"But Lordy, man, the Handicap is on Saturday and here it is Wednesday night already. You can't fix up a leg like that in two days. You're going some if you get it straightened out in two weeks. Of course, you can shoot the leg full of cocaine and he'll run on it a little ways, but asking him to go a mile and a half—confound it, old-timer! That's murdering a game horse. You're liable to have a hopeless cripple on your hands when it's over. I tell you, if Elisha was mine——"
"You'd own a real race hoss, son," said Old Man Curry. "Now run along, Frank, and don't try to teach your grandad to suck aigs. I was doctoring hosses before you come to this country at all, and I'm going to doctor this one some more and then go to bed."
Shortly thereafter the good horse Elisha entertained a visitor who brought no lantern with him, but operated in the dark, swiftly and silently. Later a door creaked, there were muffled footfalls under the stable awning and one resounding thump, as it might have been a shod hoof striking a doorsill. Still later Squeaking Henry, returning to his post of duty, saw a light in Elisha's stall and looked in at Old Man Curry applying cold compresses to the left foreleg of a gaunt bay horse with a small splash of white in the centre of the forehead.
"How they coming, uncle?" asked Henry.
"Oh, about the same, I reckon," was the reply.
"You might as well hit the hay. You've been fooling with that leg since dark, but you'll never get the bird ready to fly by Saturday."
"'Wisdom crieth without,'" quoted Old Man Curry sententiously. "'She uttereth her voice in the street.'"
"Quit kidding yourself," argued Henry, "and look how sore he is. You're in big luck if he ain't lame a whole month from now."
"Well," said Old Man Curry, "Solomon says that the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."