me 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." But they did not th