"
"I hope they do," said Bert, "but the only thing I'm going in the race
for is to show up that crooked runner. It's such fellows as he that give
the sport a bad name. I'll do everything in my power to discourage it
whenever I get the chance."
"That's the talk," encouraged Tom, "go to it, old boy, and show him up.
Besides, it will put you in more solid than ever with the cowboys here.
They've got a pretty good idea of you already, I imagine, and this will
cinch matters."
"It will give me an awful black eye if I should happen to get licked,"
laughed Bert; "you never seem to think of that side of it."
"No, we'll have to admit that we don't take that into consideration
much," said Dick; "you seem to have such an inveterate habit of winning
that we rather take it as a matter of course."
"I don't take it as a matter of course, though, not by a long sight,"
said Bert; "many a fellow's got tripped up by being over-confident, and
not waking up until it was too late. I go into anything like that with
the idea that if I don't do my very best I _may_ lose.
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