"I think you'd better call this bargain off, Mr. Porter," remonstrated
Crane.

"Oh, the bargain will be off," answered John Porter; "if I'm any judge,
Lauzanne's running his race right here in the stall."

His practiced eye had summed up Lauzanne as chicken-hearted; the sweat
was running in little streams down the big Chestnut's legs, and dripping
from his belly into the drinking earth spit-spit, drip-drip; his head
was high held in nervous apprehension; his lips twitched, his flanks
trembled like wind-distressed water, and the white of his eye was
showing ominously.

Langdon cast a quick, significant, cautioning look at Crane as Porter
spoke of the horse; then he said, "You're a fair judge, an' if you're
right you get all the stuff an' no horse."

"I stand to my bargain whatever happens," Porter retorted.

At that instant the bugle sounded.

"Get up, Westley," Langdon said to his jockey, "they're going out."

As he lifted the boy to the saddle, the Trainer whispered a few concise
directions.

"Hold him steady at the post," he muttered; "I've got him a bit on edge
to-day. Get off in front and stay there; he's feelin' good enough to
leave the earth. This'll be a matter of a couple of hundred to you if