"Hello!" said the presiding judge, who had been wiping his field glasses. "One of 'em went down! What happened?" "Don't know," replied the associate judge. "I was watching that thing in front--Whitethorn.... Yes, and that horse is hurt, Major.... The boy is all right, though. He's on his feet." "It's Old Man Curry's horse," said the other. "Obadiah--and I sort of figured him the contender in this race, too.... The boy has got him.... Looks like a broken leg to me.... Too bad.... Better send an officer over there." Before the judges knew that anything had happened a shabby, bearded old man in a rusty black frock coat dodged across the track from the paddock gate and splashed hurriedly through the infield. Old Man Curry never used binoculars; he had the eyes of an eagle. "Been looking for it to happen every day!" he muttered. "And a right likely colt, too. The skunks! The miserable little skunks!" Whitethorn, the winner of the race, was back in the ring and unsaddled before the old man reached the half-mile pole. Jockey Moseby Jones, plastered with mud from his bullet head to his boots, shaken and bruised but otherwise unhurt, clung to Obadiah's bridle. "Now, honey, you jus' stan' still!" he was saying. "Jus' stan' still an' we git yo' laig fixed up in no time; no time a-a-a-tall." The colt stood with drooping head, drumming on the ground with the crippled foreleg; from time to time the unfortunate animal shivered as with a violent chill. Old Man Curry knelt in the mud, but rose almost immediately; one glance at the broken leg was enough. He looked at the little negro. "How did it happen, Mose?" "Jockey Murphy done it, boss. He was on 'at thing of Weaver's." "A-purpose?" "Sutny he done it a-purpose. He cut in on us an' knocked us agin the rail. Come from 'way outside to do it." Old Man Curry began to take the saddle off the colt. A tall man in a rubber coat, gum boots, and a uniform cap arrived on the scene, panting after his run from the grand stand. He looked at Obadiah's leg, sucked in his breath with a whistling sound more expressive than words, and faced Old Man Curry. "Want the 'vet' to see him?" asked the newcomer. "No use in him suffering that long," said the old man dully. "He's ruined. Might as well get it over with." Jockey Moseby Jones wailed aloud. "Oh, don' let 'em shoot Obadiah, boss!" he pleaded. "I'll take keer o' him; I'll set up nights 'ith him. Can't you splint it? Ain't there nothin' we kin do fo' him?" "Only one thing, Mose," said Old Man Curry. "It's a kindness, I reckon." He passed the bridle to the uniformed stranger. "Don't be too long about it," said he. The colt, gentle and obedient to the last, hobbled off the track toward a sheltering grove of trees near the upper turn. Custom decrees that the closing scene of a turf tragedy shall not be enacted within sight of the grand stand. Two very young stableboys followed at a distance.