When the last stake was driven deep and the rope was knotted securely in place, he rode straight to the corral and pulled up before the judges' stand for his final announcement.
It was a quiet crowd now that he faced.

A mass of men and women, tense, silent, ears and eyes strained to miss no smallest detail.

He had no need to lift his hand for their attention; he had it--had it to the extent that every man there was unconscious of his neighbor.

That roped area was something new, something they had not been expecting.

Also the thing Dade told them sounded strange to these hot-blooded ones, who had looked forward to a whirlwind battle, with dust and swirling riatas and no law except the law of chance and superior skill and cunning.
"The two who will fight with riatas for the medalla oro and for the prize which Don Andres offers to the victor," he began, "have agreed upon certain rules which each has promised to observe faithfully, that skill rather than luck may be the chief factor in the fight.