In Old Kentucky Part 24

No wonder, then, that Uncle Neb, in whom his master's confidence was absolute, had strict injunctions closely to guard the mare. The faithful negro watched her with a vigilance which was scarcely less unremitting in the daytime than it was at night when he slept upon the very straw which bedded her.

Miss Alathea, intensely prejudiced against horse-racing and the gambling which invariably goes with it, by the Colonel's wasted life and her own ensuing loneliness, nevertheless prayed night and day that Queen Bess would be victorious, for Frank had finally refused, point-blank, to let her risk her fortune in the scheme for the development of his coal-lands, and so, if the mare lost and the eastern firm refused to purchase her at the large price which would enable him to join the syndicate, his great chance would be gone. Perhaps not once in the world's history had any maiden-lady, const.i.tutionally opposed to betting and the race-track, given as much thought to an impending contest between horses on which great sums were certain to be won and lost, as Miss Alathea did, these days.

And if Miss Alathea was excited, what should be said about the gallant Colonel? Every day he visited the Layson place; every day he scrutinized the mare with wise and anxious eyes; every day he from his soul a.s.sured her owner and her owner's aunt that it was quite impossible that she should lose; every day he cautioned Neb, her guardian, to let no human being, whom he did not know and whom he and his master had not every cause to trust implicitly, approach the splendid beast. Wise in the ways of race-tracks and the unscrupulous men who have, unfortunately, thrown the sport of kings into sad disrepute, he feared some treachery continually.

Neb scarcely left the stable-yard, by day, unless the mare went with him, by night he slept so that he could, by reaching out a wrinkled, ebon hand, actually touch her glossy hide. He fed her himself with oats and hay which he examined with the utmost care before they found her manger or her rack; he watered her himself with water from a well within the stable and guarded by locked doors, drawn in a pail which, invariably, he rinsed with boiling water before he filled it up for her.

No drugs should reach that mare if _he_ could help it! None but himself or his "Ma.r.s.e Frank" was under any circ.u.mstances permitted to get on her back. If watchfulness could possibly preserve the mare unharmed and in fine shape until the day of the great race, Neb plainly meant to see that this was done. Even the amateur bra.s.s-band and glee-club into which he had organized the stable-boys and other negro lads about the place, and of which he acted as drum-major--the proudest moment of his life were when he donned the moth-eaten old shako which was his towering badge of leadership--must practice nowhere save within the stable-yard, where he could train them and, at the same time, keep watchful eyes upon Queen Bess' quarters.

The negroes, young and old, about the place, indeed, were wild with their enthusiasm for the mare. The day before the race a delegation of them, full of eagerness, met Neb as he came out of the stable.

"Say, Unc Neb," said one of them, "we-all's made a pool."

"Pool on de races?"

"Uh-huh! An' we-all wants to know jes' what we ought to put ouah money on."

They well knew what he would say.

"Queen Bess, fo' suah," he answered, to their vast delight. "Queen Bess ebery time. She's fit to run fo' huh life."

The boys accepted the suggestion with a shout, and he was about to enter into one of the long dissertations on the strong points of his equine darling, when he was informed that some stranger was approaching. He peered down the road with his old eyes, but could not recognize the visitor.

"Who is it?" he asked one of the black lads.

"Ma.r.s.e Holton."

"Ma.r.s.e Holton!" he repeated dryly. "Run along, now, honiest. Unc' Neb gwine be busy. I won't hab dat ar Ma.r.s.e Holton pryin' round dat mare.

Hoodoo her fo' suah." He sidled to the stable door, and, careful to see that his bent body hid the operation from the coming visitor, turned the key in the big lock. The key he then slipped into his capacious trousers pocket.

"h.e.l.lo, Neb," said Holton, affably, as he came up.

"Ebenin', suh." Neb added nothing to this greeting and went nonchalantly to a distant bench to sit down on it carelessly.

"I say, Neb," said Holton, "I expect to do a little betting, so I thought I'd jest drop over and take a look at Layson's mare."

Neb sat immovable upon his bench. At first, indeed, he did not even speak, but, finally, he looked at Holton calmly, took the key out of his pocket, tossed it in the air, caught it as it came down, put it back into his pocket and dryly said: "T'ink not, suh."

Holton, paying no attention to him, had gone on to the stable-door and tried it. Finding it to be fast locked, he turned back toward the darkey. "The door's locked, Neb," he said.

"Knowed dat afore, suh," Neb replied.

Holton was nettled by his nonchalance. "Open that door!" he ordered.

"Not widout Ma.r.s.e Holton's ohduhs, suh," Neb answered calmly.

"What do you mean?" demanded Holton, angrily.

"Jus' what I say, suh."

Holton made a slightly threatening movement toward him, but Neb did not even wink.

"Don't git riled, suh--bad fo' de livuh, suh."

Holton, now, was very angry. "Look here," he said, advancing on the aged negro angrily. "Do you dare insult a friend and neighbor of Mr. Layson?"

Neb slowly rose and answered with some dignity: "I dares obey Ma.r.s.e Frank's plain ohduhs, suh. Dat mare represents full twenty-fi' thousan'

dolluhs to him" (Neb rolled the handsome figures lovingly upon his tongue), "an' dere's thousan's more'll be bet on huh to-morruh." He looked at Holton with but thinly veiled contempt. "Plenty men 'u'd risk deir wuthless lives to drug huh."

"Oh, shucks!" said Holton, trying to control his temper because of his great eagerness to get in to the mare. "She would be safe with me; you know it."

"I knows Ma.r.s.e Frank hab barred ebery window an' sealed ebery doah but dis one, an' gib me ohduhs to let no one in 'cept he is by. I stan's by dem ohduhs while dere's bref in my ol' body."

Holton was infuriated. "It's lucky for you I'm not your master!"

"Dat's what I t'ink, suh."

"If you _was_ my n.i.g.g.e.r, I'd teach you perliteness with a black-snake whip! I'll see what Layson'll say to such sa.s.s as you've gin me. Jest you wait till you hear from him."

Neb was not impressed by the man's wrath. "Huhd from him afoah, suh. Oh, I'll wait, I'll wait."

He went up to the stable-door, unlocked it and stood in the open portal.

Holton would have followed him, but Neb began to close the door.

"You'll wait, too, suh," said the negro, grinning, "on de outside, suh."

He closed and locked the door on the inside.

Holton was beside himself with wrath. "d.a.m.n him! d.a.m.n him!" he exclaimed. "d.a.m.n him and d.a.m.n his proud young puppy of a master! I'll ruin him! I'll set my foot on him and smash him, yet!"

Baffled, he walked down the drive.

"There's a way," he told himself. "It's bold and risky, but n.o.body'll suspicion me. I've kept straight here in the bluegra.s.s. The mountains and all as ever knowed me thar are far away!"

But all who had known him in the mountains were not as far away as he supposed. Even as he spoke a dusty, weary figure in worn homespun, carrying a mammoth bundle, limping sadly upon bruised and blistered feet, came through the shrubbery, approaching the great stables from the far side of the big house-lot. Holton looked at this wayfarer with amazement.

"Madge Brierly!" he cried. "Gal, what are you a-doin' here?"

"Don't know's I've got any call to tell you," Madge replied, almost as much astonished at the sight of him as he had been at sight of her. Then she smiled roguishly at him. "Maybe you'll find out, though."

"I tell you this ain't no place for you," he admonished her. "Lordy!

They takes up folks that looks like you, for vagrants. Take my advice, turn back to the mountings."

She looked at him with that same smile, still unimpressed.

For no reason which he could have well explained the man was almost panic-stricken in his keen anxiety to get the girl away from the old Layson homestead and the possibility of meeting those who dwelt therein.

"Here, if you'll go," he added, and thrust his hand into his pocket, "I'll give you money--money to help you on your way."