Murphy cast one despairing glance about him and slouched to his undoing. The judge, weight pad in hand, followed him into the weighing room underneath the stand. He was back again almost instantly, and his voice had an angry ring.
"Change those numbers!" said he. "The mare is disqualified. Isaiah, first; Rainbow, second; put the fourth horse third. Mr. Weaver, come up here, sir! And where's that nigger? I want him too. Murphy, I'll see you later.... Don't go away, Mr. Curry. I need you."
"That's what I call getting hunk with a vengeance, old-timer." Thus the Bald-faced Kid, at the door of Old Man Curry's tack-room. "You cleaned up right, didn't you? Weaver's ruled off for life, and his horses with him—he can't even sell 'em to another stable. Murphy's lost his license. Chicken Liver's out of a job. Engle and his bunch are in the clear, but they lost a lot of money on the mare. Regular old blunderbuss, ain't you? Didn't miss anybody."
"Son," said Old Man Curry, removing his spectacles, "Solomon had it right. He says: 'Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.' Weaver dug one big enough to hold his entire stable. And that reminds me: I bet fifty dollars for you to-day, and here's the two hundred. Run it up if you can, but remember what Solomon says about that: 'He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.'"
"I'll take a chance," said the Bald-faced Kid, reaching for the money.
BY A HAIR
"Son," said Old Man Curry, "what's on your mind besides your hat? You ain't said a word for as much as two minutes, and any time you keep still that long there must be something wrong."
The Bald-faced Kid's glance rested for an instant upon the kindly features of the patriarch of the Jungle Circuit, then flickered away down the line of stables where other horsemen and race-track followers were sunning themselves and waiting the summons to the noon meal.