“I ‘ve entered Boatman for the Yanyilla Steeplechase,” said my father, “but I ‘m blest if I know who I ‘ll get to ride him. The beggar’s an awful powerful brute, and all the boys are afraid.”
“And grass-fed! Surely not. He can’t do much harm.”
“Oh, he ‘s a brute, I must confess,” said my father, “and no mistake; but he’s all there, and if I can get anybody to risk it, I ‘ll put the pot on him.”
“You think he’s good to win, then? Can he beat my Vixen?”
“Beat her! He ‘ll beat any horse this side of the Dividing Range, once he gets started with the right man on his back. But there’s just the difficulty.”
“Now, I ‘ll find you a man to ride. He thoroughly understands horses, I ‘ll say that for him, though I have no cause to love him. He ‘ll ride for you, but I don’t believe Boatman is as good as Vixen.”
“I ‘ll lay you anything you like he is, if only I get the right man up.”
“Done with you, then. You shall have the right man, that I promise. Mind, you said anything I liked. You won’t go back on your word?”
“Anything to within half my kingdom,” laughed my father, who was getting a good way down his bottle, or I ‘m sure he never would have agreed to what Dick Stanton asked.
“That’s settled, then, for I suppose you don’t count your daughter near half your kingdom,” said Stanton, and he looked at me as if he would have said, “See how I pay you out. Then if Vixen beats Boatman I marry your daughter out of hand; that’s the arrangement, isn’t it?”