“Now, those two things being the case, Elsa, how did Nat Burns expect to win the second race from the May?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem possible that he could win.”
“Of course it doesn’t, and yet his father writes here that Nat ‘swears he can’t lose.’ Well, now, you know, a man that swears he can’t lose is pretty positive.”
“Did he try to bet with you for the second race?” asked Elsa.
“Did he? I had five hundred dollars at the bank and he tried to bet me that. I never bet, because I’ve never had enough money to throw it around. A good deal changed hands on the first race, but none of it was mine. I raced for sport and not for money, and I told Nat so when he tried to bet with me. If I had raced for money I couldn’t have withdrawn that day and gone to St. John for cargo the way I did.”
“Then it seems to me that he must have known he couldn’t lose or he would not have tried to bet.”
“Exactly.”
“But how could he know it?”
“That is what I would like to find out.”