You'll be going down the back stairs in your stocking feet.«

Although the Kids remained unnaturally serene and quiet, argument in the Café Colorado became tumultuous. Here and there a man who did not intend to bet ventured meekly that perchance Pop might win, and the others swarmed upon him in a whirlwind of angry denial and ridicule.

Pop, enthroned behind the bar, looked over at this storm with a shadow of anxiety upon his face. This widespread flouting affected him, but the Kids looked blissfully satisfied with the tumult they had stirred.

Blanco, honest man, ever worrying for his friends, came to them. »Say, you fellows, you aren't betting too much? This thing looks kind of shaky, don't it?«

The faces of the Kids grew sober, and after consideration one said: »No, I guess we've got a good thing, Blanco. Pop is going to surprise them, I think.«

»Well, don't –«

»All right, old boy. We'll watch out.«

From time to time the Kids had much business with certain orange, red, blue, purple, and green bills. They were making little memoranda on the back of visiting cards. Pop watched them closely, the shadow still upon his face. Once he called to them, and when they came he leaned over the bar and said intensely: »Say, boys, remember, now – I might lose this race. Nobody can ever say for sure, and if I do, why –«

»Oh, that's all right, Pop,« said the Kids, reassuringly. »Don't mind it. Do your derndest and let it go at that.«

When they had left him, however, they went to a corner to consult. »Say, this is getting interesting. Are you in deep?« asked one anxiously of his friend.

»Yes, pretty deep,« said the other stolidly. »Are you?«

»Deep as the devil,« replied the other in the same tone.

They looked at each other stonily and went back to the crowd. Benson had just entered the café. He approached them with a gloating smile of victory. »Well, where's all that money you were going to bet?«

»Right here,« said the Kids, thrusting into their vest pockets.

At eleven o'clock a curious thing was learned. When Pop and Freddie, the Kids and all, came to the little side street, it was thick with people. It seems that the news of this great race had spread like the wind among the Americans, and they had come to witness the event. In the darkness the crowd moved, gesticulating and mumbling in argument.

The principals, the Kids, and those with them, surveyed this scene with some dismay. »Say – here's a go.« Even then a policeman might be seen approaching, the light from his little lantern flickering on his white cap, gloves, brass buttons, and on the butt of the old-fashioned Colt's revolver which hung at his belt. He addressed Freddie in swift Mexican. Freddie listened, nodding from time to time. Finally Freddie turned to the others to translate. »He says he'll get into trouble if he allows this race when all this crowd is here.«

There was a murmur of discontent. The policeman looked at them with an expression of anxiety on his broad brown face.

»Oh, come on. We'll go hold it on some other fellow's beat,« said one of the Kids. The group moved slowly away debating. Suddenly the other Kid cried: »I know! The Paseo!«

»By jiminy,« said Freddie, »just the thing.