"Yes, and his horses too. The whole bunch! Engle is almost crazy. He swears on his mother's grave that he's in-no-cent and he's going to appeal to the Jockey Club and have Eliphaz examined by a 'vet' and the Lord knows what all. Oh, he's wild! It seems that Pettigrew wanted him to prove that he'd backed the horse and he couldn't produce the losing tickets. If Merritt hadn't half killed the horse, Pettigrew would have got him too." "Well, well!" said the old man, turning back to Proverbs. "I was just readin' something here. 'He that seeketh mischief, it shall come unto him.' Engle has been seekin' mischief a long time now and look what he's got." "Too true, old-timer," said the Bald-faced Kid, "but who was it ordered the mischief wrapped up and delivered to him? Come through!" "Hold up your right hand!" said Old Man Curry. "Cross my heart and hope to die if I ever tell!" said the Kid. "Now then, come clean." "Frank," said the old man, "do you remember when we was unloadin' the hosses and ketched Eliphaz bitin' at the fence?... You do? Then you ought to be ashamed to ask any questions, because if you know hosses like you should know 'em--in your business--you wouldn't need to ask questions. "Eliphaz is a cribber, and a cribber is a hoss that sucks itself full of wind like a balloon. I knew the minute I see him drop his head and swallow that way that cribbin' was what ailed him. That explained his bein' such a bad race hoss. Jimmy Miles probably never done a thing to correct that habit--didn't know he had it, likely. "Well, the first thing I did was to keep the hoss's head tied high in the daytime, because no hoss will crib unless he can get his head down. Then at night I put on a cribbin' strap and buckled it tight around his neck. He could get his head down all right, but he couldn't suck any air. With that habit corrected, Eliphaz was a great hoss. "When I found out that Engle wanted to buy him, I let Eliphaz crib all day Friday, after he'd been worked, and when I sold him I didn't sell the strap. That's all, Frank. When he went to the post he was so full of air that if Merritt hadn't been settin' on him he'd have gone up like a balloon. That's why I warned you not to let anybody bet on him.... Did you do pretty well, Frank?" "I got a toothful while some other folks was getting a meal," answered the Kid. "Just one thing more: where did you get that name--Eliphaz?" "That was a sort of a joke," confessed the old man. "Once there was a party named Job, and he had all sorts of hard luck. Some of that hard luck was in not bein' able to lose his friends. They used to come and see him and hold a lodge of sorrow and set on the ground and talk and talk--whole chapters of talk--and the windiest one of 'em all----" "I get you!" chuckled the Bald-faced Kid. "That was Eliphaz!" Old Man Curry nodded. "'Knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth,'" he quoted.