"You don't need to worry," Iron Jaw commented; "the horse is pretty nigh as well known as Bulldog."
But Texas, having been born in a very nest of iniquity, having been stable boy, tout, half-mile-track ringer, and runner for a wire-tapping bunch, was naturally suspicious.
"I don't match against an unknown," he objected; "let me lamp this Flyin' Dutchman of the Plains; it may be Salvator for all I know."
"Let him get out the door," Carney sneered; "it will be good-bye—we'll never see him again."
"And if we don't," Snaky Dick interposed, "I'll cover your money, Carney."
Bulldog swung the gray eyes, and levelled them at the red-and-yellow streaked beads that did seeing duty in Snaky's face:
"You ever hear about the gent who was kicked out of Paradise and told to go scoot along on his belly for butting in?" Then he followed the little crowd at Texas Sam's heels.
In the yellow glare of the Del Monte lights the buckskin looked very little like a race horse. He stood about fifteen and a quarter hands, looking not much more than a pony, as, half asleep, he had relaxed his body; the lop ears hanging almost at right angles to his lean bony head suggested humor more than speed. He stood "over" on his front legs, a habit contracted when he favoured the weak knees. As he was a gelding his neck was thin, so far removed from a crest that it was almost ewe-like; his tremendous width of rump caused the hip bones to project, suggesting an archaic design of equine structure. The direct lamplight threw cavernous shadows all over his lean form.
Texas Sam shot one rapid look of appraisement over the sleepy little horse; then he laughed.
"Pinch me, Iron Jaw!" he cried; "am I ridin' on the tail board of an overland bus seein' things in the desert, and hearin' wings?"