"Surest thing you know," said the horseman. "She'll give 'em all a fifty-pound beating or I don't know a hoof from a currycomb. I'm only spinning this along to the people I've got some use for. That's the reason I dip it up for you."
"But say," whispered the main guy of the four, "I got it straight as a ramrod on Kinley Mack."
The horseman smiled benignly.
"On this track?" said he. "That one wouldn't beat a fat man on this track. He wants slop and slush. I'm only telling you, that's all. You splurge on Imp, and it'll be all yours."
"I always was stuck on that darned old mare, anyhow," mused the main guy of the four, as he walked off in search of the other three. "She sure can rip the air when she's ripe. Got a thunder of a notion to switch to her at that. That fellow ought to know. He's been handling 'em long enough. Kinley Mack only a mudder, hey? Had kind of a hunch that way myself, but I didn't want to own up. Last week, before I got this Kinley Mack thing, I was sure going to play Imp, and I'd feel like a nickel's worth of lard if she'd go out and spread-eagle 'em now that I've got this Kinley Mack thing."
He stood still for a moment with his hands in his pockets, oblivious of the jostling crowd, and then he slapped his thigh.
"I've got the hunch—it's Imp!" he muttered. "Lemme find the fellers and put 'em next."
He found the other three. They were putty when the main guy told them what the horseman had said. They'd always liked Imp, anyhow.
Their four fifty-dollar notes went on Imp straight, when the slates went up. They all stood together and rooted for the black mare when the horses got off. When Kinley Mack romped in, an easy winner, they didn't say anything at all. They didn't even look at one another. They avoided one another's gaze, thrust their hands deep into their pockets and studied the jockeys as they dismounted. When the first numbness had passed the main guy of the four led them to the bar and they drank the longest one of the day in silence. They looked up into their glasses as they twiddled their spoons, but they didn't look at one another.
There was $17 still left among the four—not enough for any sort of celebration or doings when they got back to town. So the main guy gathered up the $17 in silence and put it all on a horse at 10 to 1 in the fifth race, with the idea of running the shoestring into a tannery. The 10 to 1 shot was never in the hunt at any stage of it, and they were all out. Silently they wended their way out of the gate.