y Mary."
Corson chuckled at the thought of such easy money.

"What makes you so sure?" asked Marianne, for even if she were lucky
enough to get the mares she felt that from Corson she could learn
beforehand the criticisms of Lew Hervey.

"So sure? Why anybody with half an eye--" here he remembered that he was
talking to a lady and continued more mildly. "Them bay mares ain't
hosses--they're tricks. Look how skinny all that underpinning is, Miss
Jordan."

"When they fill out--" she began.

"Tush! They won't never fill out proper. Too much leg to make a hoss.
Too much daylight under 'em. Besides, what good would they be for
cow-work? High headed fools, all of 'em, and a hoss that don't know enough
to run with his head low can't turn on a forty acre lot. Don't tell me!"

He forbade contradiction by raising an imperious hand. Marianne was so
exasperated that she looked to Mrs. Corson in the pinch, but that old
lady was smiling dimly behind her glasses; she seemed to be studying the
smoky gorges of the Eagles, so Marianne wisely deferred her answer and
listened to that unique voice which rises from a crowd of men and women
when horses are about to race. There is no fellow to the sound. The
voice of the last-chance better is the deep and mournful burden; the
steady rattle of comment is the body of it; and the edge of the noise is
the calling of those who are confident with "inside dope." Marianne,
listening, thought that the sound in Glosterville was very much like
the sound in Belmont. The difference was in the volume alone. The hosses
were now lining up for the start, it was with a touch of malice that
Marianne said: "I suppose that's one of your range types? That faded old
chestnut just walking up to get in line?"

Corson started to answer and then rubbed his eyes to look again.

It was Alcatraz plodding towards the line of starters, his languid hoofs
rousing a wisp of dust at every step. He went with head depressed, his
sullen; hopeless ears laid back. On his back sat Manuel Cordova,
resplendent in sky-blue, tight-fitting jacket. Yet he rode the
spiritless chestnut with both hands, his body canted forward a little,
his whole attitude one of desperate alertness. There was something so
ludicrous in the contrast between the hair-trigger nervousness of the
Mexican and the drowsy unconcern of the stallion that a murmur of
laughter rose from the crowd about the starting line and drifted across
the field.

"I suppose y