“Still,” said Mr. Behren, “such things have been. Racin’ is full of surprises, and horses are full of tricks. I’ve known a horse, now, get pocketed behind two or three others and never show to the front at all. Though she was the best of the field, too. And I’ve known horses go wild and jump over the rail and run away with the jock, and, sometimes, they fall. And sometimes I’ve had a jockey pull a horse on me and make me drop every cent I had up. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” he asked. He looked up at Charley with a smile that might mean anything. Charley looked at the floor and shrugged his shoulders.
“I ride to orders, I do,” he said. “I guess the owner knows his own business best. When I ride for a man and take his money I believe he should have his say. Some jockeys ride to win. I ride according to orders.” He did not look up after this, and he felt thankful that Heroine could not understand the language of human beings. Mr. Behren’s face rippled with smiles. This was a jockey after his own heart. “If Heroine should lose,” he said,—“I say, if she should, for no one knows what might happen,—I’d have to abuse you fearful right before all the people. I’d swear at you and say you lost me all my money, and that you should never ride for me again. And they might suspend you for a month or two, which would be very hard on you,” he added reflectively. “But then,” he said more cheerfully, “if you had a little money to live on while you were suspended it wouldn’t be so hard, would it?” He took a large roll of bank bills from his pocket and counted them, smoothing them out on his fat knee and smiling up at the boy.
He took a large roll of bank bills from his pocket and counted them.
“It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” he repeated. Then he counted aloud, “Eight hundred, nine hundred, one thousand.” He rose and placed the bills under a loose plank of the floor, and stamped it down on them. “I guess we understand each other, eh?” he said.
“I guess we do,” said Charley.
“I’ll have to swear at you, you know,” said Behren, smiling.
“I can stand that,” Charley answered.
As the horses paraded past for the July Stakes, the people rushed forward down the inclined enclosure and crushed against the rail and cheered whichever horse they best fancied.