Only enough boys were left with the herd to keep it from scattering.
Ted and Stella rode in the lead as they entered the town, which was
crowded with a motley assemblage of cow-punchers, gamblers, and Indians
in their gay blankets and with painted faces.
The Indians of the plains are keen on horse racing, and among the
various tribes are to be found some of the fleetest horses in the West,
many of them trained to all the tricks of racing. An Indian jockey is
the shrewdest of his class, and is an adept at all the tricks of the
trade.
"Hi! Look at the livin' skeleton!"
Bud swung around in his saddle and stared at a cow-puncher standing on
the sidewalk in Snyder, as he rode into town dragging behind him the
dejected Hatrack, who looked as if he had been living on two oats for
dinner and a spear of grass for supper all his life.
He ambled along like a tired and footsore dog behind Bud, with his ears
drooping and his toes kicking up the dust. He was a sad-looking animal,
and the word having gone abroad that he was the horse that was to enter
the race with Magpie, he was jeered from one end of the street to the
other, as Bud led him to the corral at the edge of the town.
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