rom the
crowd made him jerk a glance over his shoulder. He cut the quirt into
the flank of the roan, but it was too late. Five lengths from the finish
the little gray shoved his nose in front; and from that point, settling
toward the earth, as he stretched into a longer and longer stride, every
jump increased his margin. The nose of the roan was hardly on the rump
of the gelding at the finish.

A bedlam roar came from the crowd. Townsend was cursing and beating time
to his oaths with a fat fist. Townsend found so many companion losers
that his feelings were readily salved, and he turned to Connor, smiling
wryly.

"We can't win every day," he declared, "but I'll tell you this, partner;
of all the men I ever seen, you get the medal for judgin' a hoss. You
can pick my string any day."

"Eighteen years old," Connor was saying in the monotonous tone of one
hypnotized.

"Hey, there," protested Townsend, perceiving that he was on the verge of
being ignored.

"A hundred and eighty pounds," sighed the big man.

Townsend saw for the first time that a stop-watch was in the hand of his
companion, and now, as Connor began to pace off the distance, the hotel
proprietor tagged behind, curious. Twenty steps from the starting point
the larger man stopped abruptly, shook his head, and then went on. When
he came to the start he paused again, and Townsend found him staring
with dull eyes at the face of the watch.

"What'd they make it in?" asked the little man.

The other did not hear.

"They ran from this line?" he queried in a husky voice.

"Sure. Line between them posts."

"Fifty-nine seconds!" he kept repeating. "Fifty-nine seconds!
Fifty-nine!"

"What about the fifty-nine seconds?" asked Townsend, and receiving no
answer he murmured to himself: "The heat has got to his head."

Connor asked quietly: "Know anything about these gray horses and where
they came from?"

"Sure. As much as anybody. Come from yonder in the mountains. A Negro
raises 'em. A deaf mute. Ain't ever been heard to say a word."

"And he raises horses like that?"

"Sure."

"And nobody's been up there to try to buy 'em?"

"Too far to go, you see? Long ride and a hard trail. Besides, they's
plenty of good hoss-flesh right around Lukin, here."

"Of course," nodded Connor genially. "Of course there is."

"Besides, them grays is too small. Personally, I don't hanker after a
runt of a hoss. I look like a fool on one of em."

The voice of Connor w