Chapter 13

"Don't mind if I do," said Ashbaugh, and poured out a stiff libation of water-front whisky. Old Man Curry took water, and the wise bartender, after one look at the stranger, drew it from a faucet.

"How!" said Henry, tilting the poison into his system.

"My regards!" said Old Man Curry, sipping his water slowly.

"Same old bird!" ejaculated Ashbaugh, clapping Curry on the back. "Solomon on the brain! Speaking of birds, though, did you ever see one that could fly with only one wing?"

"I never did," was the grave response. "Have another?"

"If you force me," said Ashbaugh, pouring out a second heavy dose. Old Man Curry took more water. Ashbaugh gulped once and passed the back of his hand over his lips.

"We have talked of birds," said he, wheedlingly. "Leave us now talk of centipedes."

"No," said Curry quietly. "No, I reckon not, Henry. There's something else to talk about. You got my telegram?"

"This afternoon," said Ashbaugh with a lingering glance at the bottle. "That's why I'm here."

"You've still got your place out on the Martinez road?" asked Old Man Curry.

"I can't get rid of it," was the answer.

"I'd like to take a hoss down there and put him up for a few weeks, Henry."

"The place is all yours!" said Ashbaugh with wide gestures. "All yours! A friend of mine can have anything I've got, and no questions asked. Where is this here horse?"

"They'll be takin' him out of a freight car about now," said Curry. "Could I git him down to your place to-night?"

"You can if you walk it."

"Is the road as good as it used to be?"

"Same road. Just like it was when you used to train horses on it."

"Mebbe we ought to be going," suggested Old Man Curry.

"Then you won't talk about centipedes?"

"Oh, well," smiled the old man, "I might discuss a three-legged critter with you--once."

"Put that bottle back on the bar!" said Ashbaugh.

The overnight entry slips, given out on the day before the running of the Thornton Stakes, bore the name of the horse Pharaoh, together with that of his owner, C. T. Curry, whereat the wise men of the West chuckled. A few of them had heard of Old Man Curry, a queer, harmless individual who owned bad horses and raced them on worse tracks. A hasty survey of turf guides brought the horse Pharaoh to unfavourable light as a nonwinner in cheap company, and in no sense to be considered as a competitor in the second greatest of Western turf classics. In addition to this, those who made it their business to know the business of horsemen were able to state positively that no such horse as Pharaoh had arrived at the Emeryville track outside of Oakland. Consequently, when the figuring was done (and a great deal of figuring is always done on the eve of an important stake race), the Curry entry was regarded as among the scratches.

On paper, the rich purse was a gift to the imported mare Auckland. Australian horses, bred to go a distance, had often won this longest of American stakes, and Auckland was known to be one of the very best animals ever brought across the Pacific. It was only a question of how far she would win, and the others were considered as competing for second and third money. On the night before the race all the talk was of Auckland; all the speculation had to do with her price, and how many dollars a man might have to bet to win one. At noon on the day of the race a horse car was shunted in on one of the spur tracks at Emeryville, and a group of idlers gathered to watch the unloading process. No little amusement was afforded them by the appearance and costume of the owner, but Old Man Curry paid not the slightest attention to the half-audible comment, and soon the "Bible horses" found their feet on the ground once more.

Among the loafers were some "outside men" employed by the bookmakers, and these endeavoured to acquire information from Old Man Curry, without success. The negro Shanghai proved more loquacious. He trudged at the end of the line leading a big hammer-headed brute which he often addressed as "Faro."

"Who owns these hawsses?" repeated Shanghai. "Mist' Curry--thass him in front--he owns 'em. We got here jus' in time, I reckon. Thisyer hawss whut I'm leadin', he goes in that Thawntum Stakes to-day."

"Nix!" said the outside man. "Just off the cars, and he's going to start? It can't be done!"

"I ain't heard the boss say he'd scratch him," said Shanghai.

"But how long have you been on the way?"

"Oh, I reckon 'bout five days. Yes, suh; we been exackly five days _an'_ nights gettin' here."

"Then you're kidding about that horse going to start in the Thornton Stakes."

"No, suh; I ain't kiddin' nobody. Thass whut we brought him oveh faw: to staht him in them Thawntum Stakes. I reckon he'll have to do the bes' he know how."

"Are you going to bet on him?"

"Says _which_?" Shanghai showed a double row of glistening ivories. "No, indeedy! Hawss got to show me befo' I leggo my small change! This Faro, he can't seem to win no mile races, so the boss he thinks he might do betteh in a long one. But me, I ain't bettin' on him, no suh!"

Only five horses faced the barrier in the Thornton Stakes. Second money was not enough of a temptation to the owners, who could see nothing but the Australian mare, Auckland. The opening prices bore out this belief. Auckland was quoted at 1 to 5, a prohibitive figure; Baron Brant, the hope of the California contingent, at 4 to 1; The Maori at 8 to 1; Ambrose Churchill at 12 to 1, and Pharaoh was held at 15 and 20. The bookmakers had heard that the Curry horse had been taken from the car at noon, and wondered at the obstinacy of his owner in starting him, stiff and cramped from a long railroad journey.

"Must be figuring to give him a workout and a race all at once," said the chalk merchants.

All these things being known, a certain elderly gentleman did not have to beg the bookmakers to take his money. He passed from block to block in the big ring, stripping small bills from a fat roll, and receiving pasteboards in exchange. Round and round the ring he went, with his monotonous request:

"Ten on Pharaoh to win, please."

Every bookmaker was glad to oblige him; most of them thanked him for the ten-dollar bills. There were thirty-two books in the circle, and Old Man Curry visited each one of them several times. He stopped betting only when he heard the saddling bell ringing in the paddock. After a few words with Little Mose, he returned to the betting ring and the distribution of his favours.

When the five horses stood at the barrier in front of the grand stand, Pharaoh was conspicuous only for his size and the colour of his rider. The mare Auckland, beautifully proportioned, her smooth coat glistening in the sun, was the ideal racing animal.

The word was soon given, the barrier whizzed into the air, and the five horses were on their long journey. The boy on Auckland sent her to the front at once, and the mare settled into her long, easy stride, close to the rail, saving every possible inch. Pharaoh immediately dropped into last position, plodding through the dust kicked up by the field. The big hammer-head showed nothing in the first mile save dogged persistence. At the end of the second mile Auckland was twenty lengths in front of Pharaoh, and running without effort. The Maori and Ambrose Churchill were beginning to drop back, but Baron Brant still clung to second place, ten lengths behind the favourite.

It was in the third mile that Jockey Moseby Jones began to urge the big horse. At first there seemed to be no result, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, the heavy plugging stride grew longer. Auckland still held her commanding lead, but Pharaoh marked his gain on Ambrose Churchill and The Maori, leaving them a bitter and hopeless battle for fourth place. In the home stretch the pace began to tell on Baron Brant, and he faded. Pharaoh caught and passed him just at the wire, with the Australian mare fifteen lengths in front and eating up the distance in smooth, easy strides.

The stubborn persistence of the hammer-headed horse had not escaped the crowd, and those who support the underdog in an uphill fight gave him a tremendous cheer as he swung down to the turn. It was then that Little Mose leaned forward and began hand-riding, calling on Pharaoh in language sacred and profane.

"Hump yo'self, big hawss! Neveh let it be said that a mare kin make you eat dust! Lay down to it, Faro, lay down to it! Why, you ain't begun to run yit! You jus' been foolin'! You want to show me up befo' a big town crowd! Faro, I ast you from my _heart_, lay down to it!"

And Pharaoh lay down to it. The ugly big brute let himself out to the last notch, hugging the rail with long, ungainly strides. The jockey on Auckland had counted the race as won--in fact, he had been spending the winner's fee from the end of the second mile--but on the upper turn the thud of hoofs came to his ears, and with them wild whoops of encouragement. He looked back over his shoulder in surprise which soon turned to alarm; the big hammer-head was barely six lengths away and drawing nearer with every awkward bound. Jockey McFee sat down on his imported mount and began to ride for a five-thousand-dollar stake, a fat fee, his reputation, and several other considerations, but always he heard the voice of the little negro, coming closer and closer:

"Corn crop 'bout ripe, Faro! Jus' waitin' to be picked! That mare, she come a long ways to git it, but she goin' git it good! Them ribbons don't keep her f'um rockin'; she's all through! Go git her, big hawss! Go git her!"

Jockey McFee slashed desperately with his whip as Pharaoh thundered alongside, and the game mare gave up her last ounce: gave it up in a losing fight. Once, twice, the ugly, heavy head and the head of the equine aristocrat rose and fell side by side; then Auckland dropped back beaten and broken-hearted while her conqueror pounded on to the wire, to win by five open lengths....

At least one dream came true. Moseby Jones was carried off the track in a gorgeous floral horseshoe, his woolly head bobbing among the roses and his teeth putting the white carnations to shame. Shanghai danced all the way from the judges' stand to the stables, not an easy feat when one considers that he was leading the winner of the Thornton Stakes, also garlanded and bedecked within an inch of his life, but, in spite of all his floral decorations, extremely dignified.

Old Man Curry fought his way through a mob of reporters and fair-weather acquaintances to find himself face to face with the only real surprise of the day. A sharp-faced youth, immaculately dressed, leaped upon him, endeavouring to embrace him, shake his hand and congratulate him, all in a breath. "Frank!" cried the old man. "Bless your heart, boy, where did you come from?"

"From Butte," answered the Bald-faced Kid. "Wanted to get some ideas on the spring trade; saw you had a horse in the Thornton Stakes; thought I might find you; got here just as the race finished. Old-timer, how are you? You don't know how good it is to see you again!"

"I know how good it is to see you, my son!" The old man laid his arm across the youth's shoulders. "How's the wife, Frank?"

"Just bully! She would have been here with me, but she couldn't leave the kid: couldn't leave Curry----"

The patriarch of the Jungle Circuit reached hastily for his fine-cut.

"It--it was a boy, then?" he asked.

The Bald-faced Kid grinned.

"Better than that; it was a girl! We had the name picked out in advance. The wife wouldn't have it any other way."

Old Man Curry shook his head solemnly. "Frank," said he, "you know that ain't treat-in' a little girl right! Curry! It sounds like the stuff you eat with rice! When she gits old enough to know she'll hate it, and me, too."

"Any kid of mine is going to _love_ the name of Curry, and call you grandpa! What do you think of that? You don't need to worry, and I won't even argue the point with you. My wife says----"

"Anything your wife says is right," interrupted the old man, blowing his nose lustily. "Why, it kind of seems as if I had some folks----"

"If you don't think you've got a ready-made family," said the Kid, "come over to Butte any time and I'll win a bet from you. But I can tell you about that later. What I want to know is this: I met a couple of hustlers here to-day--boys I used to team with--and they told me Pharaoh didn't have a chance because he went right from the box car to the paddock. He gets off the train, where he's been for five days and nights, and comes so close to the American record that there ain't any fun in it. Now, you know that can't be done. Old-timer, you pulled many a miracle on me before I quit the turf; give me an inside on this one!"

Old Man Curry smiled benignantly.

"Well, son, mebbe I kind of took advantage of 'em there."

"It wouldn't be the first time, dad. Let's have it."

"All right. To start with, I bought this hoss for little or nothing. Mostly nothing. I knew he was a freak. He couldn't begin to untrack himself till he had gone a mile, but after that it seemed like every mile he went he got better. I held a watch on him an' he ran four miles close enough to the record to show me that he had a chance in the Thornton Stakes. Five weeks ago I shipped him out to Port Costa an' took him off the train there----"

"Holy Moses!" breathed the Kid. "I begin to get it, but go on!"

"I knew a man there an' he let me train Pharaoh at his place, Little Mose givin' him a gallop every day. That Benicia road is as good as any race track. Then I did some close figgerin' on freight schedules, an' telegraphed Shanghai when to leave with the rest of the stable. They got into Port Costa this mornin'. It wa'n't no trick at all to slip Pharaoh into that through car--not when you know the right people--an' when we unloaded here this noon the word sort of got scattered round that the Curry hosses had been five days on the road. Now, no man with the sense that God gives a goose could figger a critter to walk out of a box car, where he'd been bumped an' jolted an' shook up for five days, an' run four miles with any kind of hosses. It just ain't in the book, son.

"They got the notion I was crazy, an' I reckon they knew everything about us but the one thing that counted most, which was that Pharaoh hadn't been in that car an hour all told. You know, when you go down into Egypt after corn, you got to do as the Egyptians do: have an ace in the hole all the time. Solomon says that a fool uttereth all his mind, but a wise man keepeth it till afterward. That's why I'm gassin' so much now, I reckon."

"Old-timer," chuckled the Kid, "you're a wonder, and I'm proud to have a kid named for you! Just one question more, and I'm through. You won the stake, and that amounts to quite a mess of money, but did you bet enough to pay the freight on the string?"

"Well, now, son," said the old man; "I been so glad to see you that I kind of forgot that part of it." He fumbled in the tail pockets of his rusty black frock coat and brought forth great handfuls of tickets. "I didn't take less'n 15 to 1," said he, "an' I bet 'em till my feet ached, just walkin' from one book to another. I haven't tried to figger it up, but I reckon I took more corn away from these Egyptians than the law allows a single man to have. If it's all the same to you, Frank, an' the baby ain't got no objections, I'd like to use some of this to start a savings account for my namesake. Curry ain't no name for a baby girl, an' you ought to let me square it with her somehow. Mebbe when she gits of age, an' wants to marry some harum-scarum boy, she won't think so bad of her gran'daddy."

THE MODERN JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON

It was an unpleasantly warm morning, and the thick, black shade of an umbrella tree made queer neighbours--as queer neighbours as the Jungle Circuit could produce. Old Man Curry found the shade first and felt that he was entitled to it by right of discovery, consequently he did not move when Henry M. Pitkin signified an intention of sharing the coolness with him. Old Man Curry had less than a bowing acquaintance with Pitkin, wished to know him no better, and had disliked him from the moment he had first seen him.

"Hot, ain't it?" asked the newcomer by way of making a little talk. "What you reading, Curry?"

Old Man Curry looked up from the thirteenth chapter of Proverbs, ceased chewing his straw, and regarded Pitkin with a grave and appraising interest which held something of disapproval, something of insult. Pitkin's eyes shifted.

"It says here," remarked the aged horseman, "'A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.'"

"Fair enough," said Pitkin, "and serves him right. He ought to come to shame. Pretty hot for this time of year."

"It'll be hotter for some folks by and by."

Pitkin laughed noisily.

"Where do you get that stuff?" he demanded.

"I hope I ain't agoin' to git it," said Old Man Curry. "I aim to live so's to miss it." He lapsed into silence, and the straw began to twitch to the slow grinding motion of his lower jaw. A very stupid man might have seen at a glance that Curry did not wish to be disturbed, but for some reason or other Pitkin felt the need of conversation.

"I've been thinking," said he, "that my racing colours are too plain--yellow jacket, white sleeves, white cap. There's so many yellows and whites that people get 'em mixed up. How would it do if I put a design on the back of the jacket--something that would tell people at a glance that the horse was from the Pitkin stable?"

Old Man Curry closed his book.

"You want 'em to know which is your hosses?" he asked. "Is that the idee?"

"Sure," answered Pitkin. "I was trying to think up a design of some kind. Lucky Baldwin, used to have a Maltese cross. How would it do if I had a rooster or a rising sun or a crescent sewed on to the back of the jacket?"

Old Man Curry pretended to give serious thought to the problem.

"Roosters an' risin' suns don't mean anything," said he judicially. "An emblem ought to _mean_ something to the public--it ought to stand for something."

"Yes," said Pitkin, "but what can I get that will sort of identify me and my horses?"

"Well," said the old man, "mebbe I can suggest a dee-sign that'll fill the bill." He picked up a bit of shingle and drew a pencil from his pocket. "How would this do? Two straight marks this way, Pitkin, an' two straight marks _that_ way--and nobody'd ever mistake your hosses--nobody that's been watchin' the way they run."

Pitkin craned his neck and snorted with wrath. Old Man Curry had drawn two crosses side by side, and the inference was plain.

"That's your notion, is it?" said he, rising. "Well, one thing is a mortal cinch, Curry; you'll never catch me psalm singing round a race track, and any time I want to preach, I'll hire a church! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

"I ain't smokin', thankee, I'm chewin' mostly," remarked the old gentleman to Pitkin's vanishing coat tails. "Well, now, looks like I made him sort of angry. What is it that Solomon wrote 'bout the anger of a fool?"

They used to say that the meanest man in the world was the Mean Man from Maine, but this is a slander on the good old Pine Tree State, for Henry M. Pitkin never was east of the Mississippi River in his life. He claimed Iowa as his native soil, and all that Iowa could do about it was to issue a warrant for his arrest on a charge connected with the misappropriation of funds. Young Mr. Pitkin escaped over the State line westward, beating the said warrant a nose in a whipping finish, and after a devious career covering many years and many States he turned up on the Jungle Circuit, bringing with him a string of horses, a gentle, soft-spoken old negro trainer, an Irish jockey named Mulligan, and two stable hands, each as black as the ace of spades.

The Jungle Circuit has always been peculiarly rich in catch-as-catch-can burglars and daylight highwaymen, but after they had studied Mr. Pitkin's system closely these gentlemen refused to enter into a protective alliance with him, for, as Grouchy O'Connor remarked, "the sucker hadn't never heard that there ought to be honour among thieves." Pitkin would shear a black sheep as close to the shivering hide as he would shear a white one, and the horses of the Pitkin stable performed according to price, according to investment, according to orders--according to everything in the world but agreement, racing form, and honest endeavour. In ways that are dark and tricks that are vain the heathen Chinee at the top of his heathenish bent would have been no match for Mr. Henry M. Pitkin, who could have taken the shirt away from a Chinese river pirate.

The double-cross would have been an excellent racing trade-mark for the Pitkin stable, because Pitkin had double-crossed every one who ever trusted him, every one with whom he had come in contact. He had even double-crossed old Gabe Johnson, his negro trainer, and the history of that cross will furnish an accurate index on the smallness of Pitkin's soul.

How such a decent old darky as Uncle Gabe ever came to be associated with white trash of the Pitkin variety is another and longer story. It is enough to say that Pitkin hired the old man when he was hungry and thereafter frequently reminded him of that fact. They had been together for three years when they came to the Jungle Circuit--Pitkin rat-eyed, furtive, mysterious as a crow, and scheming always for his own pocket; Uncle Gabe quiet, efficient, inclined to be religious, knowing his place and keeping it and attending strictly to business, namely, the conditioning of the Pitkin horses for the track.

Uncle Gabe treated all white men with scrupulous respect, even touching his hat brim every time Pitkin spoke to him. He was a real trainer of a school fast passing away, and at rare intervals he spoke of the "quality folks down yondeh" for whom he had handled thoroughbreds, glimpses of his history which made his present occupation seem all the stranger by contrast.

Some of the horsemen of the Jungle Circuit pretended to believe that Pitkin kept a negro trainer because he was too mean to get along with a white man, but this was only partly true. He kept Gabe because he had a keen appreciation of the old man's knowledge of horseflesh, and in addition to this Gabe was cheap at the price--fifty dollars a month and his board, and only part of that fifty paid, for it hurt Pitkin to part with money under any circumstances.

It was by skipping pay days that he came to owe Uncle Gabe the not unimportant sum of five hundred dollars, and it was by trying to collect this amount that the aged trainer became also the owner of a race horse.

Pitkin, in the course of business dealings with a small breeding farm, had picked up two bay colts. They were as like as two peas with every honest right to the resemblance, for they were half-brothers by the same sire, and there was barely a week's difference in their ages. Uncle Gabe looked the baby racers over very carefully before giving it as his opinion that no twins were ever more alike in appearance.

"They own mammies would have a li'l trouble tellin' them colts apaht," said the negro.

"Can you tell them apart?" asked Pitkin.

Gabe grinned. "Yes, suh," he answered. "They _is_ a difference."

Pitkin looked at Gabe sharply. He knew that the old negro felt one colt to be better than the other.

"All right then," he said after a moment. "Tell you what I'll do. You've been deviling me for that five hundred dollars till I'm sick of listening to you. Take your pick of the two colts and call it square. How does that strike you?"