Sunday happened to be fair, with not too strong a wind blowing. Before noon Little Lost ranch was a busy place, and just before dinner it became busier. Horse-racing seemed to be as popular a sport in the valley as dancing. Indeed, men came riding in who had not come to the dance. The dry creek-bed where the horses would run had no road leading to it, so that all vehicles came to Little Lost and remained there while the passengers continued on foot to the races.
At the corral fresh shaven men, in clean shirts to distinguish this as a dress-up occasion, foregathered, looking over the horses and making bets and arguing. Pop shambled here and there, smoking cigarettes furiously and keeping a keen ear toward the loudest betting. He came sidling up to Bud, who was leading Smoky out of the stable, and his sharp eyes took in every inch of the horse and went inquiringly to Bud's face.
"Goin' to run him, young feller--lame as what he is?" he demanded sharply.
"Going to try, anyway," said Bud. "I've got a bet up on him, dad."
"Sho! Fixin' to lose, air ye? You kin call it off, like as not. Jeff ain't so onreason'ble 't he'd make yuh run a lame horse. Air yuh, Jeff?"
Jeff strolled up and looked Smoky over with critical eyes.
"What's the matter? Ain't the kid game to run him? Looks to me like a good little goer."
"He's got a limp--but I'll run him anyway." Bud glanced up.
"Maybe when he's warmed up he'll forget about it."
"Seen my Skeeter?"
"Good horse, I should judge," Bud observed indifferently.
"But I ain't worrying any."
"Well, neither am I," Jeff grinned.
Pop stood teetering back and forth, plainly uneasy. "I'd rub him right good with liniment," he advised Bud. "I'll git some't I know ought t' help."
"What's the matter, Pop? You got money up on that cayuse?"
Jeff laughed.
Pop whirled on him. "I ain't got money up on him, no. But if he wasn't lame I'd have some! I'd show ye 't I admire gameness in a kid. I would so."
Jeff nudged his neighbor into laughter. "There ain't a gamer old bird in the valley than Pop," Jeff cried. "C'm awn, Pop, I'll bet yuh ten dollars the kid beats me!"
Pop was shuffling hurriedly out of the corral after the liniment. To Jeff's challenge he made no reply whatever. The group around Jeff shooed Smoky gently toward the other side of the corral, thereby convincing themselves of the limp in his right hind foot. While not so pronounced as to be crippling, it certainly was no asset to a running horse, and the wise ones conferred together in undertones.
"That there kid's a born fool," Dave Truman stated positively. "The horse can't run. He's got the look of a speedy little animal--but shucks! The kid don't know anything about running horses. I've been talking to him, and I know.
Jeff, you're taking the money away from him if you run that race."
"Well, I'm giving the kid a chance to back out," Jeff hastened to declare. "He can put it off till his horse gits well, if he wants to. I ain't going to hold him to it. I never said I was."
"That's mighty kind of you," Bud said, coming up from behind with a bottle of liniment, and with Pop at his heels. "But I'll run him just the same. Smoky has favored this foot before, and it never seemed to hurt him any. You needn't think I'm going to crawfish. You must think I'm a whining cuss--say! I'll bet another ten dollars that I don't come in more than a neck behind, lame horse or not!"
"Now, kid, don't git chancey," Pop admonished uneasily.
"Twenty-five is enough money to donate to Jeff."
"That's right, kid. I like your nerve," Jeff cut in, emphasizing his approval with a slap on Bud's shoulder as he bent to lift Smoky's leg. "I've saw worse horses than this one come in ahead--it wouldn't be no sport o' kings if nobody took a chance."
"I'm taking chance enough," Bud retorted without looking up.
"If I don't win this time I will the next, maybe."
"That's right," Jeff agreed heartily, winking broadly at the others behind Bud's back.
Bud rubbed Smoky's ankle with liniment, listened to various and sundry self-appointed advisers and, without seeming to think how the sums would total, took several other small bets on the race. They were small--Pop began to teeter back and forth and lift his shoulders and pull his beard--sure signs of perturbation.
"By Christmas, I'll just put up ten dollars on the kid," Pop finally cackled. "I ain't got much to lose--but I'll show yuh old Pop ain't going to see the young feller stand alone." He tried to catch Bud's eye, but that young man was busy saddling Smoky and returning jibe for jibe with the men around him, and did not glance toward Pop at all.
"I'll take this bottle in my pocket, Pop," he said with his back toward the old man, and mounted carelessly. "I'll ride him around a little and give him another good rubbing before we run. I'm betting," he added to the others frankly, "on the chance that exercise and the liniment will take the soreness out of that ankle. I don't believe it amounts to anything at all. So if any of you fellows want to bet--"
"Shucks! Don't go 'n-" Pop began, and bit the sentence in two, dropping immediately into a deep study. The kid was getting beyond Pop's understanding.
A crowd of perhaps a hundred men and women--with a generous sprinkling of unruly juveniles--lined the sheer bank of the creek-bed and watched the horses run, and screamed their cheap witticisms at the losers, and their approval of those who won. The youngster with the mysterious past and the foolhardiness to bet on a lame horse they watched and discussed, the women plainly wishing he would win--because he was handsome and young, and such a wonderful musician. The men were more cold-blooded. They could not see that Bud's good looks or the haunting melody of his voice had any bearing whatever upon his winning a race. They called him a fool, and either refused to bet at all on such a freak proposition as a lame horse running against Skeeter, or bet against him. A few of the wise ones wondered if Jeff and his bunch were merely "stringing the kid along "; if they might not let him win a little, just to make him more "chancey."
