It was plain enough that Pop was trying to make an opportunity to talk confidentially, but with a dozen men on the place it was easy enough to avoid being alone without arousing the old man's suspicions.

Marian had told him to trust no one; and Bud, with his usual thoroughness, applied the warning literally.
Sunday morning he caught up Smoky and rode him to the corral.

Smoky had recovered from his lameness, and while Bud groomed him for the afternoon's running the men of Little Lost gathered round him and offered advice and encouragement, and even volunteered to lend him money if he needed it.

But Bud told them to put up their own bets, and never to worry about him.

Their advice and their encouragement, however, he accepted as cheerfully as they were given.
"Think yuh can beat Skeeter, young feller ?" Pop shambled up to inquire anxiously, his beard brushing Bud's shoulder while he leaned close.
"Remember what I told ye.