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Show rJf"f W W.N.u. FEATURES -nE STORY TnUS FAR: Thunder-the Thunder-the only whlto horse ever foaled !l Goose Bar ranch In Wyoming. He Arables Ws tat Brandslre. a wild on caUed the Albino. Ken McLangh rr xiianderhead's 13-year-old owner. rL. Wl horso win become a racer, as !. 11 very fast. Plans are made to enter urn to faU ce mcctIng Tbero 18 !T!derable worry, however, becaose be f, difficult to handle. Rob McLaughlin, ren'i father, sells off most of his horses ills cosh. Financial worries create , rift between Rob and his wife, NclL L tells her that they are going Into fhtep raising. Ken's school report Is Jflojually good, Indicating that he wants I Isvor. CHAPTER XX Rob's big white teeth gleamed in his dark face. He looked very pleased. But continuing to study be boy's expression he suddenly had a recurrence of his first conviction. convic-tion. There was something fishy. Tell me. Ken," he said, "Is this ,bsolutely on the level? You really did It? It's bona fide?" "Sure I did it, dad," said Ken, ys Jubilance fading at the realization realiza-tion that a bad reputation is hard to jive down. "When did you start working lor this phenomenal report card?" "Last fall. When school started start-ed " 'And you kept it up all year?" Ken nodded. "Just so you might get permission 'from me to stay out of school next fall when Thunderhead goes to the post?" "Yes, sir." Tut it there, son! I'm proud of you!" Ken was dazed. His small boneless bone-less hand was lost in his father's clasp and shaken hard. He was still trying to explain. "The thing is, dad, of course 1 11 mnke up all the lessons I lose while I'm out of school. But if I had just asked you, and told you that I'd do that, you wouldn't have believed be-lieved I could do it." "And you can say that again, boy!" "So I had to prove it to you before I asked you." "You've proved it." N'Dadl Do you mean I can?" "I mean just that. This brilliant mind of yours seems to work in reverse. re-verse. Give you horses so that you have no time for lessons and even have to stay out of school and you bust yourself wide open and carry the rag off the bush!" "Dad there's something more!" "Ah! Now it's coming!" Rob's face took on its sardonic expression. "Two things, dad." "Well-shoot!" "You said last year, when Thunderhead Thun-derhead didn't get gelded with the other two-year-olds, that he could go till this year. Does does he have to be gelded? Wouldn't you Just-skip it dad? Because he may win, you see And there's a chance that the gelding might hurt him or kill him and anyway if he should be ' i winner on the race track we'd want to sell his services as a stallion, stal-lion, wouldn't we? And anyway" "We won't geld him," said Rob suddenly. This quick victory was another shock to Ken. Rob raised the report J card. "You'll find all your life long. Bon, that fine performance will get things for you that nothing else wia" "T" "Besides, Thunderhead hasn't really made any trouble, has he?" jo It was hard for Kfen to get his 0 mind oft his horse. "He hasn't ts tried to fight Banner or get any '& tnares, or well, not anything like A that" J . "Thunderhead hasn't had a ' chance to raise hell yet. It's been ja a godsend that we could leave Touch And Go with him until early this vi tyring when she came in heat for id the first time. That kept him happy. tp1 Kept him away from the other rV tnares and delayed the beginning of what you might call his sex life. Besides, Be-sides, he's been trained and worked Pretty consistently. You can train ( an animal, you know, for the kind of life he is to live. We've kept him ) away from the real life of a stallion. But that won't last forever. The , time will come. One day his ears iU pop, and he'll suddenly thump Wmself on the chest and exclaim, - Tm a man!" Ken laughed. "I hope it won't be on the race track." X "Sex doesn't enter much into the life of race horses. Stallions and aares race together without any distances dis-tances of that sort." 1 know." ft1 WcU now what's the other si tthg? Might as well get it over JeA With." Ken's face flushed a little. "Reef "Re-ef Member what you said once, dad? That I cost you money every time I p wni around?" 1 remember I" ' ell what about the money the ;lc la going to cost? The entrance lie e and ell that?" I "I Bee." Rob leaned back quietly 1 became very thoughtful, rub-ilt rub-ilt , w? hnd through his hair. & t, Y0U re a lo richer now than you t : Mcd to be, aren't you, dad?" ere'd you get that idea?" rfl ? eUthe sheep" 111 3he 8necp have got me so deep IjjJ debt Thunderhead will have to aee to pull me out!" On, dad! Are you kind of count- tlT 0n hlra?" Ken's face glowed (51' Mi Pride. . '.Tm hoPS-" sad Rob grimly. "I've put a lot of work on that horse myself, remember, and I know he's got it in him. But he's an i ugly beggar. This summer will tell the tale." "Of course you know, dad," said Ken magnanimously, "anything Thunderhead wins will be yours and Mother's." "Will it? No. I don't think so. We'd want it to be yours. Then you can pay for all your expenses and your schooling and we'll come out ahead anyway!" "But some of it would have to be yours!" "All right We'll incorporate. McLaughlin Mc-Laughlin and Son. And I'll take what I need for the present and we can get squared later on." There was a moment's pause. Rob hadn't yet said anything about that entrance fee. "You're going to have a wonderful wonder-ful big hay crop, aren't you, dad? Don't you think you may sell your hay the part you won't need for "We'll incorporate. McLaughlin and Son." the sheep or the horses or the cows, quite early say, in September?" "Got it all figured out, haven't you?" Ken nodded. "I don't know when I'll sell my surplus hay. It may pay better to hold it till later in the season when hay gets scarce." Ken looked crestfallen. Rob leaned back in his chair. "We'd better count this up now and know what we're up against." Ken called on his fortitude and stood waiting. "You're going with Mr. Sargent so the trip won't cost you anything, but you'll be in Saginaw Falls for three weeks" "I'll sleep in the stall with Thunderhead," Thun-derhead," put in Ken quickly. "Lots of owners do that if they haven't got much dough." "But I suppose you'll have to eat! Sargent will send the colt with his horses by rail and keep him in his stables in charge of his trainer, so there'll be no shipping or stable expenses. You're in luck there but Thunderhead's got to eat too. So there'll be his feed bill and the jockey " fee " 'That's ten dollars if he just rides, and twenty-five if he wins," interpolated Ken, "and dad, please don't say jockey. People that know, call them riders." Rob ignored this. "And the en trance fee," he finished. "Altogether "Altogeth-er quite a bit of money." He looked out the window again, and in spite of fortitude, Ken began be-gan to feel wet in his armpits and around his waist. "But I'll stake you to the entrance en-trance fee for the one big race and all the expenses for yourself and Thunderhead." "You will, dad? Gee! Oh, Gosh!" "How'll I be repaid if he doesn't win anything?" Ken's Hps sobered in a line of determination and courage. "I'll work very hard all. summer." "You'll do that anyway," said Rob grimly. "I've never given you the idea you could spend the summer sitting on your fanny, have I? Or just monkeying around your horse I either." w , I "And besides," said Ken, "there's another way I could make money enough to pay you back everything and more too." "This brilliant mind of yours is getting me dizzy. Ken.' How can you make several hundred dollars?" "Well you told me once it costs you three hundred dollars to put me through a year of school. See?" He smiled brilliantly at his father "I don't see. I haven't got a brilliant bril-liant mind." I just- simply won't go to school. I could study outside and take the exams maybe Anyway, I'd learn just as much and my schooling wouldn't cost you any- "And I'd spend the money financ ing you traveling around with your race horse, I suppose?" Ken hadn't quite the courage to ; say yes, but he made a graceful gesture of assent and dashed away. Thunderhead's career was taken seriously by everyone on the ranch that summer, and no one rode him but his trainer, young Ken McLaughlin, Mc-Laughlin, who tipped the scale at ninety-six pounds. During the winter just past when the stallion had been kept in, given a liberal daily ration of oats and hay and exercise and training by Rob McLaughlin, he had achieved a superb development. He was as tall as the Percheron sixteen hands , and would be even taller when he had his full growth. No longer could it be said of him that he was ungainly un-gainly or badly proportioned. All his parts had grown together. His legs were long and powerfully muscled, mus-cled, his neck massive and arched, his coat a pure dazzling white and shining with the glossiness of a stallion's stal-lion's skin. Strength, power and wilfulness were still his outstanding characteristics. He was now shod, and Ken was out with him every day before breakfast, running him on the track. He still fought Ken, he still bucked, but when Ken complained of the horse's dislike of him, his father said, "You've got that wrong, son. If that horse really haed you he'd never let you get near him. He doesn't hate you. He fights you be- cause he likes to. He enjoys it. You're his trainer. You've got to make him do what he doesn't want to do and he's a fighting devil so he fights you back. But I'll bet, when he's waiting up there in the mornings morn-ings for you to come and give him his work-out, he'd feel pretty bad if you didn't show up." Touch And Go was still the pacemaker pace-maker for her big brother, and Rob McLaughlin said, "When I see that filly run, damned if I don't think she's the one that's going to be the racer." Touch And Go was a regular beauty. Tall and daintily made, with a long reaching neck, straight slim legs, littfe feet that would fit in a cup, and a playful high spirit that kept her always acting up, always al-ways dancing and going sideways. Her ruddy hide was glorious in the sun, and the blond tail and mane gave her a de luxe, made-to-order look. To Rob McLaughlin her perfect conformation was a justification of his theories of line breeding, and he sometimes studied the racing sheet, making a note of what events were scheduled for two-year-olds. "We might run her too," he said, "put her in the baby class." The summer passed very slowly for Ken, because it was all a tense waiting for the racing season, and a tense watching of Thunderhead. Besides, it was full of excitement just one thing after the other. The first excitement was. when he got home and found out what was going to happen to his mother. It was hard for Ken to keep his mind from confusion when he thought about that. She had wanted it. Hadn't she said at dinner that night, "I want a monkey tree. I want a sleigh all covered with bells, and I want a little girl," and of course it was right for his mother to have what she wanted. But it was hard to take. He had argued with her about it. "But mother, you've got us! Howard How-ard and me. Aren't we enough?" "No. I want a little girl." "Want her much, mother?" "Want her lots, dear. Remember how hard you wanted Flicka?" "It might be a boy," said Ken gloomily, and he added, "Besides, doesn't it hurt awfully?" Nell was busy putting the laundry away. She counted the piles of sheets she was stacking in the linen closet. Doesn't it. mother?" insisted Ken. "Doc Hicks might have to" "Ken! This is going to be a baby! And Doc Hicks won't have anything any-thing to do with it!" "Oh, sure I know that" "And as for its hurting who cares about that?" She had finished stacking stack-ing and her voice was very gay. "You don't get anything for nothing, noth-ing, dear." "No." His father had told him plenty about that. "And didn't you" her hand was lightly on his head, arranging his soft brown hair so that it did not fall over his forehead, "didn't you sit all night in the cold water holding hold-ing Flicka just because you loved her and wanted her so much?" She was through with the linen and went quickly back to the kitchen. Ken watched her, not answering an-swering her out loud but thinking to himself that it was different. How could you love something you hadn't ever seen and be willing, in advance, ad-vance, to suffer for it? With Flicka, he had known and loved her and cared for her for months. He had to struggle against a feeling feel-ing of dread when he saw his father watching his mother all the time with such anxiety. It was a wonder won-der he would even let her stack the linen. He wouldn't let her do anything any-thing this summer. He himself got up and cooked breakfast every morning, and Tim had to come in and clean the house. Gus churned and attended to butter and cream. (TO BE CONTINUED) i 1 |