“I don't want the horse—” began Porter; but Langdon interrupted him.
“Oh, if you want to crawl.”
“I never crawl,” said Porter fiercely. “I don't want your horse, but just to show you what I think of your chance of winning, I'll give you two thousand and a half if you beat my mare, no matter what wins the race.”
“I think you'd better call this bargain off, Mr. Porter,” remonstrated Crane.
“Oh, the bargain will be off,” answered John Porter; “if I'm any judge, Lauzanne's running his race right here in the stall.”
His practiced eye had summed up Lauzanne as chicken-hearted; the sweat was running in little streams down the big Chestnut's legs, and dripping from his belly into the drinking earth spit-spit, drip-drip; his head was high held in nervous apprehension; his lips twitched, his flanks trembled like wind-distressed water, and the white of his eye was showing ominously.
Langdon cast a quick, significant, cautioning look at Crane as Porter spoke of the horse; then he said, “You're a fair judge, an' if you're right you get all the stuff an' no horse.”
“I stand to my bargain whatever happens,” Porter retorted.
At that instant the bugle sounded.
“Get up, Westley,” Langdon said to his jockey, “they're going out.”