Part 13 (1/2)

”Running second is always bad business, except in a selling race,”

retorted his master.

”I've got to think of myself,” growled Langdon. ”If he'd been beat off, there'd been trouble; the Stewards have got the other race in their crop a bit yet.”

”I'm not blaming you, Langdon, only I was just a trifle afraid that you were going to beat Porter's mare. He's a friend of mine, and needed a win badly. I'm not exactly his father confessor, but I'm his banker, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.”

”What about the horse, sir,” asked the Trainer.

”We'll see later on. Let him go easy for the present.”

”I wonder what he meant by that,” Langdon mused to himself, as Crane moved away. ”He don't make n.o.body a present of a race for love.”

Suddenly he stumbled upon a solution of the enigma. ”Well, I'm d.a.m.ned if that wasn't slick; he give me the straight tip to leave Porter to him--to let him do the plannin'; I see.”

VII

Porter was an easy man with his horses. Though he could not afford, because of his needs, to work out his theory that two-year-olds should not be raced, yet he utilized it as far as possible by running them at longer intervals than was general.

”I'll start the little mare about once more this season,” he told Dixon.

”The babes can't cut teeth, and grow, and fight it out in punis.h.i.+ng races on dusty hay and hard-sh.e.l.led oats, when they ought to be picking gra.s.s in an open field. She's too good a beast to do up in her young days. The a.s.sa.s.sins made good three-year-olds, and the little mare's dam, Maid of Rome, wasn't much her first year out--only won once--but as a three-year-old she won three out of four starts, and the fourth year never lost a race. Lucretia ought to be a great mare next year if I lay her by early this season. She's in a couple of stakes at Gravesend and Sheepshead, and we'll just fit her into the softest spot.”

”What about Lauzanne?” asked the Trainer, ”I'm afraid he's a bad horse.”

”How is he doing?”

”He's stale. He's a bad doer--doesn't clean up his oats, an' mopes.”

”I guess that killing finish with The Dutchman took the life out of him.

That sort of thing often settles a soft-hearted horse for all time.”

”I don't think it was the race, sir,” Dixon replied; ”they just pumped the cocaine into him till he was fair blind drunk; he must a' swallowed the bottle. I give him a ball, a bran mash, and Lord knows what all, an'

the poison's workin' out of him. He's all breakin' out in lumps; you'd think he'd been stung by bees.”

”I never heard of such a thing,” commented Porter. ”A man that would dope a two-year-old ought to be ruled off, sure.”

”I think you oughter make a kick, sir,” said Dixon, hesitatingly.

”I don't. When I squeal, Andy, it'll be when there's nothing but the voice left. I bought a horse from a man once just as he stood.

I happened to know the horse, and said I didn't want any inspection--didn't want to see him, but bought him, as I say, just as he stood. When I went to the stable to get him he wasn't worth much, Andy--he was dead. Perhaps I might have made a kick about his not standing up, but I didn't.”

”Well, sir, I'm thinkin' Lauzanne's a deuced sight worse'n a dead horse; he'll cost more tryin' to win with him.”

”I dare say you're right, but he can gallop a bit.”

”When he's primed.”

”No dope for me, Andy. I never ran a dope horse and never will--I'm too fond of them to poison them.”