; I never could abide 'em." Shandy sometimes harked back to his
early English Whitechapel, for he had come from the old country, and had
brought with him all the depravity he could acquire in the first five
years of his existence there.

"Ned's got the soft snap in that blasted bunch," as his eye discovered
Carter on Lucretia. "He's slipped me this go, but I've nobbled the boss,
so I don't care. I'm next 'em this trip."

As the three horses and their riders came on to the course he pulled out
a cheap stop-watch Langdon had equipped him with for his touting, and
started and stopped it several times.

"You'll pay fer their feed, you damn ole skinflint," he was
apostrophizing Porter, "an' I'll be next the best they can do, an'
stan' in on the rake-off. Gee! I thought they was out fer a trial," he
muttered, looking disconsolately at the three as they cantered the first
part of the journey. "I'll ketch 'em at the half, on the off chance," he
added.

But though the timepiece in his hand clicked impatiently, after he
pressed the stem with his thumb, as Diablo's black nozzle showed past
the half-mile post, the three horses still cantered. Lauzanne was loping
leisurely with the action of a wooden rocking-horse. Lucretia, her long,
in-tipped ears cocked eagerly forward, was throwing her head impatiently
into the air as though pleading for just one strong gallop. Diablo's
neck was arched like the half of a cupid's bow; his head, almost against
his chest, hung heavy in the reins tight-drawn in Porter's strong hands.
His eyes, showing full of a suspicious whiteness, stood out from his
lean, bony head; they were possessed of a fretful, impatient look. Froth
flecked back from the nervous, quivering lips, and spattered against his
black satin-skinned chest, where it hung like seafoam on holding sand.

"Whoa! Steady, old boy!" Porter was coaxing soothingly. "Steady, boy!"

"The ease up has put the very deuce into this fellow," he flung over
his shoulder to Allis, who was at Diablo's quarter. "He's a hard-mouthed
brute if ever there was one."

"He'll be all right, dad," she called forward, raising her voice, for
the wind cut her breath; "Shandy rode him with a heavy hand, that's
why."

"I'll put a rubber bit in his mouth, to soften it," he pumped brokenly.
"Let out a wrap, girl, and we'll breeze them up the stretch; come on.
Carter, get to the front with the mare." A quarter of a mile from the
finish the horses raced into a swin