"All right!" said Jockey Gillis, savagely. "If you won't run for the spurs, you'll run for _this_!" And he drove his clenched fist against the horse's shoulder. Last Chance grunted and did his best to leap out from under his tormentor. Failing in this he spurted crazily and the gap widened.
"There it goes again!" muttered the Kid, under his breath. "He's pretty raw with it. Now if the judges notice the way that horse is running they may frisk Calamity for an electric battery and if they find one on him--good night!"
"_Ask_ anybody!" howled the Kid, in sudden anger. "You don't need to take my word for it!"
At the paddock gate Last Chance was rocking from side to side with weariness and the pursuit was closing in on him. Jockey Gillis measured the distance to the wire and waited until Montezuma and Bluestone drew alongside. Twenty-five feet from home his fist thumped Last Chance on the shoulder again. The big chestnut answered with a frenzied bound and came floundering under the wire, a winner by a neck.
"He won!" cried Hopwood. "That--that was him in front, wasn't it?"
"That was what's left of him," was the response. "Maybe we'd better not cheer until the judges give us the 'official' on those numbers. I've got a hunch they may want to see Jock Gillis in the stand." And to himself: "The fool! He handed it to him again right under their noses! Does he think the judges are cockeyed too?"
"Here's our chance to get rid of the grocer," said the presiding judge to his associate. "Did you notice the way that horse acted? The boy's got a battery on him, sure as guns!"
One hundred yards from the wire Last Chance checked to a walk and as Jockey Gillis turned the horse he tossed a small, dark object over the inside fence. It fell in a puddle of water and disappeared from sight. When the winner staggered stiffly into the ring, Gillis flicked the visor of his cap with his whip.
The presiding judge answered the salute with a nod, but later when the rider was leaving the weighing room, he halted him with a curt command.
The investigation, while brief, was thorough. The judges examined the saddle carefully for copper stitching, looked at the butt end of the whip, ran their hands over Calamity's thin loins and last of all felt in his bootlegs for wires connected with the spurs. All this time Jockey Gillis might have been posing as a statue of outraged innocence.