Langdon, just inside the box, chuckled softly. Surely Crane was a past master in duplicity.
“I'm starting Lucretia in this race,” replied Honest John.
“Oh!” Then Crane took Porter gently by the sleeve and drew him half within the stall. “Mr. Langdon, who trains a horse or two for me, says this one'll win;” and he indicated the big chestnut colt that the Trainer was binding tight to a light racing saddle. “You'd better have a bit on, Mr. Porter,” Crane added.
“Lucretia carries my money,” answered Porter in loyalty.
Langdon looked up, having cinched the girth tight, and took a step toward the two men.
“Well, we both can't win,” he said, half insolently; “an' I don't think there's anything out to-day'll beat Lauzanne.”
“That mare'll beat him,” retorted Porter, curtly, nettled by the other's cocksureness.
“I'll bet you one horse against the other, the winner to take both,” cried Langdon in a sneering, defiant tone.
“I've made my bets,” said Lucretia's owner, quietly.
“I hear you had an offer of five thousand for your filly, Mr. Porter,” half queried Crane.
“And here's the one that'll beat her to-day, an' I'll sell him for half that,” asserted the Trainer, putting his hand on Lauzanne's neck.
Exasperated by the persistent boastfulness of Langdon, Porter was angered into saying, “If he beats my mare, I'll give you that for him myself.”
“Done!” snapped Langdon. “I've said it, an' I'll stick to it.”
“I don't want the horse--” began Porter; but Langdon interrupted him.
“I never crawl,” said Porter fiercely. “I don't want your horse, but just to show you what I think of your chance of winning, I'll give you two thousand and a half if you beat my mare, no matter what wins the race.”
“I think you'd better call this bargain off, Mr. Porter,” remonstrated Crane.
“Oh, the bargain will be off,” answered John Porter; “if I'm any judge, Lauzanne's running his race right here in the stall.”
His practiced eye had summed up Lauzanne as chicken-hearted; the sweat was running in little streams down the big Chestnut's legs, and dripping from his belly into the drinking earth spit-spit, drip-drip; his head was high held in nervous apprehension; his lips twitched, his flanks trembled like wind-distressed water, and the white of his eye was showing ominously.