第52章

"You got him going," a man whispered in Jeff's ear."The kid's crazy mad. He'll bet the shirt off his back if yuh egg him on a little more."

Jeff must have decided to "egg" Bud on. By the time the crowd had reached the course, and the first, more commonplace races were over, the other half of his money was in the hands of the stake-holder, who happened on this day to be Jerry. And the odds varied from four to one up to Jeff Hall's scornful fifteen.

"Bet yuh five hundred dollars against your bay horse,"Lew offered when Bud confessed that he had not another dollar to bet.--

"All right, it's a go with me," Bud answered recklessly.

"Get his hundred, Jerry, and put down Stopper."

"What's that saddle worth?" another asked meaningly.

"One hundred dollars," snapped Bud. "And if you want to go further, there are my chaps and spurs and this silver-mounted bridle-and my boots and hat-and I'll throw in Sunfish for whatever you say his hide's worth. Who wants the outfit?"

"I'll take 'em," said Jeff, and permitted Jerry and Dave to appraise the outfit, which Bud piled contemptuously in a heap.

He mounted Sunfish bareback with a rope halter. Bud was bareheaded and in his sock feet. His eyes were terribly blue and bright, and his face was flushed as a drunken man's. He glanced over to the bank where the women and children were watching. It seemed to him that one woman fluttered her handkerchief, and his heart beat unevenly for a minute.

Then he was riding at a walk down the course to the farthest post, and the crowd was laughing at the contrast between the two horses. Boise stepped springily, tossing his head, his eyes ablaze with ardor for the race. Beside him Sunfish walked steadily as if he were carrying a pack. He was not a pretty horse to look at. His neck was long and thin, his mane and tail scanty and uneven, a nondescript sorrel. His head looked large, set on the end of that neck, his nose was dished in and his eyes had a certain veiled look, as if he were hiding a bad disposition under those droopy lids.

Without a saddle he betrayed his high, thin withers, the sway in his back, his high hip bones. His front legs were flat, with long, stringy-looking muscles under his unkempt buckskin hide. Even the women laughed at Sunfish.

Beside them two men rode, the starter and another to see that the start was fair. So they receded down the flat, yellow course and dwindled to mere miniature figures against the sand, so that one could not tell one horse from another.

The crowd bunched, still laughing at how the singin' kid was going to feel when he rode again to meet them. It would cure him of racing, they said. It would be a good lesson; serve him right for coming in there and thinking, because he had cleaned up once or twice, that he could not be beaten.

"Here they come," Jeff Hall announced satisfiedly, and spat into the sand as a tiny blue puff of smoke showed beside one of the dots, and two other dots began to grow perceptibly larger within a yellow cloud which rolled along the earth.

Men reined this way and that, or stood on their toes if they were afoot, the better to see the two rolling dots. In a moment one dot seemed larger than the other. One could glimpse the upflinging of knees as two horses leaped closer and closer.

"Well-l-he's keepin' Dave in sight--that's more than what I expected he'd do," Jeff observed.

It was Pop who suddenly gave a whoop that cracked and shrilled into falsetto.

"Shucks a'mighty! Dave, he's a-whippin' up to keep the KID in sight!" he quavered. "Shucks--a'MIGHTY, he 's a-comin'!"

He was. Lying forward flattened along Sunfish's hard-muscled shoulders, Bud was gaining and gaining--one length, then two lengths as he shot under the wire, slowed and rode back to find a silent crowd watching him.

He was clothed safely again in chaps, boots, spurs, hat--except that I have named the articles backward; cowpuncher that he was, Bud put on his hat before he even reached for his boots--and was collecting his wagers relentlessly as Shylock ever took his toll, before he paid any attention to the atmosphere around him. Then, because someone shouted a question three inches from his ear, Bud turned and laughed as he faced them.

"Why, sure he's from running stock! I never said he wasn't--because none of you make-believe horsemen had sense enough to see the speed in him and get curious. You bush-racers never saw a real race-horse before, I guess. They aren't always pretty to look at, you know. Sunfish has all the earmarks of speed if you know how to look for them. He's thoroughbred; sired by Trump, out of Kansas Chippy--if that means anything to you fellows." He looked them over, eyes meeting eyes until his glance rested on Jeff Hall."I've got his registration papers in my grip, if you aren't convinced. And," he added by way of rubbing it in, "I guess I've got about all the money there is in this valley."

"No, you ain't!" Pop Truman cackled, teetering backward and forward while he counted his winnings. "I bet on ye, young feller. Brought me in something, too. It did so!"