Langdon's perplexity was cut short by the cry, “They're off!” the jingle of a bell, and the scurrying of many feet, as eager men rushed for higher points of observation in the stand.
As the seven horses came thundering by, pulling double in eager ignorance of the long journey that lay before them, Langdon saw with evil satisfaction that the Indian was well out in the lead.
The Dutchman was sixth, and behind, with a short awkward strength in his gallop, loafed Lauzanne.
There was smoothness in the stride of Hanover's big son, The Dutchman; and his trainer, as he watched him swing with strong grace around the first turn, mentally fingered the ten thousand dollars that would shortly be his.
“That skate win!” he sneered, as Lauzanne followed; “he gallops like a fat pig. He can't live the pace—he can't live the pace,” he repeated, and his voice was mellow with a cheerful exultation.
His observations seemed eminently truthful; Allis's horse trailed farther and farther behind the others. Out in front galloped with unseeming haste the Indian—a brown blotch of swift-gliding color. Two lengths from his glinting heels raced four horses in a bunch—two bays, a gray, and a black; so close together that they formed a small mosaic of mottled hue against the drab-gray background of the course stables beyond. Then The Dutchman, with his powerful stride, full of easy motion—a tireless gallop that would surely land him the winner, Langdon thought, as he hung with breathless interest on every move of Westley's body.
Up in the stand Old Bill was expressing in florid racetrack speech to Mortimer his deductions.
“Days a good kid on Larcen. See what he's doin'; he's trailin' 'em. Dat's where our horse gits it; he's a stretch runner, he is. Dey'll have bellows to mend when he tackles 'em.”
To Mortimer it appeared very much as though the other horses were too fast for Lauzanne. “Isn't he losing?” he asked of his exuberant friend.
“Losin' nut'in'! De kid ain't moved on him yet. De others is gallopin' der heads off; dey're chasm' de crazy skate in front. Dere's only two jocks in de race worth a damn—Bill Westley an' de kid on our horse. He knows he's got to beat Dutchy, an' he's lyin' handy by. When you see Dutchy move up Larcen'll come away, or I'm a goat.”