Chapter 15

“Lucretia's doing better,” her companion added a few seconds later. “If I were given to sentiment, I should say her gallop was the poetry of motion. She deserves to win. But honestly, Miss Allis, I think she'll never catch the Black; he's running like a good horse.”

Allis could not answer; the strain was too great for words. It would be all over in a minute or so; then she would talk.

“Your mare is creeping up, Miss Allis; she's second to the Black now, and they've still a good three furlongs to go. You may win yet. It takes a good horse to make all his own running for a mile and a quarter and then in. His light weight may land him first past the post. There are only four in it now, the rest are beaten off, sure. Diablo is still in the lead; White Moth and Lucretia are a length back; and The King is next, running strong. It's the same into the stretch. Now the boys are riding; Lucretia is drawing away from White Moth--she's pressing Diablo. You'll win yet!”

His voice was drowned by the clamor that went up from every side. “Diablo! White Moth! Lucretia!” What a babel of yells! “He's beat! Come on!” It was deafening. All the conjecture of months, all the hopes and fears of thousands, compressed into a few brief seconds of struggling endeavor.

Allis had sat down. There was less frenzied excitement thus.

“God of Justice!” it was Crane's voice, close to her ear; his hot breath was on her cheek; he had leaned down, so that she might hear him. “Your jockey has sold you, or else Lucretia quit. I thought I saw him pull her off. I'm sorry, Miss Allis, God knows I am, though I've won--for Diablo is winning easily.” Then he straightened up for an instant, only to bend down again and say, “Yes, Diablo has won, and Lucretia is beaten off. Perhaps it wasn't the boy, after all, for it's a long journey for a three-year-old mare. Can I do anything for you? Let me see you down to the paddock.”

“Thank you,” the girl answered, struggling with her voice. “Yes, I must go, for Dixon will be terribly disappointed. I must go and put a brave face on, I suppose. It's all over, and it can't be helped. But you've won, and I congratulate you.”

“Poor old dad!” she muttered to herself, “to have fairly given away Diablo just when he was ready to win a big race.” With a tinge of bitterness the girl thought how much her mother's opposition was to blame for this narrow missing of a great victory. She was glad to get away from the cataract of voices that smothered her like great falling waters. There was little exultation. If it had been any solace to her, she had much companionship in her dashed hopes; for Diablo, the winner, had not been backed by the general public; the favorite, White Moth, had been beaten.

After the first outburst a sullen anger took possession of the race-goers. They had been wronged, deceived; another coup had been made by that trick manipulator, Langdon. How carefully he had kept the good thing bottled up. If the mob could have put into execution its half-muttered thoughts, every post about the Gravesend track would have been decorated with a fragment of Langdon's anatomy.

Even the bookmakers were less jubilant than usual over this winning of an outsider, for Crane, and Langdon, and Faust, and two or three others who had either received a hint or stumbled upon the good thing, had taken out of the ring a tidy amount of lawful currency.

XXV

Crane accompanied Allis to the paddock gate; and she continued on to the fatal number seven stall. Lucretia had just been brought in, looking very distressed after her hard race. For an instant the girl forgot her own trouble at sight of the gallant little mare's condition. Two boys were busy rubbing the white-crusted perspiration and dust from her sides; little dark rivulets of wet trickled down the lean head that hung wearily.

“Well, we lost!” It was Dixon's voice at Allis's elbow. “That'll do,” to the boys; “here, put this cooler on, and walk her about.”

Then he turned to Allis again. “She was well up with the leaders half way in the stretch; I tho't she was goin' to win.”

“Was it too far for her, Dixon?”

The Trainer did not answer at once; with him at all times questions were things to be pondered over. His knitted brows and air of hesitating abstraction showed plainly that this question of Allis's was one he would prefer to answer days later, if he answered it at all.

“Didn't she stop suddenly?” Allis asked, again.

“I couldn't just see from where I was what happened,” he replied, evasively; “and I haven't asked the boy yet. She may have got shut in. Ah, here he comes now,” as the jockey returned from the weighing scales.

Redpath seemed to think that some explanation was necessary, as he came up to Allis and the Trainer, so he said: “The little mare seemed to have a chance when I turned into the stretch, an' I thought once I was goin' to win; but that big Black just kept galloping, galloping, an' I never could get to his head; I'd a been in the money, though, if somethin' hadn't bumped me; an' then my mount just died away--she just seemed to die away.” He repeated this is a falling decadence, as though it best expressed his reason for finishing in the ruck.

“Well, we're beat, an' that's all there is to it,” declared Dixon, half savagely; then he added, “an' by a cast-off out of your father's stable, too, Miss Allis. If there's any more bad luck owin' John Porter, hanged if I wouldn't like to shoulder it myself, an' give him a breather.” Then, with ponderous gentleness for a big, rough-throwntogether man, he continued: “Don't you fret, Miss; the little mare's all right; she'll pull your father through all this; you just cheer up. I've got to go now an' look after her.”

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 nobody 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 pass 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 associated 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 passed 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 entitled 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 anticipated objections; he had failed in this, but it was only a check, not defeat.

He smiled complacently over his power of self-control in having allowed no hint of his absorbing passion to escape him.

Acceptance of this money by Allis, the money which was the outcome of an isolated generous thought, would have given him a real advantage. To have spoken, though never so briefly of his hopes for proprietary rights, would have accentuated the girl's sensitive alarm. He was too perfect a tactician to indulge in such poor sword play; he had really left the question open. A little thought, influenced by the desperate condition of Porter's fortunes, might make Allis amenable to what was evidently her best interest, should she be approached from a different quarter.

Crane had made the first move, and met checkmate; the second move would be through Allis's mother; he determined upon that course. All his old cunning must have surely departed from him if he could not win this girl. Fate was backing him up most strenuously. Diablo had been cast into his hands--thrust upon him by the good fortune that so steadily befriended him. He was not in the habit of attributing unlooked-for success to Providence; he rarely went beyond fate for a deity. Unmistakably then it was fate that had cast the horoscope of his and Allis's life together. Never mind what means he might use to carry out this decree; once accomplished, he would more than make amends to the girl.

He drew most delightful pictures of the Utopian existence his wealth would make possible for Allis. For the father he would provide a racing stable that would bring profit in place of disaster. Crane smiled somewhat grimly as he thought that under those changed circumstances even Allis's mother might be brought to condone her husband's continuance in the nefarious profession. If for no other reason than the great success he had made in the Brooklyn Handicap with Diablo, his spirits were that evening impossible of the reception of even a foreshadowing of failure. A suppressed exhilaration rose-tinted every projected scheme. He would win Allis, and he would win the Brooklyn Derby with his good colt, The Dutchman.

He went to sleep in this happy glamour of assured success, and, by the inevitable contrariness of things, dreamed that he was falling over a steep precipice on The Dutchman's back, and that at the bottom Mortimer and Allis were holding a blanket to catch him in his fall. Even in his imaginative sleep, he was saved from a dependence upon this totally inadequate receptacle for a horse and rider, for he woke with a gasp after he had traveled with frightful velocity for an age through the air.

Crane was a man not given to superstitious enthrallment; his convictions were usually founded on basic manifestations rather than fanciful visions; but somehow the night's dream fastened upon his mind as he lingered over a breakfast of coffee and rolls. Even three cups of coffee, ferociously strong, failed to drown the rehearsal of his uncomfortable night's gallop. Why had he linked Mortimer and Allis together? Had it been fate again, prompting him in his sleep, giving him warning of a rival that stood closer to the girl than he?

More than once he had thought of Mortimer as a possible rival. Mortimer was not handsome, but he was young, tall, and square-shouldered--even his somewhat plain face seemed to reflect a tall, square-shouldered character.

Subconsciously Crane turned his head and scanned critically the reflection of his own face in a somewhat disconsolate mirror that misdecorated a panel of the breakfast room. Old as the glass was, somewhat bereaved of its quicksilver lining at the edge, it had not got over its habit of telling the truth. Ordinarily little exception could have been taken to the mirrored face; it was intellectual; no sign-manual of cardinal sin had been placed upon it; it was neither low, nor brutal, nor wolfishly cunning in expression. Its pallor rather loaned an air of distingue, but--and the examination was being conducted for the benefit of a girl of twenty--it was the full-aged visage of a man of forty.

More than ever a conviction fixed itself in Crane's mind that, no matter how strong or disinterested his love for Allis might be, he would win her only by diplomacy. After all, he was better versed in that form of love-making, if it might be so called.

Crane was expecting Langdon at ten o'clock. He heard a step in the breakfast room, and, turning his head, saw that it was the Trainer. Mechanically Crane pulled his watch from his pocket; he had thought it earlier; it was ten. Langdon was on time to a minute. Nominally what there was to discuss, though of large import, required little expression. With matters going so smoothly there was little but assurances and congratulations to be exchanged. Diablo's showing in the big Handicap confirmed Langdon's opinion that both the Black and The Dutchman had given them a great trial; probably they would duplicate their success with The Dutchman in the Brooklyn Derby. It was only a matter of a few days, and the son of Hanover had steadily improved; he was in grand fettle.

Langdon's appreciation of Crane's cleverness had been enhanced by the successful termination of what he still believed was a brilliantly planned coup. He had never for an instant thought that Crane purchased the horse out of kindness to anyone. It was still a matter of mystery to him, however, why his principal should wish to keep dark just how he had learned Diablo's handicap qualities.