It was not yet dawn, but Old Man Curry was abroad; more than that, he was fully dressed. It was a tradition of the Jungle Circuit that he had never been seen in any other condition. The owner of the "Bible horses," in shirt sleeves and bareheaded, would have created a sensation among his competing brethren, some of whom pretended to believe that the patriarch slept in his clothes. Others, not so positive on this point, averred that Old Man Curry slept with one eye open and one ear cocked toward the O'Connor barn, where his enemies met to plot against him.
Summer and winter, heat and cold, there was never a change in the old man's raiment. The rusty frock coat—black where it was not green, grey along the seams, and ravelled at the skirts—the broad-brimmed and battered slouch hat, and the frayed string tie had seen fat years and lean years on all the tracks of the Jungle Circuit, and no man could say when these things had been new or their wearer had been young. Old Man Curry was a fixture, as familiar a sight as the fence about the track, and his shabby attire was as much a part of his quaint personality as his habit of quoting the wise men of the Old Testament and borrowing the names of the prophets for his horses.
The first faint golden glow appeared in the east; the adjoining stables loomed dark in the half light; here and there lanterns moved, and close at hand rose the wail of a sleepy exercise boy, roused from slumber by a liberal application of rawhide. From the direction of the track came the muffled beat of hoofs, swelling to a crescendo, and diminishing to a thin tattoo as the thoroughbreds rounded the upper turn.
Old Man Curry squared his shoulders, turned his face toward the east, and saluted the dawn in characteristic fashion.
"'A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away,'" he quoted. "Solomon was framin' up a system for hossmen, I reckon. 'A time to get and a time to lose.' Only thing is, Solomon himself couldn't figure which was which with some of these rascals! Oh, Mose!"
"Yessuh, boss! Comin'!"
Jockey Moseby Jones emerged from the tackle-room, rubbing his eyes with one hand and tugging at his sweater with the other. Later in the day he would be a butterfly of fashion and an offence to the eye in loud checks and conflicting colours; now he was only a very sleepy little darky in a dingy red sweater and disreputable trousers.
"Seem like to me I ain't had no sleep a-a-a-tall," complained Mose, swallowing a tremendous yawn. "This yer night work sutny got me goin' south for fair."
Shanghai, the hostler, appeared leading Elisha, the star of the Curry barn.
"Send him the full distance, Mose," said the aged owner, "and set him down hard for the half-mile pole home."