-just an ordinary compliment. Like an inspiration it came to the
girl what had affected her so disagreeably in Crane--it was his eyes.
They were hard, cold, glittering gray eyes, looking out from between
partly closed eyelids. Allis could see them still. The lower lids cut
straight across; it was as though the eyes were peeping at her over a
stone wall.

"What did I tell you about Crusader?" Alan said, triumphantly. "There's
another."

"Alan!"

"I wondered why Mr. Crane was so deuced friendly; but there's nothing to
get cross about, girl, he's a fine old chap, and got lots of wealth."

He leaned forward till he was close to his sister's ear, and added, in
a whisper, "Her ladyship behind, Belle Langdon, is trying to hook him.
Phew!--but she's loud. But I'm off--I'm going to see what the row is
about."

IV

When John Porter left the stand, the horses had just cantered back
to weigh in. The jockeys, one after another, with upraised whip, had
saluted the Judge, received his nod to dismount, pulled the saddles
from their steeds, and, in Indian file, were passing over the scales.
As Lucretia was led away, Porter turned into the paddock. He saw that
Langdon was waiting for him.

"Well, he won, just as I said he would," declared the latter; "you've
got a good horse cheap. You'd ought to've had a bet down on him, an' won
him out."

"He won," answered Porter, looking straight into the other's shifty
eyes, "but he's a long way from being a good horse--no dope horse is a
good horse."

"What're you givin' me?" demanded Langdon, angrily.

"Just what every blackguard ought to have--the truth."

"By God!" the Trainer began, in fierce blasphemy, but John Porter took
a step nearer, and his gray eyes pierced the other man's soul until it
shriveled like a dried leaf, and turned its anger into fear.

"Oh, if you want to crawl--if you don't want to take Lauzanne--"

But Porter again interrupted Langdon---"I said I'd take the horse, and
I will; but don't think that you're fooling me, Mr. Langdon. You're a
blackguard of the first water. Thank God, there are only a few parasites
such as you are racing--it's creatures like you that give the sport a
black eye. If I can only get at the bottom of what has been done to-day,
you'll get ruled off, and you'll stay ruled off. Now turn Lauzanne over
to Andy Dixon, and come into the Secretary's office, where I'll give you
a check for him."

"Well, we'll settle about the horse no