“Of course I am, Pop! I've spotted a way to make money and have fun while I do it.” Bud looked at the old man, remembered Marian's declaration that Pop was not very reliable, and groped mentally for a way to hearten the old man without revealing anything better kept to himself, such as the immediate effect of a horse hair tied just above a horse's hoof, also the immediate result of removing that hair. Wherefore, he could not think of much to say, except that he would not attempt to run a lame horse against Boise.
“All I can say is, to-morrow morning you keep your eyes open, Pop, and your tongue between your teeth. And no matter what comes up, you use your own judgment.”
To-morrow morning Pop showed that he was taking Bud's advice. When the crowd began to gather—much earlier than usual, by the way, and much larger than any crowd Bud had seen in the valley—Pop was trotting here and there, listening and pulling his whiskers and eyeing Bud sharply whenever that young man appeared in his vicinity.
Bud led Smoky up at noon—and Smoky was still lame. Dave looked at him and at Bud, and grinned. “I guess that forfeit money's mine,” he said in his laconic way. “No use running that horse. I could beat him afoot.”
This was but the beginning. Others began to banter and jeer Bud, Jeff's crowd taunting him with malicious glee. The singin' kid was going to have some of the swelling taken out of his head, they chortled. He had been crazy enough to put up a forfeit on to-day's race, and now his horse had just three legs to run on.
“Git out afoot, kid!” Jeff Hall yelled. “If you kin run half as fast as you kin talk, you'll beat Boise four lengths in the first quarter!”
Bud retorted in kind, and led Smoky around the corral as if he hoped that the horse would recover miraculously just to save his master's pride. The crowd hooted to see how Smoky hobbled along, barely touching the toe of his lame foot to the ground. Bud led him back to the manger piled with new hay, and faced the jeering crowd belligerently. Bud noticed several of the Muleshoe men in the crowd, no doubt drawn to Little Lost by the talk of Bud's spectacular winnings for two Sundays. Hen was there, and Day Masters and Cub. Also there were strangers who had ridden a long way, judging by their sweaty horses. In the midst of the talk and laughter Dave led out Boise freshly curried and brushed and arching his neck proudly.
“No use, Bud,” he said tolerantly. “I guess you're set back that forfeit money—unless you want to go through the motions of running a lame horse.”
“No, sir, I'm not going to hand over any forfeit money without making a fight for it!” Bud told him, anger showing in his voice. “I'm no such piker as that. I won't run Smoky, lame as he is “—Bud probably nudged his own ribs when he said that!—“but if you'll make it a mile, I'll catch up my old buckskin packhorse and run the race with him, by thunder! He's not the quickest horse in the world, but he sure can run a long while!”
They yelled and slapped one another on the back, and otherwise comported themselves as though a great joke had been told them; never dreaming, poor fools, that a costly joke was being perpetrated.