For two minutes the supposed rivals confabbed busily in the shelter of a broken hay-'rack. Then, suddenly taking alarm without cause, they both poked their heads out at the door and looked about them searchingly--right and left. There wasn't time for Jeff to get away. He only had a second's or two seconds' warning; but all the conspirators saw as they issued forth from the scene of their intrigue was a small darky in clothes much too large for him lying alongside the shed in a sprawled huddle, with one loose sleeve over his face and one black forefinger shoved like a snake's head down the neck of a flat pocket-flask. Above this figure the flies were buzzing in a greedy cloud. “Just some nigger full of gin that fell down there to sleep it off,” said Van Wallace. And he would have gone on; but Berry, who was a tall red-faced, horsy man--a blusterer on the surface and a born coward inside--booted the sleeper in the ribs with his toe. “Here, boy!” he commanded. “Wake up here!” And he nudged him again hard. The negro only flinched from the kicks, then rolled farther over on his side and mumbled through a snore. “Couldn't hear it thunder,” said Berry reassured. “Well, let's get away from here.” “You bet!” said Van Wallace fervently. “No use takin' chances by bein' caught talkin' together. Anyhow, they'll be ringing the startin' bell in a minute or two.” “Don't forget, now!” counseled Berry as Wallace started off, making by a roundabout and devious way for his own stable, where Minnie May, hitched to her sulky and with her legs bandaged, was being walked back and forth by a stable boy. “Don't you worry; I won't!” said Wallace; and Berry grinned joyously and vanished in the opposite direction, behind the handy feedshed. On the instant that both of them disappeared Judge Priest's Jeff rose to his feet, magically changing from a drunken darky to an alert and flying black Mercury. His feet hardly hit the high places as he streaked it for the grandstand--looking for Judge Priest as hard as he could look. Nearly there he ran into Captain Buck Owings. Captain Buck Owings was a quiet, grayish man, who from time to time in the course of a busy life as a steamboat pilot and master had had occasion to shoot at or into divers persons. Captain Buck Owings had a magnificent capacity for attending strictly to his own business and not allowing anybody else to attend to it. He was commonly classified as dangerous when irritated--and tolerably easy to irritate. “Cap'n Buck! Cap'n Buck!” sputtered Jeff, so excited that he stuttered. “P-please, suh, is you seen my boss--Jedge Priest? I suttinly must see him right away. This here next heat is goin' to be thro wed.” It was rarely that Captain Buck Owings raised his voice above a low, deliberate drawl. He raised it a trifle now. “What's that, boy?” he demanded. “Who's goin' to throw this race?”