"He won"t last in this going with that weight up."
"You"re right," panted Townsend. "And I"m going to risk a hundred on him. Hey, Joe, how d"you bet on Charlie Haig?"
"Two to one."
"Take you for a hundred. Joe, meet Mr. Connor."
"A hundred it is, Jack. Can I do anything for you, Mr. Connor?"
"I"ll go a hundred on the roan, sir."
"Have I done it right?" asked Townsend fiercely, a little later. "I wonder do you know?"
"Ask that after the race is over," smiled Connor. "After all, you have only one horse to be afraid of."
"Sure; Lightnin"--but he"s enough."
"Not Lightning, I tell you. The gray is the only horse to be afraid of though the brown stallion might do if he has enough seasoning."
For a moment panic brightened the eyes of Townsend, and then he shook the fear away.
"I"ve done it now," he said huskily, "and they"s no use talking. Let"s get down to the finish."
The crowd was streaming away from the start, and headed toward the finish half a mile down the street beyond the farther end of Lukin. Most of this distance Townsend kept his companion close to a run; then he suddenly appealed for a slower pace.
"It"s my heart," he explained. "Nothin" else bothers it, but during a hoss race it sure stands on end. I get to thinkin" of what my wife will say if I lose; and that always plumb upsets me."
He was, in fact, spotted white and purple when they joined the mob which packed both sides of the street at the finish posts; already the choice positions were taken.
"We won"t get a look," groaned Townsend.
But Connor chuckled: "You tie on to me and we"ll get to the front in a squeeze." And he ejected himself into the mob. How it was done Townsend could never understand. They oozed through the thickest of the crowd, and when roughly pressed men ahead of them turned around, ready to fight, Connor was always looking back, apparently forced along by the pressure from the rear. He seemed, indeed, to be struggling to keep his footing, but in a few minutes Townsend found himself in the front rank.
He mopped his brow and smiled up into the cool face of Connor, but there was no time for comments. Eight horses fretted in a ragged line far down the street, and as they frisked here and there the brims of the sombreros of the riders flapped up and down; only the Eden gray stood with downward head, dreaming.
"No heart," said Townsend, "in that gray hoss. Look at him!"
"Plenty of head, though," replied Connor; "here they go!"
His voice was lost in a yell that went up wailing, shook into a roar, and then died off, as though a gust of wind had cut the sounds away. A murmur of voices followed, and then an almost womanish yell, for Lightning, the favorite, was out in front, and his rider leaned in the saddle with arm suspended and a quirt which never fell. The rest were a close group where whips worked ceaselessly, except that in the rear of all the rest the little gray horse ran without urge, smoothly, as if his rider had given up all hope of winning and merely allowed his horse to canter through.
"D"you see?" screamed Townsend. "Is that what you know about hosses, Mr.
Connor? Look at Cliff Jones"s Lightning! What do you--"
He cut his upbraidings short, for Connor"s was a grisly face, white about the mouth and with gathered brows, as though, with intense effort, he strove to throw the influence of his will into that ma.s.s of horse-flesh. The hotel-keeper turned in time to see Lightning, already buckling under the strain, throw up his head.
The heavy burdens, the deep, soft going, and the fact that none of the horses were really trained to sprint, made the half-mile course a very real test, and now the big leader perceptibly weakened. Out of the pack shot a slender brown body, and came to the girth--to the neck of the bay.
"The stallion!" shouted Townsend. "By G.o.d, you do know hosses! Who"d of thought that skinny fellow had it in him?"
"He"ll die," said Connor calmly.
The bay and the brown went back into the pack together, even as Connor spoke, though the riders were flogging hard, and now the roan drew to the front. It was plain to see that he had the foot of the rest, for he came away from the crowd with every leap.
"Look! Look! Look!" moaned Townsend. "Two for one! Look!" He choked with pleasure and gripped Connor"s arm in both his hands in token of grat.i.tude.
Now the race bore swiftly down the finish, the horses looming bigger; their eyes could be seen, and their straining nostrils now, and the desperate face of each rider, trying to lift his horse into a great burst.
"He"s got it," sobbed Townsend, hysterical. "Nothin" can catch him now."
But his companion, in place of answer, stiffened and pointed. His voice was a tone of horror, almost, as he said: "I knew, by G.o.d, I knew all the time and wouldn"t believe my eyes."
For far from the left, rounding the pack, came a streak of gray. It caught the brown horse and pa.s.sed him in two leaps; it shot by the laboring bay; and only the roan of Charlie Haig remained in front. That rider, confident of victory, had slipped his quirt over his wrist and was hand-riding his horse when a brief, deep yell of dismay from the crowd made him jerk a glance over his shoulder. He cut the quirt into the flank of the roan, but it was too late. Five lengths from the finish the little gray shoved his nose in front; and from that point, settling toward the earth, as he stretched into a longer and longer stride, every jump increased his margin. The nose of the roan was hardly on the rump of the gelding at the finish.
A bedlam roar came from the crowd. Townsend was cursing and beating time to his oaths with a fat fist. Townsend found so many companion losers that his feelings were readily salved, and he turned to Connor, smiling wryly.
"We can"t win every day," he declared, "but I"ll tell you this, partner; of all the men I ever seen, you get the medal for judgin" a hoss. You can pick my string any day."
"Eighteen years old," Connor was saying in the monotonous tone of one hypnotized.
"Hey, there," protested Townsend, perceiving that he was on the verge of being ignored.
"A hundred and eighty pounds," sighed the big man.
Townsend saw for the first time that a stop-watch was in the hand of his companion, and now, as Connor began to pace off the distance, the hotel proprietor tagged behind, curious. Twenty steps from the starting point the larger man stopped abruptly, shook his head, and then went on. When he came to the start he paused again, and Townsend found him staring with dull eyes at the face of the watch.
"What"d they make it in?" asked the little man.
The other did not hear.
"They ran from this line?" he queried in a husky voice.
"Sure. Line between them posts."
"Fifty-nine seconds!" he kept repeating. "Fifty-nine seconds!
Fifty-nine!"
"What about the fifty-nine seconds?" asked Townsend, and receiving no answer he murmured to himself: "The heat has got to his head."
Connor asked quietly: "Know anything about these gray horses and where they came from?"
"Sure. As much as anybody. Come from yonder in the mountains. A Negro raises "em. A deaf mute. Ain"t ever been heard to say a word."
"And he raises horses like that?"
"Sure."
"And n.o.body"s been up there to try to buy "em?"