Thoroughbreds Part 34

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."

Allis looked inquiringly at the Trainer; he had not talked that way to her. Then a light dawned upon the girl. She had not a.s.sociated Dixon with diplomacy in her mind, she knew that he could maintain a golden silence, but here he was, actually throwing out to the caller a disparaging estimate of Lucretia's powers. This perpetual atmosphere of duplicity was positively distasteful. In the free gallop of the horses there was nothing but an inspiration to honest endeavor; but in this subtle diplomacy Allis detected the touch of defilement which her mother so strongly resented. Perhaps to-night she was more sensitive to depressing influences; at any rate she felt a great weariness of the whole business. Then the spirit of resolve rose in open rebellion against these questionings; almost Jesuitical she became at once. What mattered the ways or means, so that she did no wrong? Was not the saving of her father's health and spirit, and his and her mother's welfare above all these trivial questionings; did not the end justify the means; might not her success, if the fates in pity gave her any, save her from--from--she did not even formulate in thought the contingency, for there stood the living embodiment of it-Crane; everything seemed crowding her into the narrow confines of her sacrificial crypt.

Crane had spoken to her on his entry. As she was writing he had continued his discussion of the race with Dixon; perhaps, even--it was a hopeful thought, born of desire--he had come to see the Trainer. Crane's next words dispelled that illusion. It was in answer to an observation from Dixon that he was forced to go to the stables, that Crane said: "If Miss Porter has no objection I'll remain a little longer; I want to discuss a matter concerning her father."

Allis felt quite like fleeing to the stables with Dixon; she dreaded that Crane was going to bring up again the subject of his affection for her. But the Trainer had pa.s.sed out before she could muster sufficient moral courage to put in execution her half-formed resolve.

"I wanted to speak about that wager on Diablo," began Crane. A thrill of relief shot through the girl's heart. Why had be troubled himself to come to her over such a trifling matter--a pair of gloves, perhaps half a dozen pairs even.

"I put the bet on some time ago," he continued, "when Diablo was at a long price. It was only a trifle, as we agreed upon--" Allis noticed that he laid particular stress upon "agreed." "But it has netted you quite a nice sum, three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars."

Crane said this in a quiet voice, without unction; but it startled the girl--she stared in blank amazement. Her companion was evidently waiting for her to say something; seemed to expect an exclamation of joyous approval. She noticed that the gray eyes she so distrusted had taken on that distasteful peeping expression, as though he were watching her walk into a trap.

"I cannot take it," answered Allis, decisively, after a pause.

Crane raised his hand in mild protest.

"It was good of you, kind; but how could I accept a large sum of money like that when I am not ent.i.tled to it?"

"You are--it's yours. The bet was made in your name I entered it at the time in my book, and the bookmaker is ready to pay the money over."

"I can't take it--I won't. No, no, no!"

"Don't be foolishly sensitive, Miss Allis. Think what your father lost when he parted with Diablo for a trivial thousand dollars; and it was my fault, for I arranged the sale. Your father's needs--pardon me, but I know his position, being his banker--yes, he needs this money badly."

"My father needs a good many things, Mr. Crane, which he would not accept as a gift; he would be the last man to do so. We must just go on doing the best we can, and if we can't succeed, that's all. We can't accept help, just yet, anyway."

She was bitter; the reference to her father's troubles, though meant partly in kindness, angered her. It caused her to feel the meshes of the net drawing closer about her, and binding her free will. The fight was indeed on. More than ever she determined to struggle to the bitter end.

Almost indefinably she knew that to accept this money, plausible as the offering was, meant an advantage to Crane.

"You can't leave this large sum with the bookmaker," he objected. "He would like nothing better; he would laugh in his sleeve. I can't take it; it isn't mine."

"I won't touch it."

"Perhaps I had better speak to your father about it," said Crane, tentatively; "he can have no objection to accepting this money that has been won."

"Father won't take it, either," answered the girl; "I know his ideas about such matters. He won't take it."

Crane brought all his fine reasoning powers to bear on Allis, but failed signally in his object. He was unaccustomed to being balked, but the girl's firm determination was more than a match for his adaptable sophistry. He had made no headway, was quite beaten, when Dixon's opportune return prevented absolute discomfiture. Crane left shortly, saying to Allis as he bade them good night: "I'm sorry you look upon the matter in this light. My object in coming to-night was to give you a little hope for brightness in your gloomy hour of bad luck; but perhaps I had better speak to your father."

"I'd rather you didn't," she answered, somewhat pleadingly. "Dr.

Rathbone has cautioned us all against worrying father, and this could have no other result than but to distress him."

Allis's letter had been completed, but she now added a postscript, telling her mother briefly of Crane's insistence over the bet, and beseeching her to devise some plan for keeping this new disturbing element from her father.

Crane was remaining over night in Gravesend, and, going back to his quarters, he reviewed the evening's campaign. He had expected opposition from Allis, but had hoped to overcome the antic.i.p.ated objections; he had failed in this, but it was only a check, not defeat.