Faust went away more than ever suspicious of Crane and Diablo. That
fifty dollars being put on for anybody else was bunkum. What was Crane
up to anyway? If he really meant to back the horse he would not have
started with such a trifle. Perhaps Diablo had been stuck in the
Brooklyn simply to see how the handicapper would rate him.
Faust was convinced that Crane had some big coup in view; he would wait
a little, and at the first move have a strong play himself.
XIX
Langdon was a consummate trainer, a student of horse character. He knew
that while biniodide of mercury would blister and put right a bowed
tendon, or the firing iron take the life out of a splint, that a much
finer knowledge than this was requisite to get fullhearted work out of a
thoroughbred. Brain must be pitted against brain; so he studied his
horses; and when Diablo came into his hands, possessed of a mind
disease, he worked over him with considerable intelligent patience.
This study of horse character was the very thing that had caused him to
go wrong over Lauzanne. He had not gone quite far enough; had not
waited for time to demonstrate clearly the horse's temperament, but had
recourse to a cocaine stimulant.
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