"Why, didn't you know?" the hostler replied. "I thought everybody knowed. Gyp Streetor told me about it the day of the race—I used to know Gyp when he was a kid back east. I saw him as he was beating it to get out of town. He borrowed five dollars from me. Said Sabota hired him to put 'knock-out' in some coffee for th' Ramblin' Kid and he reckoned the dose wasn't big enough or something. Anyhow, it didn't hold him under long as they thought it would and when he saw the Gold Dust maverick show up on the track he got scared—was afraid it would leak out or th' Ramblin' Kid would suspect him and try to 'get' him after the race, so he ducked out of town—"
"You ain't lying about that?" Skinny asked.
"What would I want to lie about it for?" the other replied. "Wasn't that what made th' Ramblin' Kid kill the Greek?"
"No, it was something else," Skinny answered; "but Sabota ain't dead.
He's just crunched up pretty bad—th' Ramblin' Kid jumped on him, like
Captain Jack did on that feller from the Chickasaw that tried to steal
him!"
Skinny's mind was in a whirl.
So the Ramblin' Kid was not drunk the day of the race! He was drugged— sick—yet, in spite of everything, rode the Gold Dust maverick and beat the black wonder-horse from the Vermejo! Lord! and they had all thought he was on a tear!
The bottle of whisky was still in the bosom of Skinny's shirt.
He had not touched it. He felt a sudden revulsion for the vile stuff.
"Here," he said, jerking the flask from its hiding-place and handing it to the hostler, "maybe you'd like that bottle of 'rot-gut'—I've swore off!"
"I ain't," the stableman laughed and took it eagerly.