Later they levelled their field glasses at the starting point. Johnson could see nothing but his own colours: a blazing cherry jacket and cap; McManus spent his time watching Little Mose and Elijah. "Smiley, that nigger is playing for a running start." "Let him have it. Zanzibar'll be in front in ten jumps. Hennessey knows just how to handle the colt, and he's chain lightning on the break." "I suppose the boy on Blitzen'll take care of the nigger if he has to. Slats gave him orders. _They're off!_" Johnson opened his mouth to say something, but the words died away into a choking gurgle. Instead of rushing to the front, the cherry jacket was rapidly dropping back. It was McManus who broke the stunned silence. "In front in ten jumps, hey? He's _last_ in ten jumps, that's what he is: stiffer'n a board! And look where Curry's nigger is, will you?" "To hell with Curry's nigger!" barked Johnson. "Look at the colt! He--he can't untrack himself: runs like he was all bound up somehow! Something has gone wrong, sure!" "You bet it has!" snarled McManus. "Quite a pile of dough has gone wrong, and some of it was mine too!" A comfortable ten lengths to the good at the upper turn, Little Mose addressed a few vigorous remarks to his mount. "This a nice place faw us to stay, 'Lijah! Them Irish boys all behin' us! Nobody goin' bump you to-day! Nobody goin' slash you 'ith no whip! Go on, big red hawss! Show 'em how we risin' up!" "The nigger'll win in a romp!" announced McManus disgustedly. "Oh, dry up! I want to know what's happened to Zanzibar!" "I can tell you what's _going_ to happen to him," remarked the unfeeling McManus. "He's going to finish last, and a damn bad last at that. Why, he can't get up a gallop! Didn't you know any more than to start a horse in that condition?" "But how the devil did he get stiff all at once?" howled Johnson. "That's what you'd better find out. How do we know you didn't cross us, Johnson? It would be just like you!" Old Man Curry, watching at the paddock gate, thrust his hands under the tails of his rusty frock coat and smiled. "'A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again!'" he quoted softly. "And the wicked: well, they'll have a mighty lame hoss on their hands, I reckon." Mose began checking Elijah, several lengths in front of the wire. "Don't go bustin' a lung, hawss," said he. "Might need it again. You winnin' by a mile. A-a-a mile. Sol'mun was right, but maybe he wouldn't have been if I hadn't done some risin' up myse'f this mawnin'! Whoa, hawss! This where they pay off! We th'oo faw the day!" Old Man Curry was striding down the track from the judges' stand when he met a large man whose face was purple and his language purple also. "Man, don't talk like that!" said Curry reprovingly. "And ca'm down or you'll bust an artery. You can't win _all_ the time: that's what you told me." Johnson sputtered like a damp Roman candle, but a portion of his remarks were intelligible.