Langdon started off with the jockey, but turned back, saying, “Oh, Mr. Crane, I wanted to ask you—”
By this he had reached the buggy, while Westley continued on his way to the stalls.
“It's a fine day, sir,” continued Langdon, finishing his sentence, and exchanging the saddle held in his hand for the one that was in the buggy.
“Going to put the other on?” asked Crane.
“Yes; I fancy Diablo will like this better. Touchy brutes, these race horses; got to humor 'em. Come on over to the stalls—the horse'll stand.”
Diablo was being led around in a small circle by his boy. He was a magnificent creature, sixteen and a half hands high, and built on the same grand scale; perhaps a bit leggy for the huge barrel that topped the limbs; that was what caused him to go wrong in his younger days. His black skin glistened in the noonday sun.
“That's what I call the mirror of health,” said Langdon, in an unwonted burst of poetic eloquence, as he passed his hand across the horse's ribs. Then feeling that somehow he had laid himself open to a suspicion of gentleness, added, “He's a hell of a fine looker; if he could gallop up to his looks he'd make some of the cracks take a back seat.”
Even Diablo had resented either the mellifluous comparison or the rub of Langdon's hand, for he lashed out furiously, with a great farreaching leg that nearly caught Crane unawares.
“Your polite language seems to be as irritating to him as the blacksmith's oaths,” ejaculated Crane, as he came back from the hasty retreat he had beaten.
“It's only play. Good horses is of two kinds when you're saddlin' 'em. The Dutchman there'll hang his head down, and champ at the bit, even if you bury the girt' an inch deep in his belly; he's honest, and knows it's all needed. That's one kind; and they're generally the same at the post, always there or thereabouts, waitin' for the word 'go.' An' they race pretty much the same all the time. If you time 'em a mile in 1:40 at home, they'll do it when the colors is up, an' the silk a-flappin' all about 'em in the race.