第290页 / 共439页

"Course you can ride. Everybody knows that. You're the best ever.

Any man that can win the championship of Wyoming----But you'll

say yourself them strawberry roans are wicked devils."

"He hasn't ridden them yet, Dick."

"He's going to."

"We'll be there to see it. Mebbe he will. Mebbe he won't. I've

known men before who thought they were going to."

It was in no moment of good-natured weakness that Fraser had

consented to try riding the outlaw horses. Nor had his vanity

anything to do with it. He knew a time might be coming when he

would need all the prestige and all the friendship he could earn

to tide him over the crisis. Jed Briscoe had won his leadership,

partly because he could shoot quicker and straighter, ride

harder, throw a rope more accurately, and play poker better than

his companions.