Chapter 12

“That's just where your cleverness will come in,” suavely answered Crane. “There's no hurry, and there are always people looking for foolish money. There's one such in Chicago, O'Leary; and I fancy they could even be found in New York. But you ought to get fifty to one, about it, if you put it on easy.”

“I see you have Diablo entered for the Brooklyn,” Faust put out as a feeler. “Don't you want a commission worked on him?”

“I didn't enter him; that was somebody else's foolishness, and I don't want to back him.”

“He's a hundred to one.”

“A thousand would be short odds, I should say,” answered Crane. “But wait a bit. I bought him just to--well, I took him from some people who were tired of his cannibal ways, and promised to have a small bet on him the first time he ran, for--for the man.” The equivocation was really a touch of delicacy. “You might take the odds to fifty for me; there's not one chance in a million of his starting, but I might forget all about this little matter of the bet, even if I were foolish enough to pay post-money on him.”

“Hadn't I better dribble on more from time to time, if he has a chance?”

“Not of my money, thanks!” The “thanks” clipped like a steel trap, and the business was completed.

Faust went away more than ever suspicious of Crane and Diablo. That fifty dollars being put on for anybody else was bunkum. What was Crane up to anyway? If he really meant to back the horse he would not have started with such a trifle. Perhaps Diablo had been stuck in the Brooklyn simply to see how the handicapper would rate him.

Faust was convinced that Crane had some big coup in view; he would wait a little, and at the first move have a strong play himself.

XIX

Langdon was a consummate trainer, a student of horse character. He knew that while biniodide of mercury would blister and put right a bowed tendon, or the firing iron take the life out of a splint, that a much finer knowledge than this was requisite to get fullhearted work out of a thoroughbred. Brain must be pitted against brain; so he studied his horses; and when Diablo came into his hands, possessed of a mind disease, he worked over him with considerable intelligent patience.

This study of horse character was the very thing that had caused him to go wrong over Lauzanne. He had not gone quite far enough; had not waited for time to demonstrate clearly the horse's temperament, but had recourse to a cocaine stimulant. But with him Lauzanne's case had been exceptional.

At first there was little encouragement over Diablo, but almost by accident Langdon discovered that the Black's bad temper was always fanned into a blaze by the sight of the boy Shandy.

Then came a glint of hope. Diablo took a fancy to Westley, the jockey, who was experimentally put on his back in the working gallop. After that Shandy was kept out of the way; Westley took Diablo under his care, and the big horse began to show a surprising improvement.

Crane had been quite honest in his statement that he thought Diablo a bad horse. His having been entered by Porter in the “Brooklyn” suggested the possiability that his former owner must have seen some merit in the horse. At any rate, he advised Langdon to give Diablo a patient trial. He really had very little idea that the horse would start in the Handicap--it seemed improbable. Langdon was also convinced that Porter had discovered something great in Diablo; that Crane knew this, and had paid a stiff price for the horse, and to his own ends was keeping it dark.

As the winter turned into April he intimated to Crane that it was time for them to decide the placing of the horses, and suggested that they try them out. Crane had already decided to race The Dutchman this year in his own name and not in Langdon's. If The Dutchman came up to expectation they could give him a slow preparation up to Derby time; they could find out whether Diablo was worth keeping for--well, for Morris Park or Gravesend, or they could hurry him on a little, and start him at Aqueduct.

Crane agreed with this reasoning, and it was decided to give the two horses a home trial.

On the day that Langdon had said he would try Diablo and The Dutchman, Crane went down to Gravesend. When he got to the Trainer's house he found the latter waiting for him.

“I sent the horses over with the boys,” Langdon said; “if you'll just wait a minute, I'll have a buggy hitched up and we'll drive over.”

A stable-boy brought the trap to the door in a few minutes, and Langdon, telling Crane to get in, disappeared into the house, returning presently with two saddles, which he placed in the buggy.

“A couple of favorite saddles of mine,” he explained, “they're like old fiddles that great players carry about under their arms an' sleep with, an' never let no one but themselves touch.”

“Are you that particular with these?” asked Crane by way of conversation, not feeling at all interested in what he considered a fad of the Trainer's.

“Yes; I mostly handle 'em myself. They cost a bit. I had 'em made to order. The boys is that careless, they'd smash anything.”

As they jogged along, Langdon kept up a monologue dissertation on the merits of the two horses. “It's a good day for a gallop,” and he flicked the driving beast's quarter with the whip; “there's not much wind, an' the air's a bit sharp. They'll be on their mettle, the both of 'em, more 'specially Diablo. I had his plates changed. 'Pears to me he hadn't been shod in three moons; I'll bet the smith took an inch off his toes.” Then he broke off to chuckle awhile.

Crane was not skilled in the anatomy of a horse, beyond as it worked out in winning races and money. That a horse had toes had never quite come into his knowledge, and Langdon's gurgle of mirth he put down to a suspicion that the Trainer was taking a rise out of him in what he had said.

“I was thinking of Paddy Caramagh when he shod Diablo the other day. I think you've heard Pat swear. He holds the belt for cussin' in this part of the country. Well, he let it all out of him before he'd finished with the Black. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I can hear him still, with the sweat running off his face like oats spilling from a feed bag. I says to Paddy, 'Rub his nose a bit,' for I could see it was more nervousness with the horse than sheer deviltry. 'With what?' says Paddy, 'the hammer? Be gor! You're right, though,' says he, and with that he tries to put a twister on Diablo's nose. Holy mother! Diablo reached for him, and lifted the shirt clean off his back. Say, there was a scared Irishman, if you ever saw one in your life. He threw down the plate, cussin' as only Paddy can, and swore the brute could run till he'd wore his hoofs off, for all of him. Well, I takes hold of the Black's head, an' kids him a bit, only firm-like, and we shod him right enough.”

“He is bad tempered, then?” asked Crane.

“No; just wants a fair deal; that's all. You make him believe you're on the square, an' he'll do what's right. But he hasn't got no use for any of the guys that gets a cranky play in on him; he won't stand it. I'm going to put Westley up on him to-day.”

“What about The Dutchman?”

“Colley'll do. Any kid can ride him, if they sit still. He's just the easiest-tempered horse ever looked through a bridle; he knows what's doin' all the time. But Colley ain't no good on Diablo, an' if he can smell Shandy, that settles it--it's all over. I'll put Westley up; it takes a man to ride that horse.”

“What about this gallop?” asked Crane; “there'll be spies about trying to find out things, won't there?”

“Bet yer life, there'll be somebody, sir. It's just like when I was out in Colorado; you couldn't see a vulture if you traveled forty days, perhaps, but plant a dead thing anywhere and in an hour the sky simply rained 'em down. These touts is most like vultures of anything I know; you've just got to work your stunt to give 'em the go-by, that's all.”

Crane took but an apathetic interest in the matters that held full sway over the Trainer's mind; looking after these incidents was Langdon's part of the contract.

That was why they were so strong together. Langdon could do it. Just how the trial was to benefit them alone, with the inevitable tout at hand, Crane knew not, neither did he investigate; that was up to the Trainer.

They drove into the paddock. Westley, Colley, and the two stable lads were there.

“Shall we bring out the horses?” asked Westley, as Langdon sat swinging a leg loosely over the end of the buggy seat.

“Any of the talent about, Bill?”

“Quite likely, though I haven't seen none.”

“Well, we'll slip 'em now. Just saddle up careless like, and no preliminary, mind you. The sharks won't look for a brush till you've gone around once. Take your mounts down the stretch to the quarter post, an' then come away the first break; if there's anyone toutin' you off, they'll think it just a pipe opener, an' won't catch the time. Run out the mile-an'-a-quarter, make a race of it, but don't go to the bat. Diablo an' The Dutchman don't need no whip to give us about the best they've got.”

“All right, sir,” answered Westley. “If I'm a judge, when the Black's through pullin', he's done racin', 'cause he's a keen one, so there won't be no call to put the bud to him. If any of the rail birds is lookin' they'll think we're goin' under a strong wrap, even when we're all out.”

Lang don nodded his head. He was a man not given to exuberant appreciation. The boys averred that when Dick Langdon didn't curse at them they had done pretty well, indeed.

“What's your weight?” he asked of Westley, abruptly.

“I've just tipped the scales at a hundred-and-three in my sweater.”

“One hundred and three,” mused the Trainer, making a mental calculation. “What's Colley's weight?”

“He's as near a hundred as you can make it.”

“Did you bring over a saddle?”

“Yes; two of 'em; one apiece for the horses.”

“Tell Colley to take one, and some leads, and weigh out a hundred and twelve. That'll be three pounds above the scale for May, weight for age, for the three-year-old, The Dutchman. I guess he won't need more'n seven pounds dead weight, for it's a five-pound saddle, I think. Let me see, you said a hundred and three, you were.”

“Yes, sir; in the sweater; I can take that off--”

“No; never mind. Take this saddle,” and he lifted one from the buggy; “it'll just suit Diablo; he's got a herring-bone of a wither, an' this is high in the tree, an' won't cut him. Here's the cloth an' some leads; weigh out a hundred and twelve too. Weight for age--Diablo's a four-year-old; you ought to carry a hundred and twenty-six, but he's not The Dutchman's class, an' the ycungster'd lose him before they'd gone half the journey. We'll run 'em at level weights, an' he'll get closer to The Dutchman, an' the sharks won't have such a fairy tale to tell about our horse.”

“A hundred and twelve, you said, sir?” queried Westley, as he put the saddle that Langdon handed him over his left arm, slipped the thin sheets of lead in his pocket, and stood dangling the linen weight cloth in his right hand.

“Yes; level weights--a hundred an' twelve pounds.”

“Westley,” the Trainer called as the little man started off, “just bring the saddle back to me here when you've weighed. I'll put it on Diablo myself; he's a touchy cuss, and I don't want him ruffled by careless handlin'.”

“You take considerable trouble over it,” remarked Crane. “One would think it was a big handicap you meant to capture this morning.”

Langdon started visibly. Was Crane thinking of the Brooklyn? Did this quiet, clever man sitting at his elbow already know as much as he hoped to discover in his present gallop?

He answered: “Handicaps is usually won pretty much like this; they're generally settled before the horse goes to the post for the trip itself. When he goes through the paddock gate the day of the big race he's out of his trainer's hands; the man's got no more to do with the race himself than a kid sittin' up in the grand stand. Here's where I come in, if we mean to land the Brooklyn,” and he looked searchingly at Crane, a misleading grin on his lips. But the latter simply joined in the laugh, doubtingly, perhaps.

“A hundred and twelve, neat,” declared Westley, as he returned, throwing some loose leads into the buggy. “Colley's gone to saddle The Dutchman.”

“All right,” answered Langdon, getting down from the seat and taking the saddle. “Go and tell the boy to bring Diablo out of the stall. I'll saddle him in the open. He generally kicks the boards when I cinch him up, an' it puts him in a bad humor.”

Langdon started off with the jockey, but turned back, saying, “Oh, Mr. Crane, I wanted to ask you--”

By this he had reached the buggy, while Westley continued on his way to the stalls.

“It's a fine day, sir,” continued Langdon, finishing his sentence, and exchanging the saddle held in his hand for the one that was in the buggy.

“Going to put the other on?” asked Crane.

“Yes; I fancy Diablo will like this better. Touchy brutes, these race horses; got to humor 'em. Come on over to the stalls--the horse'll stand.”

Diablo was being led around in a small circle by his boy. He was a magnificent creature, sixteen and a half hands high, and built on the same grand scale; perhaps a bit leggy for the huge barrel that topped the limbs; that was what caused him to go wrong in his younger days. His black skin glistened in the noonday sun.

“That's what I call the mirror of health,” said Langdon, in an unwonted burst of poetic eloquence, as he passed his hand across the horse's ribs. Then feeling that somehow he had laid himself open to a suspicion of gentleness, added, “He's a hell of a fine looker; if he could gallop up to his looks he'd make some of the cracks take a back seat.”

Even Diablo had resented either the mellifluous comparison or the rub of Langdon's hand, for he lashed out furiously, with a great farreaching leg that nearly caught Crane unawares.

“Your polite language seems to be as irritating to him as the blacksmith's oaths,” ejaculated Crane, as he came back from the hasty retreat he had beaten.

“It's only play. Good horses is of two kinds when you're saddlin' 'em. The Dutchman there'll hang his head down, and champ at the bit, even if you bury the girt' an inch deep in his belly; he's honest, and knows it's all needed. That's one kind; and they're generally the same at the post, always there or thereabouts, waitin' for the word 'go.' An' they race pretty much the same all the time. If you time 'em a mile in 1:40 at home, they'll do it when the colors is up, an' the silk a-flappin' all about 'em in the race.

“Whoa! Hold still, you brute! Steady, steady! Whoa!” This to Diablo, for while talking he had adjusted the weight cloth with the gentleness of a cavalier putting a silk wrap about his lady love's neck, and had put a fold of soft woolen cloth over the high-boned wither.

“Stand out in front of him and hold his head down a bit;” this to the boy. Then as he slipped the saddle into place and reached underneath for the girths, he continued his address to Crane on the peculiarity of racers.

“Now this is a horse of another color, this one; he ain't takin' things easy at no stage of the game. He objects to everything, an' some day that'll land him a winner, see? He'll get it into his head that the other horses want to beat him out, an' he'll show 'em a clean pair of heels; come home on the bit, pullin' double. Whoa, boy! Steady, steady, old man!” Then he ceased talking, for he had taken the girth strap between his teeth, and was cinching up the big Black with the firm pull of a grizzly. Diablo squirmed under the torture of the tightening web on his sensitive skin, and crouched as though he would fall on the Trainer.

“Yes, sir;” continued Langdon, as he ran the stirrups up under the saddle flap out of the way, and motioned to the boy to lead Diablo about. “Yes, sir; this fellow's different. He's too damn sensitive. At the post he's like as not to act like a locoed broncho, an' get one blamed for having 'juiced' him, but he don't need no dope; what he needs is steadying. If he gets away in front, them long legs of his will take some catchin'. He's the kind that wins when the books are layin' a hundred to one against him. But the worst of it is with his sort, like as not the owner hasn't a penny on them; but the public'll howl; they'll call it in-an'-out runnin'; an' the scribblers'll get their paper to print a notice that the stable ought to be ruled off; an' all the time you're breakin' your heart trying to get him to give his true--Hello! there's Colley out on The Dutchman; mount your horse, Westley--wait, you don't need no spurs; yes, carry a whip, an' give the guys that is watchin' a stage play with it; but don't hit the Black. We'll just see what he'll do himself, this trip,” he added, addressing Crane.

Taking Westley's small-booted foot in his hand, he lifted the lad to Diablo's back, and led the horse out through a gate to the course.

XX

The two boys cantered their mounts down to the quarter post carelessly, as though they were going around to the far side.

“Look at 'em!” cried the Trainer; “isn't he a little gentleman?”

To the uninitiated this might have been taken as a tribute to one of the boys, Westley, perhaps; but the Trainer was not even thinking of them. They were of no moment. It was the wine-red bay, The Dutchman, cantering with gentle, lazy grace, that had drawn forth this encomium. His head, somewhat high carried, was held straight and true in front, and his big eyes searched the course with gentle inquisitiveness, for others of his kind, perhaps.

“He's a lovely horse,” commented Crane, knowing quite well to what Langdon referred.

“He's all that, but just look at the other devil.”

Diablo was throwing his nose fretfully up and down, up and down; grabbing at the bit; pirouetting from one side the course to the other; nearly pulling Westley over his neck one minute, as with lowered head he sought to break away, and the next dashing forward for a few yards with it stuck foolishly high, like a badmouthed Indian cayuse.

“But Westley'll manage him,” Langdon confided to Crane, after a period of silent observation; “he'll get his belly full of runnin' when he's gone a mile and a quarter with The Dutchman. Gad! that was neat; here they come;” for the two boys had whirled with sudden skill at the quarter post, and broke away, with Diablo slightly in the lead. “My God! he can move,” muttered Langdon, abstractedly, and quite to himself. The man at his side had floated into oblivion. He saw only a great striding black horse coming wide-mouthed up the stretch. At the Black's heels, with dogged lope, hung the Bay.

“Take him back, take him back, Westley!” yelled Langdon, leaning far out over the rail, as the horses raced by, Diablo well in front.

The Trainer's admonition seemed like a cry to a cyclone, as void of usefulness. What power could the tiny dot lying close hugged far up on the straining black neck have over the galloping fiend?

“Yes, that's the way,” Langdon said, nodding his head to Crane, and jerking a thumb out toward the first turn in the course, where the two horses were hugging close to the rail; “that's the way he's worked here.”

“Which one?” asked his companion.

“The Black, an' if he ever does that in a race--God help the others--they'll never catch him; they'll never catch him; they'll never catch him,” he kept repeating, dwelling lovingly on the thought, as he saw the confirmation of it being enacted before his eyes; for across the new green of the grass-sprouted course he could see two open lengths of daylight between Diablo and The Dutchman.

“Fifty-one and a half for the half-mile,” he imparted to Crane, looking at his watch. “Now The Dutchman is moving up; Colley doesn't mean to get left if he can help it. I'm afraid Diablo'll shut up when he's pinched; his kind are apt to do that. The Dutchman is game, an' if he ever gets to the Black's throat-latch he'll chuck it. But it takes some ridin'; it takes some ridin', sir.” He was becoming enthusiastic, exuberant. The silent man at his side noticed the childish repetition with inward amusement. He had thought that Langdon would have been overjoyed to see the bay horse smother his opponent. Was not the Trainer to have ten thousand dollars if The Dutchman won the Handicap? But here he was pinning his satisfaction to the good showing of Diablo. He didn't know of the compact between Langdon and the Bookmaker Faust, but he strongly suspected from the Trainer's demeanor that the gallop he was witnessing foretold some big coup the latter scented.

“He hasn't got him yet, he hasn't got him yet!” cried Langdon, joyfully, as the horses swung around the bottom turn, closer locked, but with Diablo still a short length in the lead.

Crane saw no great cause for exhilaration. The Dutchman was certainly giving the Black twenty pounds the best of it in the weights, for one was a three-year-old while the other was four, and they each carried a hundred and twelve.

“The mile in 1:42,” chirped Langdon. “That's movin', if you like, considerin' the track, the condition of the horses, an' that they're runnin' under a double wrap. Now we'll see a ding-dong finish, if the Black doesn't show a streak of yellow. Dutchy's got him,” he added, as through his glasses he saw them swing into the straight, neck and neck.

“Clever Mr. Westlev!” for Diablo's rider, having the rail and the lead, had bored out slightly on the turn, so as not to cramp the uncertain horse he rode, and carried The Dutchman wide.

Up the straight they came, the boys helping their mounts with leg and arm; the Black holding his own with a dogged persistence that quite upset Langdon's prognostication of cowardice.

To the watchers it was as exciting as a stake race. The stamina that Langdon had said would stand The Dutchman in good stead over the mile and a half Handicap course now showed itself. First he was level with the Black, then gradually, stride by stride, he drew away from Diablo, and finished a short length in front.

“A great trial,” cried the Trainer, gleefully, holding out his watch for Crane's inspection. “See that!” pointing to the hand he had stopped as the Bay's brown nozzle flashed by the post; “two-nine on this course! Anything that beats that pair, fit and well, a mile and a quarter on a fast track'll have to make it in two-five, an' that's the record.”

“It looks good business for the Derby, Langdon.”

“Yes, it does. That's the first showing I've had from the colt as a three-year-old; but I knew he had it in him. Hanover was a great horse--to my mind we never had his equal in America--but this youngster'll be as good as his daddy ever was. I don't think you ought to start him, sir, till the Derby, if you're set on winnin' it.”

He had moved up to the gate as he talked, and now opened it, waiting for the boys to come back. They had eased down the horses gradually after the fierce gallop, turned them about and were trotting toward the paddock, where stood the two men. Langdon took Diablo by the bridle rein and led him in toward the stalls.

“How did he shape under you, Westley?” he asked, as the boy slipped from the saddle.

“I wouldn't ask to ride a better horse. I thought I had the colt beaten, sure; but my mount seemed to tire a little at the finish. He didn't toss it up, not a bit of it; ran as game as a pebble; he just tired at the finish. I think a mile is his journey. He held The Dutchman safe at a mile.”

“I guess you're right, Westley; a mile's his limit. At level weights with the three-year-old, which means that he had twenty pounds the best of it, he should have held his own the whole route to be a stayer, for the colt isn't more'n half ready yet.”

“I didn't hustle him none too much, sir; I might a-squeezed a bit more out of him. Did we make fair time?”