"That's what I call the mirror of health," said Langdon, in an unwonted burst of poetic eloquence, as he pa.s.sed his hand across the horse's ribs. Then feeling that somehow he had laid himself open to a suspicion of gentleness, added, "He's a h.e.l.l of a fine looker; if he could gallop up to his looks he'd make some of the cracks take a back seat."

Even Diablo had resented either the mellifluous comparison or the rub of Langdon's hand, for he lashed out furiously, with a great farreaching leg that nearly caught Crane unawares.

"Your polite language seems to be as irritating to him as the blacksmith's oaths," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Crane, as he came back from the hasty retreat he had beaten.

"It's only play. Good horses is of two kinds when you're saddlin' 'em.

The Dutchman there'll hang his head down, and champ at the bit, even if you bury the girt' an inch deep in his belly; he's honest, and knows it's all needed. That's one kind; and they're generally the same at the post, always there or thereabouts, waitin' for the word 'go.' An' they race pretty much the same all the time. If you time 'em a mile in 1:40 at home, they'll do it when the colors is up, an' the silk a-flappin'

all about 'em in the race.

"Whoa! Hold still, you brute! Steady, steady! Whoa!" This to Diablo, for while talking he had adjusted the weight cloth with the gentleness of a cavalier putting a silk wrap about his lady love's neck, and had put a fold of soft woolen cloth over the high-boned wither.

"Stand out in front of him and hold his head down a bit;" this to the boy. Then as he slipped the saddle into place and reached underneath for the girths, he continued his address to Crane on the peculiarity of racers.

"Now this is a horse of another color, this one; he ain't takin' things easy at no stage of the game. He objects to everything, an' some day that'll land him a winner, see? He'll get it into his head that the other horses want to beat him out, an' he'll show 'em a clean pair of heels; come home on the bit, pullin' double. Whoa, boy! Steady, steady, old man!" Then he ceased talking, for he had taken the girth strap between his teeth, and was cinching up the big Black with the firm pull of a grizzly. Diablo squirmed under the torture of the tightening web on his sensitive skin, and crouched as though he would fall on the Trainer.

"Yes, sir;" continued Langdon, as he ran the stirrups up under the saddle flap out of the way, and motioned to the boy to lead Diablo about. "Yes, sir; this fellow's different. He's too d.a.m.n sensitive.

At the post he's like as not to act like a locoed broncho, an' get one blamed for having 'juiced' him, but he don't need no dope; what he needs is steadying. If he gets away in front, them long legs of his will take some catchin'. He's the kind that wins when the books are layin' a hundred to one against him. But the worst of it is with his sort, like as not the owner hasn't a penny on them; but the public'll howl; they'll call it in-an'-out runnin'; an' the scribblers'll get their paper to print a notice that the stable ought to be ruled off; an' all the time you're breakin' your heart trying to get him to give his true--h.e.l.lo!

there's Colley out on The Dutchman; mount your horse, Westley--wait, you don't need no spurs; yes, carry a whip, an' give the guys that is watchin' a stage play with it; but don't hit the Black. We'll just see what he'll do himself, this trip," he added, addressing Crane.

Taking Westley's small-booted foot in his hand, he lifted the lad to Diablo's back, and led the horse out through a gate to the course.

XX

The two boys cantered their mounts down to the quarter post carelessly, as though they were going around to the far side.

"Look at 'em!" cried the Trainer; "isn't he a little gentleman?"

To the uninitiated this might have been taken as a tribute to one of the boys, Westley, perhaps; but the Trainer was not even thinking of them.

They were of no moment. It was the wine-red bay, The Dutchman, cantering with gentle, lazy grace, that had drawn forth this encomium. His head, somewhat high carried, was held straight and true in front, and his big eyes searched the course with gentle inquisitiveness, for others of his kind, perhaps.

"He's a lovely horse," commented Crane, knowing quite well to what Langdon referred.

"He's all that, but just look at the other devil."

Diablo was throwing his nose fretfully up and down, up and down; grabbing at the bit; pirouetting from one side the course to the other; nearly pulling Westley over his neck one minute, as with lowered head he sought to break away, and the next dashing forward for a few yards with it stuck foolishly high, like a badmouthed Indian cayuse.

"But Westley'll manage him," Langdon confided to Crane, after a period of silent observation; "he'll get his belly full of runnin' when he's gone a mile and a quarter with The Dutchman. Gad! that was neat; here they come;" for the two boys had whirled with sudden skill at the quarter post, and broke away, with Diablo slightly in the lead. "My G.o.d!

he can move," muttered Langdon, abstractedly, and quite to himself. The man at his side had floated into oblivion. He saw only a great striding black horse coming wide-mouthed up the stretch. At the Black's heels, with dogged lope, hung the Bay.

"Take him back, take him back, Westley!" yelled Langdon, leaning far out over the rail, as the horses raced by, Diablo well in front.

The Trainer's admonition seemed like a cry to a cyclone, as void of usefulness. What power could the tiny dot lying close hugged far up on the straining black neck have over the galloping fiend?

"Yes, that's the way," Langdon said, nodding his head to Crane, and jerking a thumb out toward the first turn in the course, where the two horses were hugging close to the rail; "that's the way he's worked here."

"Which one?" asked his companion.

"The Black, an' if he ever does that in a race--G.o.d help the others--they'll never catch him; they'll never catch him; they'll never catch him," he kept repeating, dwelling lovingly on the thought, as he saw the confirmation of it being enacted before his eyes; for across the new green of the gra.s.s-sprouted course he could see two open lengths of daylight between Diablo and The Dutchman.

"Fifty-one and a half for the half-mile," he imparted to Crane, looking at his watch. "Now The Dutchman is moving up; Colley doesn't mean to get left if he can help it. I'm afraid Diablo'll shut up when he's pinched; his kind are apt to do that. The Dutchman is game, an' if he ever gets to the Black's throat-latch he'll chuck it. But it takes some ridin'; it takes some ridin', sir." He was becoming enthusiastic, exuberant.

The silent man at his side noticed the childish repet.i.tion with inward amus.e.m.e.nt. He had thought that Langdon would have been overjoyed to see the bay horse smother his opponent. Was not the Trainer to have ten thousand dollars if The Dutchman won the Handicap? But here he was pinning his satisfaction to the good showing of Diablo. He didn't know of the compact between Langdon and the Bookmaker Faust, but he strongly suspected from the Trainer's demeanor that the gallop he was witnessing foretold some big coup the latter scented.

"He hasn't got him yet, he hasn't got him yet!" cried Langdon, joyfully, as the horses swung around the bottom turn, closer locked, but with Diablo still a short length in the lead.

Crane saw no great cause for exhilaration. The Dutchman was certainly giving the Black twenty pounds the best of it in the weights, for one was a three-year-old while the other was four, and they each carried a hundred and twelve.

"The mile in 1:42," chirped Langdon. "That's movin', if you like, considerin' the track, the condition of the horses, an' that they're runnin' under a double wrap. Now we'll see a ding-dong finish, if the Black doesn't show a streak of yellow. Dutchy's got him," he added, as through his gla.s.ses he saw them swing into the straight, neck and neck.

"Clever Mr. Westlev!" for Diablo's rider, having the rail and the lead, had bored out slightly on the turn, so as not to cramp the uncertain horse he rode, and carried The Dutchman wide.

Up the straight they came, the boys helping their mounts with leg and arm; the Black holding his own with a dogged persistence that quite upset Langdon's prognostication of cowardice.

To the watchers it was as exciting as a stake race. The stamina that Langdon had said would stand The Dutchman in good stead over the mile and a half Handicap course now showed itself. First he was level with the Black, then gradually, stride by stride, he drew away from Diablo, and finished a short length in front.

"A great trial," cried the Trainer, gleefully, holding out his watch for Crane's inspection. "See that!" pointing to the hand he had stopped as the Bay's brown nozzle flashed by the post; "two-nine on this course!

Anything that beats that pair, fit and well, a mile and a quarter on a fast track'll have to make it in two-five, an' that's the record."

"It looks good business for the Derby, Langdon."

"Yes, it does. That's the first showing I've had from the colt as a three-year-old; but I knew he had it in him. Hanover was a great horse--to my mind we never had his equal in America--but this youngster'll be as good as his daddy ever was. I don't think you ought to start him, sir, till the Derby, if you're set on winnin' it."

He had moved up to the gate as he talked, and now opened it, waiting for the boys to come back. They had eased down the horses gradually after the fierce gallop, turned them about and were trotting toward the paddock, where stood the two men. Langdon took Diablo by the bridle rein and led him in toward the stalls.

"How did he shape under you, Westley?" he asked, as the boy slipped from the saddle.

"I wouldn't ask to ride a better horse. I thought I had the colt beaten, sure; but my mount seemed to tire a little at the finish. He didn't toss it up, not a bit of it; ran as game as a pebble; he just tired at the finish. I think a mile is his journey. He held The Dutchman safe at a mile."

"I guess you're right, Westley; a mile's his limit. At level weights with the three-year-old, which means that he had twenty pounds the best of it, he should have held his own the whole route to be a stayer, for the colt isn't more'n half ready yet."

"I didn't hustle him none too much, sir; I might a-squeezed a bit more out of him. Did we make fair time?"

"Quite a feeler, Mister Jockey," thought Langdon to himself; "it's news you want, eh?" Then he answered aloud, with a diplomacy born of many years of turf tuition: "Fairish sort of time; it might have been better, perhaps--a shade under two-twelve. I thought they might have bettered that a couple of seconds. But they'll come on--they'll come on, both of them. If anybody asks you, Westley, The Dutchman was beaten off, see?

I don't like to discourage the clever owners that has good 'uns in the Derby" Then he added as a sort of after thought, and with wondrous carelessness:

"It doesn't matter about the Black, you know; he's only a sellin'

plater, so it doesn't matter. But all the same, Westley, when we find a soft spot for him, an over-night sellin' purse or somethin, you'll have the leg up, with a bet down for you at a long price, see?"

"I understand, sir."

By the time Langdon had slipped the saddle from Diablo's back the boy had thrown a hooded blanket over him, and he was led away. "Send them home, Westley. Now, Mr. Crane, we'll drive back to the house an' have a bit of lunch."

As they drove along Crane brought up the subject of the trial.

"The colt must be extra good, Langdon, or the Black is--well, as he was represented to be, not much account."