Chapter EightBest Roper in the World
The throng about the large cedar-post corral was oddly subdued. Some of the vaqueros had dragged the blue bull over to the cooking fire for Jacinto to spit, but the gross cook had left the carcass lying on the ground. He stood with the middle bar of the fence making a deep indentation in the incredible protuberance of his stomach as the crowding vaqueros pressed in from behind.
“Madre de Dios, Crawford, why do you let him do this thing?” wailed the cook, running his fat hands nervously up and down the rail. “I don’t want to see a man die.”
“Then why watch?” said Crawford.
“Please, Crawford, you take such a brutal attitude. Don’t you know this is the way Oro Peso died down in Mexico? He was the greatest roper in the world, Quartel’s boasting to the c
