The Black Stallion

horses stabled here," he said in amazement.
    They found more horses beyond the barns, for another track was there; this was being used, they saw, for slow jogging.
    Still following Miss Elsie's trailer, they observed everything there was to see, but said nothing.
    They did little that afternoon except to find their stable and to care for Bonfire. Yet they watched with keen, interested eyes everything that went on. They were among strangers here, and no one paid the slightest attention to them; not even Miss Elsie, who went about getting her filly ready for Saturday's race and ignoring those who wanted to talk to her about Princess Guy; she seemed not the slightest bit interested in the activity of the raceway. Miss Elsie could have been at another country fair for all the attention she paid to what went on about her. She was here for one reason alone and that absorbed her whole being.
    While Tom and George had as much—and more—at stake as Miss Elsie, they couldn't ignore the raceway and its people. For here was the crux of Jimmy's illness; his resentment and bitterness toward the night raceways and their "killing of my sport"—as he put it—was now on trial before their eyes. So they watched everything that happened and every man there.
    "It's a racin'
plant
," George said, "just as they call it. It's big business an' streamlined all the way."
    Tom nodded; but Uncle Wilmer only moved his canvas chair closer to Bonfire's head as though he needed the colt to protect him from all he saw.
    Tom sat there and tried to stop himself from thinking too much about Jimmy Creech. "It's still too early to hear from the doctor," he told himself. "And no news now is good news."
    Bonfire sneezed and Tom went to him. "Guess we'd better put the sheet on him. Getting cool with the sun going down," he told George.
    He stayed with Bonfire awhile, fondling the colt and feeding him carrots. Two nights to go, he thought, tonight and tomorrow night; then we'll be on the
stage
.
    That's the way Tom thought of Roosevelt Raceway at the end of his first day there. A giant, mammoth spectacle geared for modern racing. He and the others were backstage now getting ready for the big night show. In a way it was exciting. But he missed the noises of the fair, the friendly people who had always come to their stall knowing horses and wanting to talk about them. There were no spectators here now… just the performers.
    What would the show be like tonight? What would his reactions be to it? Would he, like Jimmy, become embittered by this swift turn
his
sport had taken?
    Night came and with it life poured into Roosevelt Raceway. Giant floodlights brightened the track and grounds as though it were daylight.
    Tom and George closed the upper door of Bonfire's stall.
    "Let him get his rest," George said. "It'll be better for him."
    Uncle Wilmer refused to go to the track with them, so they left him behind with Bonfire, and made their way through the black mass of people streaming through the main entrance gate and overflowing the grandstand. They found they couldn't get near the rail without entering the grandstand gate, so grudgingly they went inside to stand in the packed area between the first tier of the stands and the rail.
    As Tom looked at the track, he realized more than ever that this was
the stage
. He rose high on his tiptoes to see the racing strip over the heads of the jam-packed people between him and the rail.
    The track lay smooth and untouched beneath the bright glare of the lights. The infield was green, seemingly too green to be real grass. The blackness of night was beyond the lighted backstretch; there were were no red trucks of a fair's midway, no spinning, gleaming Ferris wheels. And these, Tom found, he missed very much.
    So modern, so brilliant—and yet, too, so artificial, this stage.
    Turning to look behind him, he saw the thousands in the stands, afraid to move lest they lose their seats. Just to the right of the grandstand was the paddock, where the horses were taken fully an hour before the race. The gay, colorful awnings looked even more green and more white under the lights than they had during the day. Shaped like a horseshoe, the paddock was fenced off and forbidden territory to all spectators—to all except officials and the drivers of those horses which were to come out onto the track for the first race. Tom thought again of the friendly people at the fairs who would follow them from barn to track, always talking,