Part 34 (1/2)

When the Trainer had gone the jockey turned to Allis, hesitatingly, and said: ”Dixon's correct about the little mare; she's all right. I wouldn't speak even afore him, though he's all right too, but” and he looked about carefully to see that n.o.body was within ear-shot. Two men were talking a little farther out in the paddock, and Redpath, motioning to Allis, stepped close to the stall that was next to the one Lucretia had occupied, ”I could a-been in the money.”

The girl started. Crane had said that the jockey had stopped riding.

”Yes, Miss; you mustn't blame me, for I took chances of bein' had up afore the Stewards.”

”You did wrong if you didn't try to win,” exclaimed Allis, angrily.

”I did try to win, but I couldn't. I saw that I'd never catch that big Black; he was going too strong; his long stride was just breaking the little mare's heart. She's the gamest piece of horseflesh--say, Miss Porter, believe me, it just hurt me to take it out of her, keeping up with that long-legged devil. If I could a-headed him once, just got to him once--I tried it when we turned into the straight--he'd have quit.

But it was no use--the mare couldn't do it. With him out of the race I'd have won; I could a-been second or third as it was, but it might have done the little mare up so she wouldn't be any good all season. I thought a bit over this when I was galloping. I knew she was in the Brooklyn Derby, an' when I had the others beat at a mile, thinks I, if the public don't get onto it, Mr. Porter can get all his losses back in the Brooklyn Derby. That's why I eased up on the little mare. You don't think I could do anything crooked against you, Miss? Give me the mount in the Derby, an' your father can bet his last dollar 'that Lucretia'll win.”

As he finished speaking Mike Gaynor shuffled moodily up to them. Usually Mike's clothes suggested a general despondency; his wiry body, devoid of roundness as a rat trap, seemed inadequate to the proper expression of their original design. The habitual air of endeavorless decay had been accentuated by the failure of Lucretia to win the Brooklyn. Mike had shrunken into his allenveloping coat with pathetic moroseness. The look of pity in his eye when it lighted upon Allis gave place to one of rebellious accusation as he turned his head slowly and glared at Redpath.

”Ye put up a bad ride there, b'y,” he commenced, speaking in a hard, dry, defiant tone; ”a bad ride, an' no mistake. Mind I'm not sayin' ye could a-won, but ye might a-tried,” and he waited for Redpath's defense.

”She was all out, Mike, beat; what was the use of driving her to death when she hadn't the ghost of a chance?”

”You're a little too hard on Redpath,” remonstrated Allis; ”he's just been telling me that he didn't wish to punish the mare unnecessarily.”

”His business was to win if he could, Miss,” answered Mike, not at all won over. ”It was a big stake, an' he ought to've put up a big finish.

The Black would've quit if ye'd ever got to his throat-latch; he's soft, that's what he is. An' just where ye could have won the race, p'r'aps, ye quit ridin' an' let him come home alone. It's queer b'ys that's ridin' now, Miss,” Gaynor added, fiercely, nodding his head in great decision, and, turning away abruptly, the petulant moroseness showing deeper than ever in his wrinkled face.

”You mustn't mind Mike, Redpath,” said Allis; ”he's a good friend of our family, and is upset over the race, that's all.”

”I don't blame him,” answered the jockey; ”he would have rode it out and spoiled your chance with the mare--that would have done no good.”

”Still, I hardly like it,” answered the girl. ”I know you did it for my sake, but it doesn't seem quite right. Don't do anything like this again. Of course, I don't want Lucretia pushed beyond her strength, nor cut up with the whip, but she ought to get the place if she can. People might have backed her for the place, and we've thrown away their money.”

”The bettors will look after their own interests, Miss Porter, and they wouldn't help you a little bit if you needed it; they'd be more like to do you a bad turn. If I'd driven the mare to death, an' been beaten for the place, as I might have, the papers would have slated me for cruelty. You must believe that I did it for the best, Miss.”

”I do, and I suppose I must thank you, but don't do it again. I'd rather you didn't carry your whip at all on Lucretia; she doesn't need it; but don't ease her up if you've got a chance till you pa.s.s the winning post.”

As the two finished speaking, and moved away, a thin, freckled face peered furtively from the door of stall number six. Just the ferret-like eyes and a knife-thin nose showed past the woodwork, but there could be no mistaking the animal. It was Shandy.

”I've got you again,” he muttered. ”Blast the whole tribe of you! I'll just pip you on that dirty work, blowed if I don't.”

XXVI

The Brooklyn had been run and won; won by Langdon's stable, and lost by John Porter's. That night Allis spent hours trying to put into a letter to her mother their defeat and their hopes in such a way as to save distress to her father. She wound up by simply asking her mother to get Dr. Rathbone to impart as much information as he deemed advisable to his patient.

They were a very depressed lot at Dixon's cottage that evening. Dixon was never anything else but taciturn, and the disappointment of the day was simply revolving in his mind with the monotonous regularity of a grindstone. They had lost, and that's all there was about it. Why talk it over? It could do no good. He would nurse up Lucretia, and work back into her by mile gallops a fitting strength for the Brooklyn Derby. With incessant weariness he rocked back and forth, back and forth in the big Boston rocker; while Allis, at a little table in a corner of the room, sought to compose the letter she wished to send home.

With apathetic indifference the girl heard a constrained knock at the cottage door; she barely looked up as Dixon opened to a visitor. It was Crane who entered.

At almost any other time his visit would have been unpleasant. In his presence even the most trivial conversation seemed shrouded in a background of interested intentions; but to-night Dixon's constrained depression weighed heavy on her spirits and irritated her.

”Luck was against you to-day, Dixon,” exclaimed the visitor.

”They were too strong for the little mare,” answered the Trainer, curtly. ”Our cast-off won, of course, but there were a half dozen in the race that would have beaten Lucretia, I fancy.”