Page:Patches (1928).pdf/238

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ingly in a pocket behind Knocka-knees and the Antelope with the three other horses perhaps fifty feet ahead. He tried first the pole and then the outside, but each time he moved over to pass, the horse ahead of him moved to check his progress. Three times they did this and then the game was apparent to Larry. These two horses were trying to put him out of the race. At the thought great indignation welled up in the boy's heart and he eagerly watched for an opportunity to outwit the strategy. Presently it came, Knocka-knees surged over a yard or so away from the Antelope and at that instant Larry let the quirt fall heavily on Patches' side and called to him in a ringing voice. No one of the thirty thousand excited spectators, or even the judges in the grand stand, ever knew just how it was done. Some said Patches went through the opening like an express train, others said he went like a bullet and you could not see him at all. But when he had passed, the beautiful Knocka-knees limped into the ditch with a dislocated stifle and his part in the race was done. The Antelope, too, had been so much upset by the jar that Patches had given him as he passed that he lost his stride and when he finally regained it he was two lengths behind, but he was a great running horse and the Indian boy who rode him was a cunning driver and at the end of an eighth of a mile he had drawn up abreast of Patches. They held these relative positions,