n you give him credit for.
Some hosses don't care what you say to 'em--goes in one ear and out
the other--but Pharaoh, he's wise. He knows that ain't love talk.
He's chewin' it over in his mind right now. By the look in his eye,
he's askin' himself will he bite your ear off or only kick you into
the middle of next week. Cussin' a hoss like that won't make him win
races where he never had a chance nohow."

"I know it," said Slim. "I know it, Curry, but think what a wonderful
relief it is to me! Take a slant at him, standing there all dignified
up like a United States senator! Don't he look like he ought to know
something? Wouldn't you think he'd know where they pay off? He makes
me sore, and I've just got to talk to him. I've owned him a whole
year, and what has he done? Won once at a mile and a quarter, and
he'd have been last that time if the leaders hadn't got in a jam on
the turn and fell down. He was so far behind 'em when they piled up
that all he had to do was pull wide and come on home! He had sense
enough for that. I've started him in all the distance races on this
circuit; he always runs three feet to their one at the finish, but
he's never close enough up to make it count. He must have some notion
that they pay off the second time around, and it's all my boy can do
to stop him after he goes under the wire. Why won't he uncork some of
that stuff where it will get us something? Why won't he? I don't
know, and that's what gets me."

Old Man Curry rose, threw away his straw, and circled the horse three
times, muttering to himself. This was purely an exhibition of
strategy, for Curry knew all about Pharaoh: had known all about him
for months.

"What'll you take for him?" The question came so suddenly that it
caught Slim off his balance.

"Take for him!" he ejaculated. "Who wants an old hammer-head like
that?"

"I was thinkin' I might buy him," was the quiet reply, "if the price
is right. I dunno's a hoss named Pharaoh would fit in with a stable
of Hebrew prophets, 'count of the way Pharaoh used Moses and the
Isrulites, but I might take a chance on him--if the price is right."

Now, Slim would have traded Pharaoh for a nose bag or a sack of
shorts and reckoned the intake pure gain, but he was a horseman, and
it naturally follows that he was a trader.

"Well, now," said he, "I hadn't thought of selling him, Curry, and
that's a fact."

"Did anybody but me ever think of buyin' him?" asked the old man
innoce