en lengths. Could have made it seventeen easy as
not. I reckon everybody was glad to see Caley win--everybody but the
bookmakers, but they hadn't any right to kick, seeing as he beat a
red-hot favourite.

"Caley went to bed that night and didn't get up any more. I used to
read to him when he couldn't sleep. Maybe that's how he come to give
me the hoss, along with a little secret 'bout him."

Old Man Curry paused, tantalisingly, and rummaged in his pockets for
his fine-cut. The Bald-faced Kid squirmed on his chair.

"It was a trick that nobody but a jockey would ever have thought of,
son. Caley taught the colt to stop whenever a certain word was
hollered in his ear. Dinged it into him, morning after morning, until
Silver Star got so's he'd quit as soon as he heard it, like a buggy
hoss stops when you say 'Whoa' to him. Best part of the trick,
though, was that all the whipping and spurring in the world couldn't
get him to running again. Caley taught him that for his own
protection. It gave him an alibi with the judges. Couldn't they see
he was riding the hoss as hard as he knew how? I don't say it was
exackly _honest_, but----"

"Oho!" interrupted the Bald-faced Kid, "now I know why you had a
front runner in that race! Between friends, old-timer, what was it
Mose hollered at Elisha when he came alongside?"

"Well," said Old Man Curry, "that's the secret of it, my son, and
it's this way 'bout a secret: you can't let too many folks in on it.
I reckon it was a word spoken in due season, as Solomon says. Elisha,
he won't hear it again unless he changes owners."

PLAYING EVEN FOR OBADIAH

Old Man Curry, owner of race horses, looked out of his tack-room door
at a streaming sky and gave thanks for the rain. Other owners were
cursing the steady downpour, for a wet track would sadly interfere
with their plans, but Curry expected to start the chestnut colt
Obadiah that afternoon, and Obadiah, as Jockey Moseby Jones was wont
to remark, was a mud-running fool on any man's track. The Bald-faced
Kid, who lived by doing the best he could and preferred to be called
a hustler rather than a tout, spoke from the tack-room interior. He
was a privileged character at the Curry barn.

"How does she look, old-timer? Going to clear up by noon?"

Old Man Curry shook his head. "Well, no," said he. "I reckon not.
Looks to me like reg'lar Noah weather, Frank. If a man's got a mud
hoss in his barn, now's the time to start him."

T