Page:Patches (1928).pdf/217

 The great show was finally set for the first week in August. This was a quiet time on the ranches, the hay on the home ranches had all been cut and stacked, and there is a little breathing spell before the autumn round-up in September. So the time was opportune for this great western drama of the cattle men.

The first obstacle that the good people of Wyanne had to overcome was the fact that they had no arena large enough for such an event. But eons before the white men ever came to this continent nature had prepared just the place for the great show. It was about a mile from the center of the city and was a natural amphitheater which was christened the oval. There was a natural intervale about the size of a polo ground, perhaps three hundred yards by two hundred. This was surrounded by steep bluffs on three sides. The first thing that the Wyanne people did was to build a half mile race track skirting the foot of the bluffs. This was then fenced inside and out by a fivefoot board fence. The enclosure inside the inner fence was then levelled until it was as smooth as a billiard table. This arena contained between: twenty-five or thirty acres.

Bleachers were then set up on the buffs on three sides of the track. The first seats were about ten feet above the track while those perched on the highest