heir jockey before the race," his brother told him.
"Too raw. Mackay? Mackay'd make a mess of you. Quit it, I tell you."

"I'll----" Blake began. But Gavin suddenly cursed him.

"Do you want me to handle you?" he demanded. In his voice came the
hoarse, growling note it had held when he had spoken to the man pinned
against the wall. His hand clamped his brother's wrist and his eyes
blazed. Half drunk as he was, Blake apparently recognized these danger
signals.

"Let go," he said. "I won't start anything."

His brother eyed him for a moment and turned to Paul Sam.

"How much do you want to bet?"

For answer the Indian pulled forth a huge roll of bills bound by a
buckskin thong. They represented sales of steers, cayuses, skins of
marten, beaver, bear and lynx, bounties on coyotes and mountain lion.

"Bet um all!" he announced succinctly.

"See what he's got," Gavin said to Angus, "and we'll cover it."

Angus sorted out the currency. It was in bills of various denominations
and various stages of dilapidation. The amount totaled a little over
twelve hundred dollars.

"We'll put up a check," said Gerald.

But when this was explained to Paul Sam, he interposed a decided
negative. He himself was putting up real, tangible money, that could be
handled and counted. Similar money must be put up against it. And when
this was procured, with considerable difficulty at that time of night,
he would not hear of it being put in the hotel safe, but insisted that
Angus should hold it literally.

"Ha-a-lo put um in skookum box," he declared positively. "Me know you.
S'pose you keep money, s'pose me win, me catch um sure. S'pose him put
in skookum box, mebbe so me no catch um. You keep um money."

Reluctantly, Angus accepted its custody, but privately he made up his
mind to deposit it in the safe as soon as the old Indian had gone. Soon
after, Chetwood drew him aside.

"I've a fancy to have a little on the old buster's horse," he announced.
"What do you say?"

"I don't say anything; it's your money."

"Quite so. But what sort of a run do you think I'll get for it?"

"The best the horse has in him, whatever that is."

"Then I've a notion to have a go at it."

"Do you know anything about the horses?"

"Not a thing," Chetwood replied cheerfully. "In the expressive language
of the country, I'm playing a hunch. That old Indian takes my eye,
rather."

"He's foxy enough. But the Indians have entered a horse every year, and