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women fell all over themselves to get at
him. He knew that he looked like a god on the back of a raging horse.
    Tan Stetson and golden, glittering belt.
    She hated him!
    She got to the gate and the ticket-taker stood back to
tip his hat and let her through. She went swinging through the carnival grounds
and the hoot-hoot bing-bang of the merry-go-round infuriated her.
    She kicked at a tin can and sent it soaring.
    The contests were still going on. Today she had a good
horse. A good, tough horse. Whiskers, they called him. He sometimes went
straight up and came down on his side. She’d teach him manners.
    As she came through the grandstand side, people turned
and looked at her, the men very admiringly. Somebody made so bold as to say,
“Lo, Vicky.” She froze him into a pillar of ice.
    She realized that she was doing things backwards. She
should have walked around to the other gate in the first place. But she had
been too angry to obey anything.
    Down below her she saw groups of mounts on the track
just under the stands and knew that the pony express race was about to begin.
    Something was happening. A youngster was standing on one
foot and holding his side and arguing with the arena boss down on the turf.
Suddenly she knew what was wrong. The youngster was part of this pony express
race and he had been hurt in the bucking contest of the day.
    Suddenly she was blinded by a glitter and she whirled to
see Long Tom with belt aglitter just under the railing not twenty feet from
her. So he was going to be in this race!
    Determinedly she slid through the railing and ran to the
side of the youngster. She said swiftly, “I’ll take your place. The prize money
don’t matter. I’ll pay it win or lose.”
    Before they could answer she was halfway back to the
boy’s three mounts.
    Long Tom looked at her, startled. She turned away and
inspected the saddle a puncher held out to her.
    The race was a relay of horses in which the rider had to
change his own saddle. Three mounts and three times around the track.
    The starter saw that all was ready and held up his gun.
It banged and the five contestants began hastily to saddle. Vicky had more
reason to win than any of them. She was the first away. Flirting mud from the
mount’s flying hoofs, she spurted past Long Tom without even a glance.
    She plied her quirt and the track raced by and when she
passed back of the chutes and bandstand, the band was making hash out of the
“Light Cavalry Overture.”
    The fence blurred as she came around the turn into the
stretch. Ahead she saw that the puncher had her horse out. She was half a dozen
lengths ahead.
    Mount still running, she flung herself off and skidded
him to a stop. She flipped up the saddle skirt and unfastened the cinch buckle
and flung the saddle to the other mount. She bothered not about the cinch this
time.
    Quirt flailing, she rocketed off just as Long Tom
plunged up to his second mount.
    This time the band was making better time, she noted.
The sousaphone was the only one behind.
    The fence blurred and the stands blurred and again off
came her saddle. Looking across it when she got it on the third mount, she saw
Long Tom leading all the rest but at least half the track behind her.
    Her grin was deadly.
    Very carefully she fastened the cinch. She took a
handkerchief and dusted the saddle. In a leisurely fashion she mounted. Long
Tom was streaking up. He came off his mount to change saddles in a blur of
activity. The others were stringing in.
    Vicky started out at a canter as though only to enjoy
the scenery. Long Tom rocketed past her on the run. Vicky kept her horse down
to a steady trot.
    The band, she noted as she passed, was all behind the
sousaphone this time.
    Long Tom was in seconds before she leisurely cantered
up. The others thundered across the line just behind her.
    Long Tom sat his lathered horse, breathing hard and
staring at her.
    She was not at all concerned.
    The arena boss came