We’ll need every cent of it to pay expenses for the next couple of years. If Satan was racing, we wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. But since he isn’t we got to be careful about every penny we spend.”

“Then what are you driving at, Henry?”

“I got a little money saved. I thought I’d go to the Kentucky fall sales next week and maybe find a horse I like at a price I can afford to pay. Maybe I’ll be lucky and get a good one. But I don’t want to take a chance with the farm’s money—not with all the broodmares we still need to buy before we get a good band together. I’ll do this on my own or not at all.”

“Go ahead then, Henry, if that’s what you want to do.” Alec was watching Satan stretch his head across the fence. “Do you have any particular horse in mind?”

“No, I guess not. They’ll probably all go too high for me. If I want ’em, so will somebody else with more money to spend. Still, there’s one I just might …” Henry stopped. His gaze was on Satan too, but he was not following the horse’s movements.

“Yes?”

“Remember our first few months here, long before we had any mares of our own?”

“Sure, Henry.”

“Do you remember a mare by the name of Elf, sent to us by a Doctor Chandler of Lexington, Kentucky? She was bred to the Black.”

“A dark-brown mare on the small side,” Alec answered. “She always came out of the barn on her toes. Yet she was level-headed; nothing upset her, not even the Black. She was a big little mare.”

“You remember good,” Henry said.

“It’s our business to remember,” Alec replied.

“I liked her a lot.”

“I know. You wanted to buy her, but her owner wouldn’t sell.” Alec turned to Henry. “You thought,” he continued, “that combining her quiet disposition with the Black’s high spirit might produce a very fine horse.”

“Maybe it has,” Henry said quietly.

Their gazes met.

“What did Elf have?” Alec asked.

“A filly that’s two years old now.”

“Then she’s the Black’s first daughter,” Alec said quietly. “All the others have been colts.” He turned away from Henry to look in the direction of the training track. He couldn’t see the stallion in the field beyond. “I wonder what she’s like?” he added, more to himself than to Henry.

“I don’t know. I never saw her. But she’s up for sale next week. I came across her name in the catalogue.”

“What’s her name?”

“Black Minx. And I got a feeling I’ll like what I see,” Henry said. “I sure liked her dam, and with the Black as her sire …”

Again their gazes met and held.

“I hope you get her, Henry,” Alec said. “I’ve got sort of a feeling about her too.”

Nothing more was said. Each understood the other so well. Each knew that something good might come of their mutual interest in a filly they had never seen, a filly named Black Minx.

THE NOVEMBER SALES
2

For four days Henry had sat in the very seat he now occupied in the indoor sales pavilion near Lexington, Kentucky. He had watched the auctioneer’s gavel fall 498 times as 256 yearlings, 51 broodmares, 68 weanlings and 123 older horses had been sold to the highest bidders. There were 33 more horses yet to enter the ring, including Black Minx, before the fall sales would be concluded.

There came a moment’s respite from the sing-song chant of the auctioneer as another yearling was sold and led from the ring.