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As Mike started off there came to their ears a sound of turmoil from Diablo's box; impatient kicks against the boards from the horse, and smothered imprecations from the boy. "Hear that fiend!" the girl exclaimed, and there was wrath in her voice. "He does seem a bad horse," concurred Mortimer. "I didn't mean Diablo; it's the boy. It's all his evil doing. Oh, I've only one glove," she exclaimed.
Yes, Crane had spoken truly; a great striding black, along whose neck hung close a tiny figure in yellow and red, was leading the oncoming horses. Allis strained her eyes trying to discover the little mare, but she was swallowed up in the struggling mob that hung at Diablo's heels. As they opened a little, swinging around the first turn, Allis caught sight of the white-starred blue jacket.
McCoy, he noticed, did not enthuse over the idea. "Diablo's a dangerous place to be fooling around at this time of the year," he said. "If she can take the risk, I surely can," Gregory answered promptly. "You're needed here," objected McCoy. "Everything's new and there's liable to be something come up I don't know about." "Then do the best you can. I'll back you up.
I think we'd better have a cup of tea; these horses are trying on the nerves, aren't they, little woman?" and he nestled his wife's head against his side. "How did it happen, Allis? Did Mortimer slip into Diablo's box, or " "It was all over that rascally boy, Shandy. Diablo was just paying him back for his ill-treatment, and I went in to rescue him, and Mortimer risked his life to save mine."
"Why, Tod," the big man smiled, "you did the same thing." "He knew I was nothing. But you're a growed man. But what's this, Bull? Your back's all wet." "It's nothing much," said Bull calmly. "When I fell, my head hit a stone. There's some things worth paying for, and Diablo's one of them." The cut proved, as he had said, to be a small thing; but it turned out that Diablo was far from won.
There was a patent device of a twist and a loose ring in the center of the bit he clutched, which Porter had devised for Diablo's hard mouth. Shandy gave the bridle a swing, and it clattered to the floor from its peg. Diablo snorted and pawed the planks of his stall nervously.
On one quarter, where Diablo's sharp hoof had ripped, was a cut as though he had been lashed with a sickle, and his withers were torn. Mortimer and Allis had come out of the stall. The man, exhausted by the struggle, leaned wearily, with pale, drawn face, against the wall; the floor seemed slipping from under him; he felt a sensation of swiftly passing off into nothingness.
He ran his hand over Diablo's nose and spoke low, and repeated this action for each of the other horses. Gale had long ceased to question the strange Indian's behavior. There was no explaining or understanding many of his manoeuvers. But the results of them were always thought-provoking.
Mortimer almost shrank with apprehension for the boy, for Diablo's ears were back on his flat, tapering neck, and his eyes looking back at them, were all white, save for the intense blue-shimmered pupil. To Mortimer that look was the incarnation of evil hatred.
"You can't make a slow horse gallop, but there's a chance of curing a horse's temper by kind treatment. I've noticed that a squealing pig generally runs like the devil when he takes it into his head." "Diablo's a squealing pig if there ever was one," growled Dixon. They reached the track stable, and, as if by a mutual instinct, the two men walked on till they stood in front of Lauzanne's stall.
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