Many
fires sent up blue columns of smoke from before the hastily built brush huts
where the Indians cooked and ate. Blankets shone bright in the sun; burros
grazed and brayed; horses whistled piercingly across the slope; Indians lolled
before the huts or talked in groups, sitting and lounging on their ponies;
down in the valley, here and there, were Indians racing, and others were
chasing the wiry mustangs. Beyond this gay and colorful spectacle stretched
the valley, merging into the desert marked so strikingly and beautifully by
the monuments.
Bostil was among the last to ride down to the high bench that overlooked the
home end of the racecourse. He calculated that there were a thousand Indians
and whites congregated at that point, which was the best vantage-ground to see
the finish of a race. And the occasion of his arrival, for all the gaiety, was
one of dignity and importance. If Bostil reveled in anything it was in an hour
like this. His liberality made this event a great race-day. The thoroughbreds
were all there, blanketed, in charge of watchful riders.
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