"Hello!" said the presiding judge, who had been wiping his field glasses. "One of 'em went down! What happened?"
"Don't know," replied the associate judge. "I was watching that thing in front—Whitethorn.... Yes, and that horse is hurt, Major.... The boy is all right, though. He's on his feet."
"It's Old Man Curry's horse," said the other. "Obadiah—and I sort of figured him the contender in this race, too.... The boy has got him.... Looks like a broken leg to me.... Too bad.... Better send an officer over there."
Before the judges knew that anything had happened a shabby, bearded old man in a rusty black frock coat dodged across the track from the paddock gate and splashed hurriedly through the infield. Old Man Curry never used binoculars; he had the eyes of an eagle.
"Been looking for it to happen every day!" he muttered. "And a right likely colt, too. The skunks! The miserable little skunks!"
Whitethorn, the winner of the race, was back in the ring and unsaddled before the old man reached the half-mile pole. Jockey Moseby Jones, plastered with mud from his bullet head to his boots, shaken and bruised but otherwise unhurt, clung to Obadiah's bridle.
"Now, honey, you jus' stan' still!" he was saying. "Jus' stan' still an' we git yo' laig fixed up in no time; no time a-a-a-tall."
The colt stood with drooping head, drumming on the ground with the crippled foreleg; from time to time the unfortunate animal shivered as with a violent chill. Old Man Curry knelt in the mud, but rose almost immediately; one glance at the broken leg was enough. He looked at the little negro.
"How did it happen, Mose?"