"Sure," sighed Connor. He looked at the brandished money. "A field of wheat," he murmured, "waiting for the reaper. That's me." He turned to see his companion pull out a fat wallet. "Which one?" gasped Townsend. "We ain't got hardly any time." Connor observed him with a smile that tucked up the corners of his mouth. "Wait a while, friend. Plenty of time to get stung where the ponies are concerned. We'll look them over." Townsend began to chatter in his ear: "It's between Charlie Haig's roan and Cliff Jones's Lightning--You see that bay? Man, he can surely get across the ground. But the roan ain't so bad. Oh, no!" "Sure they are." The gambler frowned. "I was about to say that there was only one horse in the race, but--" He shook his head despairingly as he looked over the riders. He was hunting automatically for the fleshless face and angular body of a jockey; among them all Charlie Haig came the closest to this light ideal. He was a sun-dried fellow, but even Charlie must have weighed well over a hundred and forty pounds; the others made no pretensions toward small poundage, and Cliff Jones must have scaled two hundred. "Which was the one hoss in your eyes?" asked the hotel man eagerly. "The gray. But with that weight up the little fellow will be anchored." He pointed to a gray gelding which nosed confidently at the back hip pockets of his master. "Less than fifteen hands," continued Connor, "and a hundred and eighty pounds to break his back. It isn't a race; it's murder to enter a horse handicapped like that." "The gray?" repeated Jack Townsend, and he glanced from the corner of his eyes at his companion, as though he suspected mockery. "I never seen the gray before," he went on. "Looks sort of underfed, eh?" Connor apparently did not hear. He had raised his head and his nostrils trembled, so that Townsend did not know whether the queer fellow was about to break into laughter or a trade. "Yet," muttered Connor, "he might carry it. God, what a horse!" He still looked at the gelding, and Townsend rubbed his eyes and stared to make sure that he had not overlooked some possibilities in the gelding. But he saw again only a lean-ribbed pony with a long neck and a high croup. The horse wheeled, stepping as clumsily as a gangling yearling. Townsend's amazement changed to suspicion and then to indifference. "Well," he said, smiling covertly, "are you going to bet on that?" Connor made no answer. He stepped up to the owner of the gray, a swarthy man of Indian blood. His half sleepy, half sullen expression cleared when Connor shook hands and introduced himself as a lover of fast horse-flesh. He even congratulated the Indian on owning so fine a specimen, at which apparently subtle mockery Townsend, in the rear, set his teeth to keep from smiling; and the big Indian also frowned, to see if there were any hidden insult. But Connor had stepped back and was looking at the forelegs of the gelding.