d-faced Kid drew out the leather-backed volume
which was his constant companion, and began to thumb the leaves
rapidly. "You're always heaving your friend Solomon at me. I'll give
you a quotation I got out of the Fourth Reader at school--something
about judging the future by the past. Look here: '_Jeremiah bled and
was pulled up.' 'Jeremiah bled badly._' Why, everybody around here
knows that he's a bleeder!"

"There you go again," said Old Man Curry patiently. "You study them
dad-burned dope sheets, and all you can see is what a hoss _has_
done. You listen to me: it ain't what a hoss did last week or last
month--it's what he's goin' to do to-day that counts."

"A quitter will quit and a bleeder will bleed," said the Kid
sententiously.

"And Jeremiah says the leopard can't change his spots," said Old Man
Curry. "Have it your own way, Frank."

Exactly twenty-four hours later the Bald-faced Kid, peering across
the track to the back stretch, saw Old Man Curry lead a black horse
to the quarter pole, exchange a few words with Mose, adjust the bit,
and stand aside.

"What's that one, Kid?" The question was asked by Shine McManus, a
professional clocker employed by a bookmaker to time the various
workouts and make a report on them at noon.

"That's Jeremiah," said the Kid. "The old man hasn't worked him much
lately."

"Good reason why," said Shine. "I wouldn't work a horse either if he
bled every time he got out of a walk! There he goes!"

Jeremiah went to the half pole like the wind, slacked somewhat on the
upper turn, and floundered heavily into the stretch.

"Bleeding, ain't he?" asked Shine.

"He acts like it--yes, you can see it now."

As Jeremiah neared the paddock he stopped to a choppy gallop, and the
railbirds saw that blood was streaming from both nostrils and
trickling from his mouth.

"Ain't that sickening? You wouldn't think that Old Man Curry would
abuse a horse like that!"

The Bald-faced Kid went valiantly to the defence of his aged friend.
He would criticise Old Man Curry if he saw fit, but no one else had
that privilege.

"Aw, where do you get that abusing-a-horse stuff! It don't really
_hurt_ a horse any more'n it would hurt you to have a good nosebleed.
It just chokes him up so't he can't get his breath, and he quits,
that's all."

"Yes, but it looks bad, and it's a shame to start a horse in that
condition."

The argument waxed long and loud, and in the end the Kid was
vanquished, bor