"You'd only blow it in if you had it," replied Pitkin. "The General's a darn bad race horse—always was and always will be."
"They ain't nothin' in that race fo' him to beat," responded Gabe.
"He's never had anything to beat yet," said Pitkin, "and he's still a maiden, ain't he? Better let him run for the purse, Gabe. Playing a horse like that is just throwing good money after bad."
"Mebbe yo' right, boss," answered the old negro. "Mebbe yo' right, but I still thinks he's got a chance."
Now, in a maiden race every horse is supposed to have a chance, not a particularly robust one, of course, but still a chance. The maidens are the horses which have never won a race, and every jungle circuit is well supplied with these equine misfits. They graduate, one at a time, from their lowly state, and the owner is indeed fortunate who wins enough to cover the cost of probation. The betting on a maiden race is seldom heavy, but always sporadic enough to prove the truth of the old saw about the hope which springs eternal.
Saturday's maiden race was no exception. There was a sizzling paddock tip on The Cricket, a nervous brown mare which had twice finished second at the meeting, the last time missing her graduation by a nose; others had heard that Athelstan was "trying"; there was a rumour that Laredo was about to annex his first brackets; suspicion pointed to Miller Boy as likely to "do something," but nobody had heard any good news of General Duval. Those who looked him up in the form charts found his previous races sufficiently disgraceful.
The Cricket opened favourite at 8 to 5, and when her owner heard this he grunted deep and soulfully and swore by all his gods that the price was too short and the mare a false favourite. He had hoped for not less than 4 to 1, in which case he would have sent the mare out to win, carrying a few hundred dollars of ill-gotten gains as wagers, but at 8 to 5 tickets on The Cricket had no value save as souvenirs of a sad occasion.
Nobody bothered about General Duval; nobody questioned old Gabe as he led a blanketed horse round and round the paddock stalls. Old Man Curry sat on the fence, thoughtfully chewing fine-cut tobacco and seemingly taking no interest in his surroundings, but he saw Pitkin as soon as that fox-faced gentleman entered the paddock, and thereafter he watched the disciple of the double-cross closely. It was plain that Pitkin's visit had no business significance; he was not the sort of man to play a maiden race, and after a few bantering remarks addressed to old Gabe he drifted back into the betting ring, where he made a casual note of the fact that on most of the slates General Duval was quoted at 40 to 1.