“It’s the truth, Joe,” Alec said. “We’ve been racing—” He stopped and looked at Henry.

“It’s all right, Alec,” Henry said. “Guess it doesn’t make much difference now who we tell; we can’t race him anyway.”

Joe looked from Alec to Henry. “You mean to tell me you’ve been racing him?”

“In a way,” Alec answered. “We’ve been taking him over to Belmont at night and giving him some workouts.”

“And let me tell you, sir,” Henry broke in, “no horse ever ran around that track like this fellow did. We clocked him; there wasn’t any guesswork.”

“You see,” Alec said, “we had planned to run him in some big races. I was going to ride—but we weren’t able to get his pedigree. We wrote to Arabia trying to get it, but it was impossible. We didn’t know much about him, only the port where he got on the boat. And you can’t run a horse in a race without his being registered.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” muttered Joe, “and while the Black looks like a thoroughbred, he is certainly too wild to have ever been brought up like one!”

“I guess that just about washes us up as far as racing goes, but we still know he’s the fastest horse around!” Henry said.

Joe scratched his head. “You’re sure he’s as fast as you say he is?” Joe asked.

“Sure, I’m sure,” replied Henry. “Why?”

“Well, I know of one race that he wouldn’t need to be registered for.”

“Some county fair?” Henry laughed.

“No—the match race between Sun Raider and Cyclone!”

“But that’s impossible,” Henry said.

“Nothing is impossible these days,” Joe said. “But whether we could get him in or not, it wouldn’t be his lack of registration papers that would keep him out. You see, that’s a special match race—it isn’t held at any race meeting. It’s just like me racing you to see which one of us can run faster. They rent the track, bring the horses and away they go! All you have to do is get the other owners to let you run the Black in the race!”

“Yeah, that’s all,” Henry said, “and I still say it’s practically impossible!”

“There’s a slim chance, though, Henry,” Alec said eagerly.

“You said it, kid.” Joe grinned.

“How do you think we could work it, Joe?” Henry asked.

“I dunno—but you know I work on the same paper with Jim Neville, and he’s the guy that started all this; he might help us some way.”

“Perhaps if you told him about the Black …” suggested Alec.

“Maybe,” answered Joe. “He’s crazy about horses, and doesn’t think that there’s any horse in the world that can beat Cyclone, even Sun Raider. He’d probably think I was nuts if I told him I knew of a horse that could beat ’em both.” He paused. “You’re sure that the Black can?”

Henry smiled. “Yeah, Joe, I’m sure,” he said, “but seeing that you’re kinda skeptical, why don’t you come over some night when we run him? Sure, and bring Jim Neville along, too; then he will have something to write about!”