Old Man Curry Part 35

Uncle Gabe deliberated for some time. The five hundred dollars meant a great deal to him, but the cash value of a debt is regulated somewhat by the sort of man who owes it and Gabe realized that this point was worthy of consideration. On the other hand, should the colt turn out well, he would be worth several times five hundred dollars.

"Don't wait till you get 'em in training," said Pitkin. "A blind man could pick the best one then. Take the colt that looks good to you _now_ and let it go at that."

That evening Uncle Gabe made his selection and immediately announced that he intended to name his colt General Duval.

"Good enough," said Pitkin, "and just to carry out the soldier idea, I'll call the other one Sergeant Smith. Put the General in that end stall, away from the others."

The next morning Gabe sent one of the stable hands to get his colt, and when the animal appeared the old trainer's lower lip began to droop, but he said nothing until after he had made a thorough examination. "Boy, you done brought me the wrong colt," said he.

"This ain't Gen'al Duval."

"I got him outen yo' stall," said the stable hand.

"Don't care where yo' got him," persisted Gabe. "This ain't the colt I picked out. He ain't wide enough between the eyes."

"What's the argument about?" asked Pitkin, coming from the tackle-room.

"Gabe say thisyer ain't his colt," answered the stable hand.

"Where did you get him?" demanded Pitkin.

"Outen that stall yondeh," said the stable hand, pointing.

"That was where you put your colt, wasn't it?" asked Pitkin, turning to Uncle Gabe.

"Yes, suh, I put him there all right, but this ain't him."

"Oh, come now," laughed Pitkin, "you've been thinking it over and you're afraid you've picked the wrong one. Be a sport, Gabe; stick with your bargain."

"Been some monkey business done round yere," muttered the aged negro.

"Been a li'l night walkin', mebbe. Boy, bring out that Sergeant Smith colt an' lemme cas' my eye oveh him once!"

"See here, n.i.g.g.e.r!" said Pitkin, "I let you have first pick, didn't I? Gave you all the best of it, and you picked this colt here. If you've changed your mind overnight, I can't help that, can I?"

"My mind ain't changed none," replied old Gabe, "but this colt, he's changed, suh."

"Who would change him on you, eh? Do you think _I'd_ do it? Is that what you're getting at?"

"Why--why, no suh, no, but----"

"Then shut up! You're always beefing about something or other, always kicking! I don't want to hear any more out of you, understand? Shut up!"

"Yes, suh," answered old Gabe, touching his hat, "all the same I got a right to my opinion, boss."

Whatever his opinion, Gabe proceeded to train the two colts in the usual manner, and before long it was plain to everyone connected with the Pitkin establishment that the striking likeness did not extend to track promise and performance. Sergeant Smith developed into a high-cla.s.s piece of racing property; General Duval was not worth his oats. Sergeant Smith won some baby races in impressive fashion and was immediately tabbed as a comer and a useful betting tool, but every time General Duval carried the racing colours of Gabriel Johnson--cherry jacket, green sleeves, red, white and blue cap--he brought them home powdered with the dust of defeat.

Old Gabe made several ineffectual attempts to persuade Pitkin to take the colt back again on any terms, and was laughed at for his pains.

"You had your choice, didn't you?" Pitkin would say. "Well, then, you can't blame anybody but yourself. Whose fault is it that I got the good colt and you got the crab? No, Gabe, a bargain's a bargain with me, always. The General's a rotten bad race horse, but he's yours and not mine. It's what you get for being a poor picker."

The bay colts were nearing the end of their three-year-old form when the Pitkin string arrived on the Jungle Circuit and took up quarters next door to Old Man Curry and his "Bible horses." Sergeant Smith was the star of the stable and the princ.i.p.al money winner, when it suited Pitkin to let him run for the money, while General Duval, as like his half brother as a reflection in a flawless mirror, had a string of defeats to his discredit and his feed bill was breaking old Gabe's heart. The trainer often looked at General Duval and shook his head.

"You an' that otheh colt could tell me somethin' if yo' could _talk_," he frequently remarked.

After his conversation with Old Man Curry, Pitkin returned to his tackle-room in a savage state of mind, and, needing a target for his abuse, selected Mulligan, the Irish jockey.

Now, Mulligan was small, but he had the heart of a giant and the courage of one conviction and two acquittals on charges of a.s.sault and battery. In spite of his size--he could ride at ninety-eight pounds--Mulligan was a man in years, a man who felt that his employer had treated him like a child in money matters, and when Pitkin called him a bow-legged little thief and an Irish ape, he was putting a match to a powder magazine.

One retort led to another, and when Mulligan ran out of retorts he responded with a piece of 2 by 4 scantling which he had been saving for just such an emergency, and Pitkin lost interest in the conversation.

Mulligan left him lying on the floor of the tackle-room, and though he was in somewhat of a hurry to be gone he found time to say a few words to old Gabe, who was sunning himself at the end of the barn.

"And I don't know what you can do about it," concluded the jockey, "but anyway I've put you wise. If they ask you, just say that you don't know which way I went."

That night Old Man Curry had a visitor who entered his tackle-room, hat in hand and bowing low.

"Set down, Gabe," said the old horseman. "How's Pitkin by this time?"

"He got a headache," answered Gabe soberly.

"Humph!" snorted Curry. "Should think he would have. That boy fetched him a pretty solid lick. Glad he didn't hurt him any worse--for the boy's sake, I mean."

"Yes, suh," said Gabe. "Mist' Curry, you been mighty good to me, one way'n anotheh, an' I'd like to ast yo' fo' some advice."

"Well," said the old man, "advice is like medicine, Gabe--easy to give but hard to take. What's troublin' you now?"

"Mist' Curry, yo' 'membeh me tellin' yo' 'bout that Gen'al Duval colt of mine--how he neveh did look the same to me since I got him?"

"Yes," answered Curry, "an' I've a'ready told you that you can't prove anything on Pitkin. You may suspect that somebody switched them colts on you, but unless----"

"'Scuse me, suh," interrupted Gabe, "but I got beyon' suspectin' it now. I _knows_ it was done."

"You don't say!"

"Yes, suh, I got the proof. Mulligan, he say to me jus' befo' he lights out, 'Gabe,' he say, 'that Smith colt, he belong to you by rights. Pitkin, he pulls a switch afteh yo' went to bed that first night.' He say he seen him do it."

"Mebbe the boy was just tryin' to stir up a little more trouble,"

suggested Old Man Curry.

"Ain't I tol' you he neveh did _look_ the same? Them colts so much alike they had me guessin'. I done picked the one whut was widest between the eyes--an' that's the one whut been awinnin' all them races. That ain't Sergeant Smith at all--that's my Gen'al Duval.

Pitkin, he gives me my pick an' then he switches on me. Question is, how kin I git him back?"

Old Man Curry combed his whiskers for some time in silence.

"Solomon had a job like this once," said he, "but it was a question of babies. I reckon his decision wouldn't work out with hosses. Gabe, you're gittin' to be quite an old man, ain't you?"

"Tollable ole," replied the negro; "yes, suh."

"An' if you got this hoss away from Pitkin, what would you do with him?"