“Ned's got the soft snap in that blasted bunch,” as his eye discovered Carter on Lucretia. “He's slipped me this go, but I've nobbled the boss, so I don't care. I'm next 'em this trip.”
As the three horses and their riders came on to the course he pulled out a cheap stop-watch Langdon had equipped him with for his touting, and started and stopped it several times.
“You'll pay fer their feed, you damn ole skinflint,” he was apostrophizing Porter, “an' I'll be next the best they can do, an' stan' in on the rake-off. Gee! I thought they was out fer a trial,” he muttered, looking disconsolately at the three as they cantered the first part of the journey. “I'll ketch 'em at the half, on the off chance,” he added.
But though the timepiece in his hand clicked impatiently, after he pressed the stem with his thumb, as Diablo's black nozzle showed past the half-mile post, the three horses still cantered. Lauzanne was loping leisurely with the action of a wooden rocking-horse. Lucretia, her long, in-tipped ears cocked eagerly forward, was throwing her head impatiently into the air as though pleading for just one strong gallop. Diablo's neck was arched like the half of a cupid's bow; his head, almost against his chest, hung heavy in the reins tight-drawn in Porter's strong hands. His eyes, showing full of a suspicious whiteness, stood out from his lean, bony head; they were possessed of a fretful, impatient look. Froth flecked back from the nervous, quivering lips, and spattered against his black satin-skinned chest, where it hung like seafoam on holding sand.
“Whoa! Steady, old boy!” Porter was coaxing soothingly. “Steady, boy!”
“The ease up has put the very deuce into this fellow,” he flung over his shoulder to Allis, who was at Diablo's quarter. “He's a hard-mouthed brute if ever there was one.”
“He'll be all right, dad,” she called forward, raising her voice, for the wind cut her breath; “Shandy rode him with a heavy hand, that's why.”
“I'll put a rubber bit in his mouth, to soften it,” he pumped brokenly. “Let out a wrap, girl, and we'll breeze them up the stretch; come on. Carter, get to the front with the mare.” A quarter of a mile from the finish the horses raced into a swinging stride. Diablo was simply mad with a desire to gallop; but in the saddle was his master; no horse ever did as he wished with John Porter. Battling against the sharps his honesty might handicap him out of the strife, but in the saddle the elation of movement crept into his sinews, and he was superb, a king. As a jockey, he would have been unsurpassed. It filled his heart with delight to play with the fierce, imperious animal he rode.