Chapter 17

“Can't lay it; some of the talent--men as doesn't make no mistake, is takin' twelve to one in my book fast as I open my mouth.”

“I want fifteen,” replied Dixon, doggedly. “Surely the owner is entitled to a shade the best of it.”

“What's the size of your bet?” queried the Cherub.

“If you lay me fifteen, I'll take it to a thousand.”

“But you want it ag'in' the stable, an' you've two in; with two horses twelve is a long price.”

“I'm takin' it against the stable just because it's the usual thing to couple it in the bettin. It's a million to one against Lauzanne's starting if Lucretia keeps well.”

Faust gave a little start and searched Dixon's face, furtively. The Trainer's stolid look reassured him, and in a most sudden burst of generosity he said: “Well, I'll stretch a point for you, Dixon. Your boss is up ag'in' a frost good and hard. I'll lay you fifteen thousand to one ag'in' the stable, an' if Lauzanne wins you'll buy me a nice tiepin.”

His round, fat sides heaved spasmodically with suppressed merriment at the idea of Lauzanne in the Brooklyn Derby.

“They must have a pretty good opinion of The Dutchman,” Dixon thought, as he moved away after concluding the bet. “I'm naturally suspicious of that gang, when they get frisky with their money. It's a bit like I've heard about the Sultan of Turkey always givin' a present to a man before cutting his head off.”

The Trainer told Allis what he had done. He even spoke of his distrust at finding Faust laying longer odds against their mare than the other bookmakers. “But I don't see what they can do,” he said, reflectively, studying the grass at his feet, his brow quite wrinkled in deep thought. “The mare's well, and we can trust the boy this time, I think.”

“Yes, you can trust Redpath,” affirmed Allis, decisively. “If Faust is in with Langdon, as you say, it just means that they're goin' on their luck, and think their colt, The Dutchman, can't lose.”

“It must be that,” concurred the Trainer, but in a hesitating tone that showed he was not more than half satisfied.

“You backed the stable?” queried Allis, as an afterthought.

“Yes, an' Lauzanne'll have a chance to-day to show whether he's worth the pencil that wrote his name beside Lucretia's.”

“You are starting him to-day? I had almost forgotten that he was entered.”

“Yes, it'll give him a fair trial--it's a mile, an' there ain't no good horses, that is, stake horses, in the race. I'll put Redpath up on him, an' you might have a talk with the boy, if you like. You're onto Lauzanne's notions better'n I am.”

Allis gave Jockey Redpath the benefit of her knowledge of Lauzanne's peculiarities.

“I'm afraid he won't take kindly to you,” she said, regretfully; “he's as notional as most of his sire's line. But if he won't try he won't, and the more you fight him the sulkier he'll get. I wish I could ride him myself,” she added, playfully; then fearing that she had hurt the boy's feelings by discounting his ability, added, hastily: “I'm afraid I've spoiled Lauzanne; he has taken a liking to me, and I've learned how to make him think he's having his own way when he's really doing just what I want him to do.”

Redpath's admiration for Allis Porter was limited to his admiration for her as a young lady. Being young, and a jockey, he naturally had notions; and a very prominent, all-absorbing notion was that he could manage his mount in a race much better than most boys. Constrained to silent acquiescence by respect for Allis, he assured himself, mentally, that, in the race his experience and readiness of judgment would render him far better service than orders--perhaps prompted by a sentimental regard for Lauzanne.

The Chestnut was a slow beginner; that was a trait which even Allis's seductive handling had failed to eradicate.

When the starter sent Lauzanne off trailing behind the other seven runners in the race that afternoon, Redpath made a faint essay, experimentally, to hold to Allis's orders, by patiently nestling over the Chestnut's strong withers in a vain hope that his mount would speedily seek to overtake the leaders. But evidently Lauzanne had no such intention; he seemed quite satisfied with things as they were. That the horses galloping so frantically in front interested him slightly was evidenced by his cocked ears; but beyond that he might as well have been the starter's hack bringing that gentleman along placidly in the rear.

“Just as I thought,” muttered the boy; “this skate's kiddin' me just as he does the gal. He's a lazy brute--it's the bud he wants.”

Convinced that he was right, and that his orders were all wrong, the jockey asserted himself. He proceeded to ride Lauzanne most energetically.

In the horse's mind this sort of thing was associated with unlimited punishment. It had always been that way in his two-year-old days; first, the general hustle--small legs and arms working with concentric swing; then the impatient admonishment of fierce-jabbing spurs; and finally the welt-raising cut of a vicious, unreasoning whip. It was not a pleasurable prospect; and at the first shake-up, Lauzanne pictured it coming. All thoughts of overtaking the horses in front fled from his mind; it was the dreaded punishment that interested him most; figuratively, he humped his back against the anticipated onslaught.

Redpath felt the unmistakable sign of his horse sulking; and he promptly had recourse to the jockey's usual argument.

Sitting in the stand Allis saw, with a cry of dismay, Redpath's whip-hand go up. That Lauzanne had been trailing six lengths behind the others had not bothered her in the slightest--it was his true method; his work would be done in the stretch when the others were tiring, if at all.

“If the boy will only sit still--only have patience,” she had been saying to herself, just before she saw the flash of a whip in the sunlight; and then she just moaned. “It's all over; we are beaten again. Everything is against us--everybody is against us,” she cried, bitterly; “will good fortune never come father's way?”

By the time the horses had swung into the stretch, and Lauzanne had not in the slightest improved his position, it dawned upon Redpath that his efforts were productive of no good, so he desisted. But his move had cost the Porters whatever chance they might have had. Left to himself, Lauzanne undertook an investigating gallop on his own account. Too much ground had been lost to be made up at that late stage, but he came up the straight in gallant style, wearing down the leaders until he finished close up among the unplaced horses.

Allis allowed no word of reproach to escape her when Redpath spoke of Lauzanne's sulky temper. It would do no good--it would be like crying over spilt milk. The boy was to ride Lucretia in the Derby; he was on good terms with the mare; and to chide him for the ride on Lauzanne would but destroy his confidence in himself for the other race.

“I'm afraid the Chestnut's a bad actor,” Dixon said to Allis, after the race. “We'll never do no good with him. If he couldn't beat that lot he's not worth his feed bill.”

“He would have won had I been on his back,” declared the girl, loyally.

“That's no good, Miss; you can't ride him, you see. We've just got one peg to hang our hat on--that's Lucretia.”

Lauzanne's showing in this race was a great disappointment to Allis; she had hoped that his confidence in humanity had been restored. Physically he had undoubtedly improved; his legs had hardened and smoothed down. In fact, his whole condition was perfect.

She still felt that if Redpath had followed her advice and allowed Lauzanne to run his own race he would have won. The race did not shake her confidence in the horse so much as in the possibility of getting any jockey to ride him in a quiescent manner. When it was impossible of Redpath, who was eager to please her, whom else could they look to? They might experiment, but while they were experimenting Lauzanne would be driven back into his old bad habits.

The next morning brought them fresh disaster; all that had gone before was as nothing compared with this new development in their run of thwarted endeavor.

Ned Carter had given Lucretia a vigorous exercise gallop over the Derby course. As Dixon led the mare through the paddock to a stall he suddenly bent down his head and took a sharp look at her nostrils; another stride and they were in the stall. The Trainer felt Lucretia's throat and ears; he put his hand over her heart, a look of anxious dismay on his usually stolid face.

“She coughed a little, sir, when I pulled her up,” volunteered Carter, seeing Dixon's investigation.

“I'm afraid she's took cold,” muttered Dixon. “Have you had her near any horses that's got the influenza?” he asked, looking inquiringly at Carter.

“She ain't been near nothing; I kept her away from everything, for fear she'd get a kick, or get run into.”

“I hope to God it's nothin',” said the Trainer; and his voice was quite different from his usual rough tone. Then a sudden suspicion took possession of him. Faust's readiness to lay long odds against the mare had haunted him like a foolish nightmare. Had there been foul play? The mare couldn't have taken a cold--they had been so careful of her; there had been no rain for ten days; she hadn't got wet. No, it couldn't be cold. But she undoubtedly had fever. A sickening conviction came that it was the dreaded influenza.

That morning was the first time she had coughed, so Faust could not have known of her approaching illness, unless he had been the cause of it.

The Trainer pursued his investigation among the stable lads. When he asked Finn if he had noticed anything unusual about the mare, the boy declared most emphatically that he had not. Then, suddenly remembering an incident he had taken at the time to be of little import, he said: “Two mornin's ago when I opened her stall and she poked her head out, I noticed a little scum in her nose; but I thought it was dust. I wiped it out, and there was nuthin' more come that I could see.”

“What's the row?” asked Mike Gaynor, as he joined Dixon.

When the details were explained to him Mike declared, emphatically, that some one had got at the mare. Taking Dixon to one side, he said: “It's that divil on wheels, Shandy; ye can bet yer sweet loife on that. I've been layin' for that crook; he cut Diablo's bridle an' t'rew th' ould man; an' he done this job, too.”

“But how could he get at her?” queried the Trainer. “The stable's been locked; an' Finn and Carter was sleepin' in the saddle room.”

“That divil could go where a sparrer could. How did he git in to cut th' bridle rein--t'rough a manure window no bigger'n your hat. He done that, as I know.”

“Well, if the mare's got it we're in the soup. Have you seen Miss Porter about, Mike?”

“I did a minute ago; I'll pass the word ye want to see her--here she comes now. I'll skip. Damn if I want to see them gray eyes when ye tell about the little mare. It'll just break her heart; that's what it'll do. An' maybe I wouldn't break the back av the devil as put up this dirty job. It isn't Shandy that's as much to blame as the blackguard that worked him.”

Dixon ran over in his mind many contorted ways of breaking the news to Allis, and finished up by blurting out: “The mare's coughin' this mornin', Miss; I hope it ain't nothin', but I'm afraid she's in for a sick spell.”

Coming to the course, the girl had allowed rosy hope to tint the gray gloom of the many defeats until she had worked herself into a happy mood. Lucretia's win would put everything right; even her father, relieved of financial worry, would improve. The bright morning seemed to whisper of victory; Lucretia would surely win. It was not within the laws of fate that they should go on forever and ever having bad luck. She had come to have a reassuring look at the grand little mare that was to turn the tide of all their evil fortune. The Trainer's words, “The mare's coughin',” struck a chill to her heart. She could not speak--the misery was too great--but stood dejectedly listening while Dixon spoke of his suspicions of foul play.

What villains there were in the world, the girl thought; for a man to lay them odds against their horse, knowing that she had been poisoned, was a hundred times worse than stealing the money from their Dockets.

“I don't suppose we'll ever be able to prove it,” declared Dixon, regretfully; “but that doesn't matter so much as the mare being done for; we're out of it now good and strong. If we'd known it two days ago we might a-saved the money, but we've burned up a thousand.”

“We'll have to start Lauzanne,” said Allis, taking a brave pull at herself, and speaking with decision.

“We might send him to the post, but that's all the good it'll do us, I'm feared.”

“I've seen him do a great gallop,” contended Allis.

“He did it for you, but he won't do it for nobody else. There ain't no boy ridin' can make him go fast enough for a live funeral. But we'll start him, an' I'll speak to Redpath about takin' the mount.”

Allis was thinking very fast; her head, with its great wealth of black hair, drooped low in heavy meditation.

“Don't engage him just yet, Dixon,” she said, looking up suddenly, the shadow of a new resolve in her gray eyes; “I'll talk it over with you when we go back to the house. I'm thinking of something, but I don't want to speak of it just now--let me think it over a little.”

Dixon was deep in thought, too, as he went back to his own stables. “We haven't got a million to one chance,” he was muttering; “the money's burned up, an' the race is dead to the world, as far as we're concerned.”

That Allis could evolve any plan to lift them out of their Slough of Despond he felt was quite impossible; but at any rate he got a distinct shock when, a little later, a slight-formed girl, with gray eyes, set large and full in a dark face, declared to him that she was going to ride Lauzanne in the Derby herself.

“My God, Miss!” the Trainer exclaimed, “you can't do it. What would people say--what would your mother say?”

“People will say the race was well ridden if I'm any judge, and mother won't be interested enough to know whether Lucretia was hitched to a buggy in the Derby or not.”

“But the Judge would never allow a girl--”

“There'll be no girl in it;”. and Allis explained, in minute detail the result of her deep cogitation.

“It won't work; you never could do it,” objected Dixon, with despondent conviction. “That big head of hair would give you dead away.”

“The head of hair won't be in evidence; it will be lying in my trunk, waiting to be made up into a wig after we've won.”

“No, no; it won't do,” the Trainer reiterated; “everybody'd know you, an' there'd be a fine shindy. I believe you could ride the horse right enough, an' if he has a chance on earth you'd get it out of him. But give up the idea, everybody'd know you.”

The girl pleaded, but Dixon was obdurate. He did not contend for an instant that she was not capable of riding the horse,--only in a race with many jockeys she would find it different from riding a trial gallop,--but his main objection was that she'd be known. Allis closed the discussion by saying that she was going home to encourage her father a little over the mare's defeat in the Handicap, and made Dixon promise not to engage Redpath for Lauzanne till her return next morning.

“He can't take another mount,” she said, “because he's retained for Lucretia, and we haven't declared her out yet.”

“I'm hopin' we may not have to,” remarked Dixon. “Anyway, there's no hurry about switchin' the boy onto Lauzanne, so we'll settle that when you come back.”

XXX

Allis's visit to Ringwood was a flying one. Filial devotion to her father had been one motive, but not the only one. Her brother Alan's wardrobe received a visitation from hands not too well acquainted with the intricacies of its make-up.

John Porter was undoubtedly brightened by the daughter's visit. Lucretia's defeat in the Handicap had increased his despondency. To prepare him gradually for further reverses Allis intimated, rather than asserted, that Lucretia might possibly have a slight cold--Digon wasn't sure; but they were going to run Lauzanne also. Like the Trainer, her father had but a very poor opinion of the Chestnut's powers in any other hands but in that of the girl's.

“Who'll ride him?” he asked, petulantly. “It seems you can't trust any of the boys now-a-days. If they're not pin-headed, they're crooked as a corkscrew. Crane tells me that Redpath didn't ride Lucretia out in the Handicap, and whether he rides the mare or Lauzanne it seems all one--we'll get beat anyway.”

“Another boy will have the mount on Lauzanne,” Allis answered.

“What difference will that make? You can't trust him.”

“You can trust this boy, father, as you might your own son, Alan.”

“I don't know about that. Alan in the bank is all right, but Alan as a jockey would be a different thing.”

“Father, you would trust me, wouldn't you?”

“I guess I would, in the tightest corner ever was chiseled out.”

“Well, you can trust the jockey that's going to ride Lauzanne just as much. I know him, and he's all right. He's been riding Lauzanne some, and the horse likes him.”

“It's all Lauzanne,” objected Porter, the discussion having thrown him into a petulant mood. “Is Lucretia that bad--is she sick?”

“She galloped to-day,” answered the girl, evasively. “But if anything happens her we're going to win with the horse. Just think of that, father, and cheer up. Dixon has backed the stable to win a lot of money, enough to-enough to--well, to wipe out all these little things that are bothering you, dad.”

She leaned over and kissed her father in a hopeful, pretty way. The contact of her brave lips drove a magnetic flow of confidence into the man. “You're a brick, little woman, if ever there was one. Just a tiny bunch of pluck, ain't you, girl? And, Allis,” he continued, “if you don't win the Derby, come and tell me about it yourself, won't you? You're sure to have some other scheme for bracing me up. I'm just a worthless hulk, sitting here in the house a cripple while you fight the battles. Perhaps Providence, as your mother says, will see you through your hard task.”

“I won't come and tell you that we've lost, dad; I'll come and tell you that we've won; and then we'll all have the biggest kind of a blow-out right here in the house. We'll have a champagne supper, with cider for champagne, eh, dad? Alan, and Dixon, and old Mike, and perhaps we'll even bring Lauzanne in for the nuts and raisins at desert.”

“And the Rev. Dolman,--you've left him out,” added the father.

They were both laughing. Just a tiny little ray of sunshine had dispelled all the gloom for a minute.

“Now I must go back to my horses,” declared Allis, with another kiss. “Good-bye, dad--cheer up;” and as she went up to her room the smile of hope vanished from her lips, and in its place came one of firm, dogged resolve. Allis needed much determination before she had accomplished the task she had set herself--before she stood in front of a mirror, arrayed in the purple and fine linen of her brother. She had thought Alan small, and he was for a boy, but his clothes bore a terribly suggestive impression of misfit--they hung loose.

Mentally thanking the fashion which condoned it, she turned the trousers up at the bottom. “I'll use my scissors and needle on them to-night,” she said, ruthlessly. Thank goodness, the jockeys are all little chaps, and the racing clothes will fit better.

The coat was of summer wear, therefore somewhat close-fitting for Alan; but why did it hang so loosely on her? She was sure her brother was not so much bigger. A little thought given to this question of foreign apparel brought a possible solution. The undergarments she had tumbled about in her search were much heavier than her own. Her crusade had its side of comedy; she chuckled as, muttering, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” she reincarnated herself completely, so far as outward adornment was concerned. Then she examined herself critically in the glass. The mirror declared she was a passable counterfeit of her brother; all but the glorious crown of luxuriant hair. Perhaps she had better leave it as it was until she had met with the approval of Dixon--the terrible sacrifice might be for nothing. She wavered only for an instant--no half measure would do. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” The slightest weakness in carrying out her bold plan might cause it to fail.

Twice she took up a pair of scissors, and each time laid them down again, wondering if it were little short of a madcap freak; then, shrinking from the grinding hiss of the cutting blades, she clipped with feverish haste the hair that had been her pride. It was a difficult task, and but a rough job at best when finished, but the change in her appearance was marvelous; the metamorphosis, so successful, almost drowned the lingering regret. She drew a cap over her shorn head, packed her own garments and a few of her brother's in a large bag, buttoned her newmarket coat tight up to her throat, and once more surveyed herself in the glass. From head to foot she was ready. Ah, the truthful glass betrayed the weak point in her armor--the boots. In an instant she had exchanged them for a pair of Alan's. Now she was ready to pass her mother as Allis in her own long cloak, and appear before Dixon without it as a boy. That was her clever little scheme.

Before going up to her room she had asked that the stableman might be at the door with a buggy when she came down, to take her to the station. When she descended he was waiting.

“I'm taking some clothes back with me, mother,” she said. “Let Thomas bring the bag down, please.”

“You're getting dreadfully mannish in your appearance, daughter; it's that cap.”

“I have to wear something like this about in the open;” answered Allis.

“But for traveling, girl, it seems out of place. Let me put a hat on you. I declare I thought it was Alan when you came into the room.”

“I can't wait; this will do. I must be off to catch my train. Goodbye, mother; wish me good luck,” and she hurried out and took her seat in the buggy.

XXXI

Some hours later Dixon, sitting in his cottage, oppressed by the misfortune that had come to his stable, heard a knock at the door. When he opened it a neatly dressed, slim youth stepped into the uncertain light that stretched out reluctantly from a rather unfit lamp on the center table.

“Is this Mr. Dixon?” the boy's voice piped modestly.

“Yes, lad, it is. Will you sit down?”

The boy removed his cap, took the proffered chair, and said somewhat hesitatingly, “I heard you wanted a riding boy.”

“Well, I do, an' I don't. I don't know as I said I did, but,”--and he scanned the little figure closely, “if I could get a decent lightweight that hadn't the hands of a blacksmith, an' the morals of a burglar, I might give him a trial. Did you ever do any ridin'--what stable was you in?”

“I've rode a good deal,” answered the little visitor, ignoring the second half of the question.

“What's your name?”

“Mayne.”

“Main what?”

“Al Mayne,” the other replied.

“Well, s'posin' you show up at the course paddocks to-morrow mornin' early, an' I'll see you shape on a horse. D'you live about here--can you bring your father, so if I like your style we can have things fixed proper?”

The boy's face appealed to Dixon as being an honest one. Evidently the lad was not a street gamin, a tough. If he had hands--the head promised well--and could sit a horse, he might be a find. A good boy was rarer than a good horse, and of more actual value.

“I guess I'll stay here to-night so as to be ready for the mornin',” said the caller, to Dixon's astonishment; and then the little fellow broke into a silvery laugh.

“By Jimminy! If it isn't--well, I give in, Miss Allis, you fooled me.”