"I'd take a li'l' bet that New York ain't lookin' for no champeen
ropers or bronco-busters," said Stace. "Now if Clay was a cabby-ret
dancer or a Wall Street wolf--"

"There's no street in the world twelve miles long where Clay couldn't
run down and hogtie a job if he wanted to," insisted Johnnie loyally.
"Ain't that right, Clay?"

Clay was not listening. His eyes were watching the leap of the fire
glow. The talk of New York had carried him back to a night on the
round-up three years before. He was thinking about a slim girl
standing on a sand spit with a wild steer rushing toward her, of her
warm, slender body lying in his arms for five immortal seconds, of her
dark, shy eyes shining out of the dusk at him like live coals. He
remembered--and it hurt him to recall it--how his wounded pride had
lashed out in resentment of the patronage of these New Yorkers. The
younger man had insulted him, but he knew in his heart now that the
girl's father had meant nothing of the kind. Of course the girl had
forgotten him long since. If he ever came to her mind as a fugitive
memory it would be in the guise of a churlish boor as impossible as his
own hill cattle.

"Question is, could you land a job in New York if you wanted one,"
explained Stace to the dreamer.

"If it's neck meat or nothin' a fellow can 'most always get somethin'
to do," said Lindsay in the gentle voice he used. The vague impulses
of many days crystallized suddenly into a resolution. "Anyhow I'm
goin' to try. Soon as the _rodeo_ is over I'm goin' to hit the trail
for the big town."