LET 'ER BUCK 



of my head and slammed my t-t-t-teeth t-t-t-together — 

 BUCK — my joints really were coming apart — BUCK! 

 — BUCK !!— BUCK !! ! I looked down and saw- 

 way, way far down below me — my saddle — that's the 

 last I remember until I dug my way out of the dirt — 

 only a wrist broken. 



"Who'd yer say that is?" said a newcomer. 



"That's the original cow that jumped over the 

 moon," says a squint-eyed spectator in chapps — but 

 Sharkey never fans an ear to the laughter. 



OFF IN A CLOUD OF DUST 



You now see twenty horses, each led by an Indian, 

 brought out and banded up in bunches of four horses 

 each, take positions at regular intervals by the grand- 

 stand fence. These are the relay strings, all on edge; 

 they indeed need a man to a horse. There are the five 

 riders mounting. They're away — these full bloods 

 and on bareback horses, too. It's a thrilling event, this 

 mile race, with each rider changing at every quarter 

 with a drop and a bound, leaping their horses at full 

 speed. Poker Jim's sons are both ahead, the Farrows 

 are riding on their heels, but this is a three days' race 

 and we will see more of the relays in which both men 

 and women ride. 



Over by the paddock a bunch of some thirty 

 mounted cowboys on restless whinnying mounts are 

 bunching forty to a line, completely filling up the 

 track for the maverick race. 



In the early days of the Panhandle, Samuel Maver- 

 ick was so successful in claiming unbranded cattle that 

 any "slick-ear" — a steer not marked on the ears or 

 branded — found on the range, about which inquiry 



170 



