The Land of Strong Men Part 14

Angus lengthened the stirrups and swung up. As soon as he felt the motion he knew he was astride a wondrous piece of mechanism. The undulating lift of the big chestnut was as easy and effortless and sustained as a smooth, rolling swell. Of his own accord the horse quickened his pace from the easy sling of the canter to a long, stretching, hand-gallop, drawing great lungfuls of air, shaking his head, rejoicing in his own motion, glad to be doing the work he was fitted for. At the end of the little flat Angus pulled up and turned.

Rennie's distant shout came faintly:

"Let him come!"

Breathing the horse for a moment, Angus loosed him from the canter to the gallop and then, as he felt the coil and uncoil of the splendid muscles, and the swell and quiver of the body, and the increasing reach and stretch of the ever-quickening stride, he let him run.

All his life Angus had ridden ponies, cayuses, but now he had a new experience. The big chestnut, as he was given his head, made half a dozen great bounds and then, steadying himself, he stretched his neck, his body seemed to sink and straighten, and with muzzle almost in line with his ears he began to put forth the speed that was in him. The rapid drum of his hoofs quickened to a roar; the wind sang in Angus' ears; the figures of Paul and Sam and Rennie seemed to come toward him, and he shot past them and gradually eased the willing horse to canter and walk.

"Him cooley kuitan, hey?" Paul Sam grinned. "You catch um jock?"

"But I don't know where to get one," Angus replied.

"Well," said Rennie, "I don't know where to get no regular jockey, but I know an old has-been that used to ride twenty years ago, before he got smashed up. I dunno 's he'd ride now, in a race, but he could put the horse in shape. He's got a fruit and chicken ranch somewheres on the coast. Me and him was kids together, and he might come if I asked him.

Only he wouldn't do it for nothing."

"You catch um," said Paul Sam. "Me pay um. Mebbe-so me win hiyu dolla!"

CHAPTER IX

DORGAN

In due course a small, clean-shaven man who walked with a slight limp surveyed the big chestnut with a shrewd, bright eye. This was Rennie's friend, the ex-jockey.

"Like his looks, Pete?" Rennie queried.

Pete, whose surname was Dorgan, nodded. "I like 'em some ways," he admitted. "He's got power to burn, and that'll give him speed--some. In five miles he'd be runnin' strong, but he might not be fast enough at a mile. 'Course, I don't know nothin' about what he'll be up ag'inst. What time has this race been run in, other years?" When Angus told him he grunted. "Good as that? Must be some real horses here. You're sure he ain't stolen? I wouldn't want to be mixed up in a deal like that, even if I am out of the game."

"He ain't stolen. This old Injun is as straight as you are."

"Well, I've been called crooked before now," Dorgan grinned. "But if you say so, Dave, I guess this old boy is all right. You can tell him I'll put the horse in the best shape I can, and maybe I'll ride him. If I don't, I'll get a boy. But I ain't goin' to live with a bunch of Injuns while I'm doin' it, and the horse has to be taken out of here." He eyed Paul Sam's primitive stable arrangements with disgust. "He's ruinin' his feet."

Paul Sam made no objection, and the big chestnut which Dorgan christened "Chief," was brought to the Mackay ranch. There he was installed in a disused building which lay behind the other stables and some distance from them.

"The way I get it," said Dorgan, "we better keep this horse under cover as long as we can. From what you say, there ain't been no cla.s.s to the hay-hounds the Siwashes has started other years, and so an Injun entry is a joke entry. n.o.body knows this horse, and seein' him the way he is now, not many'd pipe what he really is unless they was wised up. But you let some of these wise local birds lamp him after I've had him a couple of weeks, and they might smell something. Then I may's well keep dark myself. Not that I'm ashamed of myself more'n I ought to be, but somebody might remember me, though I ain't ridden for years. So I'll be an extra hand you've hired, see? Me and Chief will take our work-outs on the quiet as long as we can."

So Dorgan gave the horse his exercise on a little prairie a mile back of the ranch. As he had predicted, a couple of weeks made a vast difference in his appearance. Groomed till his chestnut coat was gleaming, dappled satin, his feet trimmed and cleaned and polished and shod by Dorgan himself, fed bright, clean grain and savory mashes and bedded to the knees nightly in sweet straw, Chief tasted for the first time the joys of the equine aristocracy to which he belonged.

But somehow the rumor that the Indians had a mysterious horse and rider got going, and one day Dorgan, who had been to town, came to Angus.

"Say," he said, "do you know a hard-faced bird, near as big as you are but older and heavier, that looks like a bad actor and likes the juice?

He seems to be the king-pin of a bunch of young rye-hounds that think they're sports."

"Do you mean Blake French?"

"That's the outfit that owns this Flambeau horse, ain't it?"

"Yes. What about it?"

"Nothin' much. He'd have bought me a lot of friendship sealers if I'd let him. Then there was a feller, name of Garland, that thinks he's a warm member, and claimed he'd seen me ridin' long ago when he was a kid.

He might of, at that. They sorter fished around to find out what I was doin' here. But they know, all right. If I was crooked I b'lieve I could do business with them two."

"I've never heard that they would do anything crooked. Of course they might try to find out all they could."

"If I'd taken all the crooked money I've been offered," said Dorgan, "and got away with it, I wouldn't need to be worryin' about apples and chickens now. I know when a feller's feelin' me out, same as I know when a couple of young burglars is holdin' a pocket open for me to ride into."

"But they don't know if Paul Sam's horse can run or not."

"That's their trouble. But if they can fix somebody, they don't need to care."

A couple of days after this, Angus, coming around Chief's quarters from the rear, overheard Dorgan earnestly a.s.suring Kathleen French that Chief was quarantined for threatened influenza; and further that he was a saddle horse, pure and simple, with no more speed than a cow. With a glance at Angus which was intended to convey grave warning, he beat a retreat.

"Who is the remarkable liar?" Kathleen asked.

"Is he that? His name is Pete Dorgan."

"If you have a deadline on the place you ought to put up a sign," she told him. "How did I know I was b.u.t.ting in?"

"How do you know it now?"

"Because I have average intelligence. I didn't know there was a horse here at all. I was looking for Jean, and when I saw a perfectly splendid, strange animal, naturally I stopped to look at him. I also saw a little, flat pigskin saddle, and I saw that the horse was wearing plates. Then this Dorgan appeared and lied straight ahead without the least provocation, looking me in the face without the quiver of an eyelash. I didn't ask him a single question, I give you my word.

"There's no special reason why you shouldn't. The horse isn't mine. But the fact is, his owner and Dorgan aren't saying anything about him."

"Angus! he isn't--but no, of course he isn't!"

"Isn't what?"

"A ringer. I'm sorry. I know you wouldn't go into anything like that if you knew it."

Angus laughed. "He's no ringer. He belongs to Paul Sam." He told her as much as he thought necessary of the animal's history.

"Thanks for the confidence," she nodded. "I'll say nothing about it. If you had treated me as Dorgan did, I should have felt hurt."

"He didn't know you. He thinks this horse will give you a race."

"What, beat Flambeau!" she cried. "Nonsense!"

"Well, he seems to be a pretty good horse."

"Then I'll bet you an even hundred now!" she challenged.

"No, no. I don't want to bet with you."

"Oh, you needn't have any scruples. The boys take my money--when they can get it."