidal wave of sound sweeping abreast of them around the track.
"Go on, Kid! Go on, Montana Kid! GO ON!"
It caught the Kid by the throat, it thrust him down upon the straining neck of the sorrel; a yellow streak with a blotch of parrot blue shining along the whipping mane. It lifted Stardust over the space, pulled him up and up along the side of the black horse. It brought him under the wire nose by nose and flung the Kid off at his station—which was Number One to-night—and up and on past the lunging horses and frantic riders trying to tighten cinches and mount.
"Go on, Kid! Go ON!"
That steady cry surging around the great oval, Sunup running like a scared rabbit and the fast little pinto inexorably lessening the distance between them, but never quite passing—and so into the station where Walt was holding Stardust.
"They're with yuh, Kid!" Walt shouted, and had no time for more, because the Kid was off again, picking up the black horse as he flashed past, almost uncannily like a friendly agreement. But always that tremendous, composite Voice rolling around the stadium:
"Montana Kid, GO ON!"
The horses felt it and responded. Strides lengthened. Legs worked like speeded pistons. But the black, on the last curve, failed to hold his stride. Stardust flew like a sweeping yellow bird, blown before a gale. Then Sunup, seconds ahead of the pinto in the start, flashing past the laggards not yet in from their third lap!
When the Kid rode under the wire on the last lap, safely the winner, the mass mind that had urged him on brought the crowd upon its feet, cheering and shrieking. No Olympic game won for America will send the onlookers into greater hysteria, perhaps. It was the moment of madness that sometimes seizes a crowd. The radio story, told with a full appreciation of the human-interest angle that always clicks; the Kid himself, unwittingly revealing a certain lovable quality of youth and grace and skill in the roping, and then the thrill of that race—even the subtle mind of the publicity man must have been astounded at the results he produced that night.
And the Kid, sore at heart and holding himself aloof from every one, never suspected the truth.
Not even when he rode out to rope his calf, with his teeth clenched and his mind stubbornly determined to show his dad something, did he realize that the applause was abnormal. He had the best time made that evening—eighteen and one-fifth seconds—and that seemed reason enough for the tumult.
It was the same when he rode the bronk assigned to him. Chile Bean was a bad one, the kind the cowboys called salty. The Kid rode him and broke no rules, so far as he knew. The crowd cheered wildly, but the carping criticism which he imagined as emanating from where his folks sat in the press box neutralized the frenzied enthusiasm of the seventy or eighty thousand other people who watched him. Dad hated him, was his bitter thought. Dad didn't believe he could do anything as well as the Happy Family. Dad would go out of his way to crow over him if he made a flop at anything. Dad was sneering at everything he did—but he couldn't sneer at that calf roping!
So far as the crowd was concerned, that was the Kid's night. Every one knew it save the Kid himself, who could not forget the things that had been said in the few minutes he spent with his folks. He tried to forget, tried to interest himself in the trick riding. Joella Germain was a sweet little thing—she'd kill herself doing that crawl, unless she learned the proper hand-hold. The Kid forced himself to smile, to talk, to explain, and wound up by making a date with her for the next morning, to show her and let her practise under his coaching.
But his heart was not in it and he was glad when it was all over and he could ride back into the quiet of the stables, away from the noise and confusion and the staring strangers who eyed him curiously, as if he were some strange animal. He had won the relay race for the day—a hundred dollars. He stood third