“Yes, it's Mike. And the girl, too—blast her! She blamed me fer near bein' eat alive by that black devil of a dope horse. Hell!”
This ambiguous exclamation was occasioned by the sight of his former master springing into the saddle on Diablo's back.
“That's the game, eh? God strike me dead! I hope you git enough of him. My arms ache yet from bein' near pulled out of the sockets by that leather-mouthed brute. Gee, if the boss hasn't got spurs on! If he ever tickles the Black wit' 'em—say, boys, there'll be a merry hell to pay, and no pitch hot.”
The young Arab spoke to the boards as though they were partners in his iniquity. Then he chuckled diabolically, as in fancy he saw Porter being trampled by the horse.
“The girl's on Lauzanne,” he muttered; “she's the best in the lot, if she did run me down. A ridin' that sorrel mut, too, when she ought to be in the house washin' dishes. A woman ain't got no more business hangin' 'round the stable than a man's got in the kitchen. Petticoats is the devil; I never could abide 'em.” Shandy sometimes harked back to his early English Whitechapel, for he had come from the old country, and had brought with him all the depravity he could acquire in the first five years of his existence there.
“Ned's got the soft snap in that blasted bunch,” as his eye discovered Carter on Lucretia. “He's slipped me this go, but I've nobbled the boss, so I don't care. I'm next 'em this trip.”
As the three horses and their riders came on to the course he pulled out a cheap stop-watch Langdon had equipped him with for his touting, and started and stopped it several times.
“You'll pay fer their feed, you damn ole skinflint,” he was apostrophizing Porter, “an' I'll be next the best they can do, an' stan' in on the rake-off. Gee! I thought they was out fer a trial,” he muttered, looking disconsolately at the three as they cantered the first part of the journey. “I'll ketch 'em at the half, on the off chance,” he added.
But though the timepiece in his hand clicked impatiently, after he pressed the stem with his thumb, as Diablo's black nozzle showed past the half-mile post, the three horses still cantered. Lauzanne was loping leisurely with the action of a wooden rocking-horse. Lucretia, her long, in-tipped ears cocked eagerly forward, was throwing her head impatiently into the air as though pleading for just one strong gallop. Diablo's neck was arched like the half of a cupid's bow; his head, almost against his chest, hung heavy in the reins tight-drawn in Porter's strong hands. His eyes, showing full of a suspicious whiteness, stood out from his lean, bony head; they were possessed of a fretful, impatient look. Froth flecked back from the nervous, quivering lips, and spattered against his black satin-skinned chest, where it hung like seafoam on holding sand.
“Whoa! Steady, old boy!” Porter was coaxing soothingly. “Steady, boy!”