Lanso leaves his creekside home, worms his way among the slender cotton-woods, and emerging on the race course, drops into a dogged trot through the deep sand. The race course—but that is a place for a mad, scrambling dash; perched with brothers, and sisters too, on the bare back of father’s horse. What need to run afoot: foot races come at dance time, and that will have to wait until the harvest is in. Dance time—Lanso hums the songs. “Yes, I know them all; next time I, too, will dance....”