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Updated: June 8, 2025
When they arrived at the stable Mike headed straight for the harness room. The light was dim, coming from a small, high, two-paned window; but Mike knew where every bridle and saddle should be. He put his hand on Diablo's headgear, and bringing it down carried it through the passage to a stable door where he examined it minutely. "Jest what I tought.
The jingle of a pair of spurs is Diablo's idea of a drum and he makes his charge right off! Gentle? Huh!" The grunt was expressive. "And what good's a hoss if he can't be rode with a saddle?" He waved the subject of Diablo into the distance. "They ain't any hope unless Hal Dunbar can ride him. If he can't, I'll shoot the beast!" "Shoot him?" echoed Bull Hunter.
Langdon's appreciation of Crane's cleverness had been enhanced by the successful termination of what he still believed was a brilliantly planned coup. He had never for an instant thought that Crane purchased the horse out of kindness to anyone. It was still a matter of mystery to him, however, why his principal should wish to keep dark just how he had learned Diablo's handicap qualities.
As Shandy swept his wisp of straw along the sensitive skin of Diablo's stomach, the latter shrunk from the tickling sensation, and lashed out impatiently with a powerful hind leg as though he would demolish his tormentor. "He's not cross at all just," explained Mike; "he's bluffin', that's all. Shure a child could handle him if they'd only go the right way about it."
We'll just see what he'll do himself, this trip," he added, addressing Crane. Taking Westley's small-booted foot in his hand, he lifted the lad to Diablo's back, and led the horse out through a gate to the course. The two boys cantered their mounts down to the quarter post carelessly, as though they were going around to the far side.
"The ease up has put the very deuce into this fellow," he flung over his shoulder to Allis, who was at Diablo's quarter. "He's a hard-mouthed brute if ever there was one." "He'll be all right, dad," she called forward, raising her voice, for the wind cut her breath; "Shandy rode him with a heavy hand, that's why." "I'll put a rubber bit in his mouth, to soften it," he pumped brokenly.
At the first sound of blows Allis had started angrily toward Diablo's box. She was at the door when Shandy's cry of terror rang out. For an instant the girl hesitated; what she saw was enough to make a strong man quail.
Yet his muscles tightened, and the perspiration poured out on his forehead as he heard a shout from one of the men, then a brief drumming of Diablo's hoofs, and finally the heavy thud as the stallion struck full length on the ground. That sound stunned Bull as though he had received a blow himself. Every nerve in him was tingling, revolting against the brutality.
"Now I've got him on his reputation," thought Crane, idly brushing specks of cigar ash from the front of his coat. "Just as I thought," mused Langdon; "the old man's got a horse after his own heart. Everybody thinks Diablo's no good, but the boss has found out something, and is on for the biggest kind of a coup."
Weight for age Diablo's a four-year-old; you ought to carry a hundred and twenty-six, but he's not The Dutchman's class, an' the ycungster'd lose him before they'd gone half the journey. We'll run 'em at level weights, an' he'll get closer to The Dutchman, an' the sharks won't have such a fairy tale to tell about our horse."
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