The first pool was followed by others, one after another: the roulette table, the keno game, and faro were in the discard—their tables were deserted.
It soon became evident that Clatawa was a hot favorite; the public's money was all for the Walla Walla champion.
Noting this, the Horned Toad trio hung back, bidding less. Clatawa was selling for a hundred, Horned Toad about fifty, and the buckskin sometimes knocked down at ten to Carney, or sometimes bid up to twenty by someone tempted by the odds.
At last Carney slipped quietly away, having bought at least twenty pools that stood him between three and four thousand to a matter of two hundred.
In the morning he rode the buckskin out to Molly's cottage and turned him over to Billy.
The boy's voice trembled with delight when he was told of what had taken place.
"Gee! now I will get well," he said; "I'll beat the bug out now—I'll have heart. You see, Mr. Carney, I got set down in California a year ago. It wasn't my fault; I was ridin' for Timberleg Harley, and he give the horse a bucket of water before the race; he didn't want to win—was lettin' the horse run for Sweeney, layin' for a big price later on. He had an interest in a book, and they took liberties with the horse's odds—he was favorite. He didn't dare tell me anything about it, the hound. When I found the horse couldn't raise a gallop, hangin' in my hands like a sea lion, I didn't ride him out, thinkin' he'd broke down. They had me up in the Judges' Stand, and sent for the books. It looked bad. Timberleg got off by swearin' I'd pulled the horse to let the other one win; swore that I stood in with the book that overlaid him. I was give the gate, and it just broke my heart. I was weak from wastin' anyway. And you can't beat the bug out if your heart's soft; the bug'll win—it's a hundred-to-one on him. First thing I'm goin' to give Waster a ball to clean him out, give him a bran mash, too. He must be like a currycomb inside, grass and hay and everything here is full of this damn cactus. A week ain't much to ready up a horse for a race, but he ain't got no fat to work off, and he knows the game. In a week he'll be as spry as a kitten. I'll just play with him. I'll bunk with him, too. If Slimy Red got wise to anything he'd slip him a twig of locoe, or put a sponge up his nose. Do you know what that thief did once, Mr. Carney? He was a moonlighter; he sneaked the favorite for a race that was to be run next day out of his stall at night and galloped him four miles with about a hundred and sixty in the saddle. That settled the favorite; he run his race same's if he was pullin' a hearse.
"That's a good idea, Billy. There's half-a-dozen Slimy Reds in Walla Walla: it's a good idea, only I'll do the sleeping with the buckskin. I'd be lonesome away from him."
The boy objected, but Carney was firm.
Billy was not only a good rider, but he was a man of much brains. There was little of the art of training that he did not know, for his father had been a trainer before him—he had been brought up in a stable.