"Snaggle Tooth, we'll learn these tin-horns somethin'; tomorrow your safe won't be big enough to hold it. But, say, don't let that Texas brayin' ass have no more booze."
"If you ask me, Blake, I think he's yeller. He's plumb babyfied now because of Carney—sober he'd quit."
"Carney won't turn a hair when we win."
"Course he won't. But you can't get that into Texas's noodle with a funnel—he's hoodooed; wants me to plant a couple of gun men at the finish for fear Bulldog'll grab him."
"Look here, Snaggle, that coyote—hell! I know the breed of them outlaws, they'd rather win a race crooked than by their horse gallopin' in front—he just can't trust himself; he's afraid he'll foul the others when the chance flashes on him. You just tell him that we can't stand to kiss twenty thousand good-bye because of any Injun trick; the Sheriff wouldn't stand for it for a minute; he'd turn the money over to the horse that he thought ought to get it, quick as a wolf'd grab a calf by the throat."
That was the atmosphere on that sweet-breathed August day in the archaic town of Walla Walla.
It was a perfectly conceived race; three men in it and each one confident that he held a royal flush; each one certain that, bar crooked work, he could win.
The sporting Commandant of the U. S. Cavalry troop had been appointed judge of the finish at the Sheriff's suggestion; and another officer was to fire the starting gun.
It was a springy turf course; just the going to suit Waster, whose legs had been dicky. On a hard course, built up of clay and sand, guiltless of turf, the fierce hammering of the hoofs might even yet heat up his joints, though they looked sound; his clutching hoofs might cup out unrooted earth and bow a tendon.
An hour before race time people had flocked out to the goal where would be settled the ownership of thousands of dollars by the gallant steed that first caught the judge's eye as he flashed past the post. Even Lieutenant Governor Moore was there; that magnificent Nez Perces, Chief Joseph, sat his half-blooded horse a six-foot-three bronze Apollo, every inch a king in his beaded buckskins and his eagle feathers. The picture was Homeric, grand; and behind the canvas was the subtle duplicity of gold worshipers.