Save for the curling smoke that streamed lazily upward from his cigar one might have thought the banker fast asleep in his chair, so still he sat, while his mind labored with the quiescent velocity of a spinning top. He had won a big stake over Lauzanne's victory. The race had helped beggar Porter, and brought Ringwood nearer his covetous grasp. If Porter failed to win the Eclipse, his finances would be in a pitiable state; he might even have to sell his good filly Lucretia. That would be a golden opportunity.

From desiring the farm, insensibly Crane drifted into coveting the mare. He fell to wondering whether The Dutchman might not beat Lucretia. A question of this sort was one of the few he discussed with Langdon. Crane had smoked his cigar out, had settled the trend of many things, and developed the routine for his chessmen.

"I'll give Porter rope enough, in the way of funds, to tangle himself, and in the meantime I'll run up to New York and see what Langdon thinks about The Dutchman," was the shorthand record of his thoughts as he threw away the end of his cigar, took his hat, and passed out of the bank.

That evening he talked with his trainer.

"What should win the Eclipse, Langdon?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know what'll start," began the Trainer, with diplomatic caution, running over in his mind the most likely twoyear-olds.

"Would Porter's mare have a chance?"

"I think she would. I hear somethin' about a trial she gave them good enough to win—if I could find out her time—Porter don't talk much, an' Andy Dixon's like a clam. There's a boy in the stable, Shandy, that I might pump—"

"Don't bother, Mr. Langdon; I dislike prying into anybody's business."

The Trainer stared, but he didn't know that Porter had told Crane all about the trial, and so the latter could afford to take a virtuous pose.

"Has The Dutchman a look in?" continued Crane.

"On his runnin' he has; he wasn't half fit, an' got as bad a ride as ever I see in my life. The race ought to be between 'em—I ain't seen no two-year-olds out to beat that pair."

"If I thought The Dutchman would win I'd buy him. I like game horses, and men, too—that'll take the gaff and try."

"I don't know as the owner'd sell him."

"Do you remember the buying of Silver Foot, Langdon?"

"Yes."

"He was a good horse."

"The best handicap horse in the country, an' he was sold for a song—seven thousand."

"Less than that, the first time," corrected Crane.

"Yes, they stole him from old Walters; made him believe the horse was no good."

"Just so," commented Crane; "I've heard that story," and his smooth, putty-like face remained blank and devoid of all meaning, as his eyes peered vacantly over their lower lids at the Trainer.

Langdon waited for the other to continue, but the Banker seemed wrapped up in a retrospect of the Silver Foot deal.

"I know Billy Smith, that trains The Dutchman," hazarded Langdon; "he's a boozer."

"I'm glad of that—I mean, that you know Smith," declared Crane. "I happen to know the owner—his name is Baker. His racing is what might be called indiscriminate, and like men of that class he sometimes blunders upon a good horse without knowing it; and I doubt very much but that if he knew all about the other race—how bad Lauzanne really is; how the mare, Lucretia—well—got shut off, and couldn't get through her horses, say—of course his own trainer, Smith, would have to tell these things, you understand. In fact, if he knew the exact truth, he might take a reasonable offer for The Dutchman."

Langdon nodded approvingly. He loved his subtle master; cards up his sleeves tingled his nerves, and loaded dice were a joy for evermore.

Crane proceeded to unwind the silken cord. "Naturally Smith would hate to lose a fair horse out of his stable, and would, perhaps, attempt to thwart any deal; so I think you might remunerate him for his loss."

"When Silver Foot was sold, they gave him a bad trial before the sale—"

"I'm not interested in Silver Foot," interrupted Crane; "and I shouldn't like to have anything—well, I don't want my name associated with anything shady, you understand, Langdon? You are to buy The Dutchman as cheap as you can, and run him as your own horse in the Eclipse. I think Porter's mare will win it, so we needn't lose anything over The Dutchman."

Langdon started. With all his racing finesse he was a babe. The smooth, complacent-faced man in front of him made him realize this.

"But," he gasped, "there was a row over Lauzanne's race. If The Dutchman runs in my name, an' a lot o' mugs play him—it's dollars to doughnuts they will—an' he gets beat, there'll be a kick. I can't take no chances of bein' had up by the Stewards."

"Wait a bit," replied Crane, calmly. "Supposing Porter's mare worked five and a half furlongs in 1.07, how would she go in the Eclipse?"

"She'd win in a walk; unless The Dutchman was at his best when he might give her an argument."

"Well, if I thought The Dutchman could beat the mare, I'd make him win, if he never carried the saddle again," declared Crane, almost fiercely. Then he interrupted himself, breaking off abruptly. Very seldom indeed it was that Crane gave expression to sentiment; his words were simply a motor for carrying the impact of his well-thought-out plans to the executive agents. "It will be doing Porter a good turn to-to-that is, if Lucretia wins. I fancy he needs a win. Bad racing luck will hardly stop the mare this time—not twice in succession you know, Langdon," and he looked meaningly at his jackal. "You buy The Dutchman, and be good to him."

He laid marked emphasis on the words "be good to him." The trainer understood. It meant that he was to send The Dutchman to the post half fit, eased up in his work; then the horse could try, and the jockey could try, and, in spite of it all, the fast filly of Porter's would win, and his subtle master, Crane, would have turned the result to his own benefit. Why should he reason, or object, or counterplot, or do anything but just follow blindly the dictates of this past master in the oblique game he loved so well? Crane wanted The Dutchman because he was a good horse; he also wanted to have a heavy plunge on Lucretia; but with the son of Hanover in other hands the good thing might not come off. Somehow Langdon felt miserably inefficient in the presence of Crane—his self-respect suffered; the other man's mind was so overmastering, even to detail. The Trainer felt a sudden desire to right himself in Crane's estimation, give some evidence of ordinary intelligence, or capability to carry out his mission. "If The Dutchman's owner was made to think that the horse was likely to break down, throw a splint, or—"

But Crane interrupted him in his quiet, masterful way, saying: "I know nothing of horse trading; I simply furnish the money, loan it to you, my dear Mr. Langdon, and you buy the animal in your own best way. You will pay for him with a check on my bank." No man could close out an interview so effectually as Crane. As Langdon slipped away as though he had been thrust bodily from the room, there was in his mind nothing but admiration of his master—the man who backed up his delicate diplomacy with liberal capital.

In spite of what he had said to Langdon, there was little doubt in Crane's mind but that the son of Hanover was a better horse than Lucretia. A sanguine owner—even Porter was one at times—was so apt to overrate everything in his own stable, especially if he had bred the animal himself, as Porter had Lucretia. To buy The Dutchman and back him on such short ownership to beat Lucretia would have been the policy of a very ordinary mind indeed; he would simply be fencing, with rapiers of equal length, with John Porter.

Crane had attained to his success by thinking a little deeper than other men, going a little beyond them in the carefulness of his plans. He knew intuitively—in fact Porter's unguarded conversation had suggested it—that Lucretia's owner meant to win himself out of his difficult position by backing the little mare heavily for the Eclipse, expecting to get his money on at good odds. By owning The Dutchman Crane could whipsaw the situation; forestall Porter in the betting by backing Lucretia down to a short price himself, and have Jakey Faust lay with a full vigor against the Hanover colt. He would thus confine Porter to stake money, and Ringwood would still lie chained to his bank by the golden links he had forged on the place.

Almost insensibly, side by side with this weed of villainy there was growing in Crane's mind a most peculiar flower of sentiment, a love blossom. Strive as he would—though the apathy of his rebellion somewhat startled him—Crane could not obliterate from his thoughts the wondrous gray eyes of Allis Porter. Even after Langdon was gone, the atmosphere of the room still smirched by unholy underplay, thoughts of the girl came to Crane, jostling and elbowing the evil conceptions of his restless mind. Grotesquely incongruous as it was, Crane was actually in love; but the love flower, pure enough in itself, had rooted in marvelous ground. His passion was absolutely love, nothing else—love at first sight. But he was forty, and the methods of that many years must still govern his actions. Instinctively he felt that he must win the girl by diplomacy; and Crane's idea of diplomacy was to get a man irrevocably in his power. If John Porter were indebted to him beyond redemption, if he practically owned Ringwood, why should he not succeed with Allis? All his life he had gone on in just that way, breaking men, for broken men were beyond doubt but potter's clay.

Langdon bought The Dutchman. What methods he employed Crane took no pains to discover; in fact, stopped Langdon abruptly when he sought to enlarge on the difficulties he had overcome in the purchase. The price was the only item that interested Crane—seven thousand dollars; that included everything—even the secret service money.

The horse acquired, Crane had one more move to make; he sent for Jakey Faust, the Bookmaker. Faust and Crane had a reciprocal understanding. When the Bookmaker needed financial assistance he got it from the Banker; when Crane needed a missionary among the other bookmakers, Faust acted for him.

"I want to back Lucretia for the 'Eclipse,"' Crane said to the bookmaker.

"Lucretia," ejaculated Faust. "She'll have a rosy time beatin' Dutchy on their last race. They'll put a better boy up on the colt next time, an' he ought to come home all by himself" "Yes, a fairish sort of a jock will have the mount I think-Westley's a good enough boy."

"Westley?" came wonderingly from Faust.

"Yes; Langdon owns The Dutchman now."

The Cherub pursed his fat round lips in a soft whistle of enlightenment. It had staggered him at first that Crane, for whose acumen he had a profound respect, should have intended such a hazardous gamble; now he saw light.

"Then my book is full on the Porter mare?" he said, inquiringly. Crane nodded his head.

"An' I lay against the Hanover colt?"

Again Crane nodded.

"It's not bookmaking," continued Faust.

"I'm not a bookmaker," retorted Crane. "And see here, Faust," he continued, "when you've got my money on the Porter mare—when and how I leave to you—I want you to cut her price short—do you understand? Make her go to the post two to one on, if you can; don't forget that."

"If the mare goes wrong?" objected Faust.

"I don't think she will, but you needn't be in a hurry—there's plenty of time."

"What's the limit?" asked Faust.

"I want her backed down to even money at least," Crane answered; "probably ten thousand will do it. At any rate you can go that far."

Then for a few days Langdon prepared his new horse for the Eclipse according to his idea of Crane's idea; and Dixon rounded Lucretia to in a manner that gladdened John Porter's heart. They knew nothing of anything but that Lucretia was very fit, that they had Boston Bill's jockey to ride straight and honest for them, and that with a good price against the mare they would recoup all their losses.



VI

The day of the race when John Porter went into the betting ring he was confronted with even money about his mare. If he had read on the ring blackboard a notice that she was dead, he would not have been more astonished. He fought his way back to the open of the paddock without making a bet.

"Even money!" ejaculated Dixon when his owner told him of the ring situation, "why, they're crazy. Who's doin' it?"

"Not the public," declared Porter, "for I was there just after the first betting. It must be your friend Boston Bill that has forestalled us; nobody else knew of the mare's trial."

"Not on your life, Mr. Porter; Boston plays fair. D'ye think he could live at this game if he threw down his friends?"

"But nobody else even knew that we'd got a good boy for the mare."

"It don't make no difference," curtly answered Dixon; "it's a million dollars to a penny whistle that Boston hasn't a dollar on yet. Our agreement was that he'd send in his commission when they were at the post, an' his word's like your own, sir, as solid as a judge's decision. It's some one else. There's somebody behind that damned Langdon—he's not clever enough for all this. D'you know that The Dutchman's runnin' in Langdon's name to-day?"

"He is?'

"Yes; he's supposed to own him."

"But what's that got to do with Lucretia's price?"

"It means that we're goin' to be allowed to win. The other day they laid against her, an' she got beat; to-day they're holdin' her out, so I suppose she'll win, but somebody else gets the benefit."

"Gad! that Langdon must be a crook," muttered Porter. "I'm going to speak to my friend Crane about him again. No honest man should have horses in his stable."

"That they shouldn't," asserted Dixon. "But we've got our own troubles to-day. From what I see of this thing, I'd rather back the mare at even money than I would if she was ten to one. If I'm any judge we're being buncoed good and plenty."

"I think you're right Dixon. I'll go back and have a good bet down on her at evens."

But in five minutes Lucretia's owner was back in the paddock with the cheerful intelligence that the mare was now three to five.

"I wouldn't back 'Salvator' among a lot of cart horses at that price," commented Dixon; "leave it alone, an' we'll go for the Stake. We're up against it good and hard; somebody seems to know more about our own horse than we do ourselves."

"I think myself that the gods are angry with us, Dixon," said Porter moodily; "and the mortals will be furious, too, whichever way the race goes. They've backed the little mare at this short price no doubt, an' if she's beaten they'll howl; if she wins they'll swear my money was on to-day, and that I pulled her in her last race."

John Porter sat in the Grand Stand with his usual companion, Allis, beside him, as The Dutchman, Lucretia, and the other Eclipse horses passed down the broad spread of the straight Eclipse course to the five-and-a-half furlong post.

Though Porter had missed his betting, he intuitively felt the joy of an anticipated win. Only a true lover of thoroughbreds can know anything of the mad tumult of exultation that vibrates the heart strings as a loved horse comes bravely, gallantly out from the surging throng of his rivals, peerless and king of them all, stretching his tapered neck with eager striving, and goes onward, past the tribunal, first and alone, the leader, the winner, the one to be cheered of the many thousands wrought to frenzy by his conquest.

"Surely Lucretia will win to-day, father—don't you think so?" asked Allis; "I feel that she will."

"She's got a big weight up," he answered. "She's a little bit of a thing, and it may drive her into the ground coming down the Eclipse hill. I expect they'll come at a terrible jog, too; they don't often hang back on that course."

Now that the betting worry and the labor of getting an honest boy were over—that the horses had gone to the post, and that the race rested with Lucretia herself, Porter's mind had relaxed. Even at the time of the very struggle itself tension had gone from him; he was in a meditative mood, and spoke on, weighing the chances, with Allis as audience.

"But they'll have to move some to beat the little mare's trial—they'll make it in record time if they head her, I think."

"Isn't the horse that beat her the other day in, too, father?"

"The Dutchman-yes, but I fancy his owner is backing my mare."

"Father!"

"It wouldn't make any difference, though; she'd beat him anyway. If I'm any judge, he's short."

Allis felt a rustle at her elbow as though someone wished to pass between the seats. The faintest whiff of stephanotis came to her on the lazy summer air. Involuntarily she turned her head and looked for the harsh-voiced woman who had been verily steeped in the aggressive odor the day of Lauzanne's triumph. Two burly men sat behind her. They, surely, did not affect perfumery. Higher up the stand her eye searched—four rows back sat the woman Alan had said was Langdon's sister. There was no forgetting the flamboyant brilliancy of her apparel. But the almost fancied zephyr of stephanotis was mingling with the rustle at her elbow; she turned her head inquiringly in that direction, and Crane's eyes peeped at her over the stone wall of their narrow lids. He was standing in the passage just beyond her father, now looking wistfully at the vacant seat on her left.

"Good afternoon, Miss Porter—how are you, Porter? May I sit here with you and see Lucretia win?"

"Come in, come in!" answered Porter, frankly.

"I was sitting with some friends higher up in the stand, when I saw you here, and thought I'd like to make one of the victorious party."

Allis knew who the friends were; the clinging touch of stephanotis had come with him. The discrepancy in Crane's sentiments jarred on Allis. That other day this woman had been his trainer's sister, recognized for politic purposes; to-day he had been sitting with "friends."

Topping the rail in the distance, just where the course kinked a little to the left, Allis could see the blur of many colored silks in the sunlight. Then it seemed to flatten down almost level with the rail, as the horses broadened out to the earth in racing spread and the riders clung low to the galloping colts, for they had started.

"There they come," said Crane. "What's in the lead, Porter?" Porter did not answer. A man could have counted thirty before he said, "The Dutchman's out in front—a length, and they're coming down the hill like mad."

Allis felt her heart sink. Was it to be the same old story—was there always to be something in front of Lucretia?

"Where is your mare?" Crane asked.

His own glass lay idly in his lap. Though he spoke of the race, it was curious that his eyes were watching the play of Allis's features, as hope and Despair fought their old human-torturing fight over again in her heart.

"Now she's coming!" Porter's voice made Crane jump; he had almost forgotten the race. To the close-calculating mind it had been settled days before. The Dutchman would not win, and Lucretia was the best of the others—why worry?

They were standing now—everybody was.

"Now, my beauty, they'll have to gallop," Porter was saying. They were close up, and Crane could see that Lucretia had got to the bay colt's head, and he was dying away. He smiled cynically as he watched Westley go to the whip on The Dutchman, with Lucretia half a length in the lead. Most certainly Langdon was an excellent trainer; The Dutchman was just good enough to last into second place, and Lucretia had won handily. What a win Crane had had!

A little smothered gasp distracted his momentary thought of success, and, turning quickly, he saw tears in a pair of gray eyes that were set in a smiling face.

"Like a babe on his neck I was sobbing," came back to Crane out of the poem Allis had recited.

"I congratulate you, Miss Porter," he said, raising his hat. Then he turned, and held out his hand to her father, saying: "I'm glad you've won, Porter—I thought you would. The Dutchman quit when he was pinched."

"It wasn't the colt's fault—he was short," said Porter. "I shouldn't like to have horses in that man's stable—he's too good a trainer for me."

There was a marked emphasis on Porter's words; he was trying to give Crane a friendly hint.

"You mean it's a case of strawberries?" questioned Crane.

"Well I know it takes a lot of candles to find a lost quarter," remarked Porter, somewhat ambiguously. Then he added, "I must go down to thank Dixon; I guess this is his annual day for smiling."

"I'm coming, too, father," said Allis; "I want to thank Lucretia, and give her a kiss, brave little sweetheart."

After Allis and her father had left Crane, he sat for a minute or two waiting for the crowd of people that blocked the passageway after each race to filter down on the lawn. The way seemed clearer presently, and Crane fell in behind a knot of loud-talking men. The two of large proportions who had sat behind Allis, were like huge gate posts jammed there in the narrow way. As he moved along slowly he presently had knowledge of a presence at his side—a familiar presence. Raising his eyes from a contemplation of the heels in front of him, he saw Belle Langdon. She nodded with patronizing freedom.

"I lost you," she said.

"I was sitting with some friends here," he explained.

"Yes, I saw her," she commented pointedly.

At that instant one of the stout men in front said, with a bear's snarl, "Well that's the worst ever; I've seen some jobs in my time, but this puts it over anything yet."

"Didn't you back the little mare?" a thin voice squealed. It was the 'Pout.

"Back nothin'! The last time out she couldn't untrack herself; an' today she comes, without any pull in the weight, and wins in a walk from The Dutchman; and didn't he beat her just as easy the other day?"

Belle Langdon looked into Crane's face, and her eyes were charged with a look of reciprocal meaning. Crane winched. How aggressively obnoxious this half-tutored girl, mistress of many gay frocks, could make herself! There was an implied crime-partnership in her glance which revolted him. Dick Langdon must have talked in his own home. Crane's conscience—well, he hardly had one perhaps, at least it was always subevident; to put it in another way, the retrospect of his manipulated diplomacy never bothered him; but this gratuitous sharing in his evil triumph was disquieting. The malicious glitter of the girl's small black eyes contrasted strongly with the honest, unaffected look that was forever in the big tranquil eyes of Allis.

They were just at the head of the steps, and the Tout was saying to the fat expostulator: "I could have put you next; I steered a big bettor on—he won a thousand over the mare. I saw Boston's betting man havin' an old-time play, an' I knew it was a lead-pipe cinch. He's a sure thing bettor, he is; odds don't make no difference to him, the shorter the better—that's when his own boy's got the mount."

"It's all right to be wise after the race," grunted the fat man.

"G'wan! the stable didn't have a penny on Lucretia last time; an' what do you suppose made her favorite to-day?" queried the Tout, derisively. "It took a bar'l of money," he continued, full of his own logical deductions, "an' I'll bet Porter cleaned up twenty thousand. He's a pretty slick cove, is old 'Honest John,' if you ask me."

The girl at Crane's side cackled a laugh. "He's funny, isn't he?" she said, nodding her big plumed hat in the direction of the man-group.

"He's a talkative fool!" muttered the Banker, shortly. "The steps are clear on the other side, Miss Langdon, you can get down there. I've got to go into the paddock; you'll excuse me."

Being vicious for the fun of the thing had never appealed to Crane; he raced as he did everything else—to win. If other men suffered, that was the play of fate. He never talked about these things himself, almost disliked to think of them. He turned his back on Belle Langdon and went down the right-hand steps. On the grass sward at the bottom he stopped for an instant to look across at the jockey board.

Three men had just came out of the refreshment bar under the stand. They were possessed of many things; gold of the bookmakers in their pockets, and it's ever-attendant exhilaration in their hearts. One of them had cracked a bottle of wine at the bar, as tribute to the exceeding swiftness of Lucretia, for he had won plentifully. At that particular stage there was nothing left but to talk it over, and they talked. Crane, avaricious, unhesitating in his fighting, devoid of sympathy, was not of the eavesdropping class, but as he stood there he was as much a part of the other men's conversation as though he had been a fourth member of the brotherhood.

"I tell you none of these trainers ain't in it with a gentleman owner—when he takes to racin'. When a man of brains takes to runnin' horses as a profesh, he's gen'rally a Jim Dandy." It was he of the wine-opening who let fall these words of wise value.

"D'you mean Porter, Jim?" asked number two of the trio.

"Maybe that's his name. An' he put it all over Mister Langdon this trip."

"As how?" queried the other.

"Last time he runs his mare she's got corns in her feet the whole journey, an' all the time he owns the winner, Lauzanne, see?—buys him before they go out. Then Langdon thinks The Dutchman's the goods, an' buys him at a fancy price—gives a bale of long goods for him—I've got it straight that he parted with fifteen thousand. Then the gentleman owner, Honest John, turns the trick with Lucretia, an' makes The Dutchman look like a sellin' plater."

"I guess Langdon'll feel pretty sick," hazarded number three.

"I'd been watchin' the game," continued the wine man, "an' soon's I saw a move to-day from the wise guys in the ring, I plumped for the mare 'toot sweet."'

What an extraordinary thing manipulation was, Crane mused, as he listened; also how considerable of an ass the public was in its theoretical wisdom.

Then the three men drifted away to follow some new toy balloon of erratic possibilities, and Crane wound through the narrow passage which led to the paddock. There he encountered Langdon.

"He didn't run a very good horse, sir," began the Trainer.

"I thought otherwise," replied Crane, measuring the immediate vicinity of listeners.

"I had to draw it a bit fine," declared Langdon, with apologetic remonstrance.

"Running second is always bad business, except in a selling race," retorted his master.

"I've got to think of myself," growled Langdon. "If he'd been beat off, there'd been trouble; the Stewards have got the other race in their crop a bit yet."

"I'm not blaming you, Langdon, only I was just a trifle afraid that you were going to beat Porter's mare. He's a friend of mine, and needed a win badly. I'm not exactly his father confessor, but I'm his banker, which amounts to pretty much the same thing."

"What about the horse, sir," asked the Trainer.

"We'll see later on. Let him go easy for the present."

"I wonder what he meant by that," Langdon mused to himself, as Crane moved away. "He don't make nobody a present of a race for love." Suddenly he stumbled upon a solution of the enigma. "Well, I'm damned if that wasn't slick; he give me the straight tip to leave Porter to him—to let him do the plannin'; I see."



VII

Porter was an easy man with his horses. Though he could not afford, because of his needs, to work out his theory that two-year-olds should not be raced, yet he utilized it as far as possible by running them at longer intervals than was general.

"I'll start the little mare about once more this season," he told Dixon. "The babes can't cut teeth, and grow, and fight it out in punishing races on dusty hay and hard-shelled oats, when they ought to be picking grass in an open field. She's too good a beast to do up in her young days. The Assassins made good three-year-olds, and the little mare's dam, Maid of Rome, wasn't much her first year out—only won once—but as a three-year-old she won three out of four starts, and the fourth year never lost a race. Lucretia ought to be a great mare next year if I lay her by early this season. She's in a couple of stakes at Gravesend and Sheepshead, and we'll just fit her into the softest spot."

"What about Lauzanne?" asked the Trainer, "I'm afraid he's a bad horse."

"How is he doing?"

"He's stale. He's a bad doer—doesn't clean up his oats, an' mopes."

"I guess that killing finish with The Dutchman took the life out of him. That sort of thing often settles a soft-hearted horse for all time."

"I don't think it was the race, sir," Dixon replied; "they just pumped the cocaine into him till he was fair blind drunk; he must a' swallowed the bottle. I give him a ball, a bran mash, and Lord knows what all, an' the poison's workin' out of him. He's all breakin' out in lumps; you'd think he'd been stung by bees."

"I never heard of such a thing," commented Porter. "A man that would dope a two-year-old ought to be ruled off, sure."

"I think you oughter make a kick, sir," said Dixon, hesitatingly.

"I don't. When I squeal, Andy, it'll be when there's nothing but the voice left. I bought a horse from a man once just as he stood. I happened to know the horse, and said I didn't want any inspection—didn't want to see him, but bought him, as I say, just as he stood. When I went to the stable to get him he wasn't worth much, Andy—he was dead. Perhaps I might have made a kick about his not standing up, but I didn't."

"Well, sir, I'm thinkin' Lauzanne's a deuced sight worse'n a dead horse; he'll cost more tryin' to win with him."

"I dare say you're right, but he can gallop a bit."

"When he's primed."

"No dope for me, Andy. I never ran a dope horse and never will—I'm too fond of them to poison them."

"I'll freshen him up a bit, sir, and we'll give him a try in a day or two. Would you mind puttin' him in a sellin' race?—he cost a bit."

"He couldn't win anything else, and if anybody wants to claim him they can."

"I thought of starting Diablo in that mile handicap; he's in pretty light. He's about all we've got ready."

"All right, Dixon," Porter replied. "It may be that we've broke our bad luck with the little mare."

They were standing in the paddock during this conversation. It was in the forenoon; Dixon had come over to the Secretary's office to see about some entries before twelve o'clock. When the Trainer had finished his business, the two men walked across the course and infield to Stable 12, where Dixon had his horses. As they passed over the "Withers Course," as the circular track was called, Dixon pointed to the dip near the lower far turn.

"It's a deuced funny thing," he said, speaking reminiscently, "but that little hollow there settles more horses than the last fifty yards of the finish; it seems to make the soft ones remember that they're runnin' when they get that change, an' they stop. I bet Diablo'll quit right there, he's done it three or four times."

"He was the making of a great horse as a two-year-old, wasn't he, Andy?"

"They paid a long price for him, if that's any line; but I think he never was no good. It don't matter how fast a horse is if he won't try."

"I've an idea Diablo'll be a good horse yet," mused Porter. "You can't make a slow horse gallop, but there's a chance of curing a horse's temper by kind treatment. I've noticed that a squealing pig generally runs like the devil when he takes it into his head."

"Diablo's a squealing pig if there ever was one," growled Dixon.

They reached the track stable, and, as if by a mutual instinct, the two men walked on till they stood in front of Lauzanne's stall.

"He's a good enough looker, ain't he?" commented Dixon, as he dipped under the door bar, went into the stall, and turned the horse about. "He's the picture of his old sire, Lazzarone," he continued, looking the horse over critically; "an' a damned sight bigger rogue, though the old one was bad enough. Lazzarone won the Suburban with blinkers on his head, bandages on his legs, an' God knows what in his stomach. He was second in the Brooklyn that same year. I've always heard he was a mule, an' I guess this one got it all, an' none of the gallopin'."

"How does he work with the others?" queried Porter.

"Runs a bit, an' then cuts it—won't try a yard. Of course he's sick from the dope, an' the others are a bit fast for him. If we put him in a sellin' race, cheap, he'd have a light weight, an' might do better."

Porter walked on to Lucretia's stall, and the trainer continued in a monologue to Lauzanne: "You big slob! you're a counterfeit, if there ever was one. But I'll stand you a drink just to get rid of you; I'll put a bottle of whisky inside of your vest day after to-morrow, an' if you win p'raps somebody'll buy you."

Lauzanne did not answer-it's a way horses have. It is doubtful if his mind quite grasped the situation, even. That neither Dixon, nor Langdon, nor the jockey boys understood him he knew—not clearly, but approximately enough to increase his stubbornness, to rouse his resentment. They had not even studied out the pathology of his descent sufficiently well to give him a fair show, to train him intelligently. They remembered that his sire, Lazzarone, had a bad temper; but they forgot that he was a stayer, not 'given to sprinting. Even Lauzanne's dam, Bric-a-brac, was fond of a long route, was better at a mile-and-a-half than five furlongs.

Lauzanne knew what had come to him of genealogy, not in his mind so much as in his muscles. They were strong but sluggish, not active but non-tiring. Langdon had raced Lauzanne with sprinting colts, and when they ran away from him at the start he had been unequal to the task of overhauling them in the short two-year-old run of half-a-mile. Then the wise man had said that Lauzanne's courage was at fault; the jockeys had called it laziness, and applied the whip. And out of all this uselessness, this unthinking philosophy, the colt had come with a soured temper, a broken belief in his masters—"Lauzanne the Despised."

Porter's trust that his ill luck had been changed by a win was a faith of short life, for Diablo was most emphatically beaten in his race.

And then came the day of forlorn hope, the day of Lauzanne's disgrace, inasmuch as it de-graduated him into the selling-platter class.

Bad horse as Langdon knew Lauzanne to be, it occurred to him that Porter had planned a clever coup. He had an interview with Crane over the subject, but his master did not at all share the Trainer's belief.

"What price would Lucretia, or The Dutchman, be in with the same lot?" Langdon asked, argumentatively.

"About one to ten," Crane replied. "But the Chestnut's beating them had no bearing on this race. From what I see of Mr. Dixon, I don't at all class him with you as a trainer—he hasn't the same resource."

Langdon stood silent, sullenly turning over in his mind this doubtful compliment.

"I'm not sure," continued the Banker, "but that having stuck Porter with Lauzanne, you shouldn't give him a hint about—well, as to what course of preparation would make Lauzanne win a race for him. The ordinary diet of oats is hardly stimulating enough for such a sluggish animal."

Langdon frowned. If Crane had not been quite so strong, quite so full of unexpressed power, he would have rebelled at the assertion that he had stuck Porter; but he answered, and his voice struggled between asperity and deprecation, "There ain't no call for me to give that stable any pointers; Porter put it to me pretty straight that the horse had been helped."

"And what did you say?" blandly inquired Crane.

"Told him to go to hell."

This wasn't exactly truthful as we remember the interview, but its terseness appealed to Crane, and he smiled as he said: "Porter probably won't take your advice, Langdon; he's stubborn enough at times. And even if he does know that—that—Lauzanne' requires special treatment, he won't indulge him—he's got a lot of old-fashioned ideas about racing. So you see Lauzanne is a bad betting proposition."

After Langdon had left Crane's thoughts dwelt on the subject they had just discussed.

"From a backer's point of view Lauzanne is certainly bad business," he mused; "but the public will reason just as Langdon does. And what's bad for the backers is good for the layers; I must see Faust."

"You had better make a book to beat Lauzanne," Crane said to Jakey Faust, just before business had commenced in the ring that afternoon.

The Cherub stared in astonishment; his eyes opened wide. That was nearly the limit of his fat little face's expression, no matter what the occasion.

"You don't own him now, do you, sir?" he blurted out, with unthinking candor.

"I do not."

"He's dropped into a soft spot—he rates best in the percentage card."

"Figures sometimes lie," commented Crane.

"Every handicapper tips him to win."

"They're all broke because of their knowledge."

"The books'll mark him up first choice."

"That's why it will be worth while playing the field to beat him."

"He's in with a gang of muts to-day, an' he beat some cracker-jacks last time out."

"You were hypnotized that day, Mr. Faust; so was the Judge. Lauzanne didn't beat anything."

"Didn't beat—what the hell—didn't the Chestnut get the verdict?"

"He did; but—" and Crane looked at Faust, with patient toleration of his lack of perception.

The Cherub waited for an explanation of these contradictory remarks. But he might have waited indefinitely—Crane had quite finished. The Cherub raised his little round eyes, that were like glass alleys, green and red and blue-streaked, to the other's face inquiringly, and encountered a pair of penetrating orbs peering at him over some sort of a mask—the face that sustained the eyes was certainly a mask—as expressionless. Then it came to Jakey Faust that there was nothing left to do but fill the Lauzanne column in his book with the many bets that would come his way and make much money.

Crane watched Lauzanne go lazily, sluggishly down to the post for his race. He knew the horse's moods; the walk of the Chestnut was the indifferent stroll of a horse that is thinking only of his dinner.

"They've given him nothing," the Banker muttered to himself; "the heavy-headed brute won't try a yard. But he'll fight the boy when he tries to ride him out."

The whisky that Dixon had surreptitiously given Lauzanne had been as inefficacious as so much ginger beer; and in the race Lauzanne drew back out of the bustle and clash of the striving horses as quickly as he could. In vain his jockey used whip and spur; Lauzanne simply put his ears back, switched his tail, and loafed along, a dozen lengths behind his field.

In the straight he made up a little of the lost ground, but he was securely out of the money at the finish. Fate still sat and threw the dice as he had for many moons—a deuce for John Porter, and a six for Philip Crane.



VIII

It was late autumn; the legitimate racing season had closed. In August Porter had taken his horses back to Ringwood for the winter.

When a man strives against Fate, when realization laughs mockingly at his expectations, there comes to him a time when he longs for a breathing spell, when he knows that he must rest, and wait until the wheel of life, slow-turning, has passed a little through the groove of his existence. John Porter had been beaten down at every point. Disastrous years come to all men, whether they race horses or point the truthful way, and this year had been but a series of disappointments to the master of Ringwood. After Lucretia's win in the Eclipse, Porter did not land another race. Lucretia caught cold and went off. He tried Lauzanne twice again, but the Chestnut seemed thoroughly soured. Now he was back at Ringwood, a dark cloud of indebtedness hanging over the beautiful place, and prospect of relief very shadowy. If Lucretia wintered well and grew big and strong she might extricate him from his difficulties by winning one or two of the big races the following summer. About any of the other horses there was not even this much of promise.

Thoroughly distrusting Lauzanne, embittered by his cowardice, Porter had given him away—but to Allis. Strangely enough, the girl had taken a strong liking to the son of Lazzarone; it may have been because of the feeling that she was indirectly responsible for his presence at Ringwood. Allis Porter's perceptions had been developed to an extraordinary degree. All her life she had lived surrounded by thoroughbreds, and her sensitive nature went out to them, in their courage and loyalty, in a manner quite beyond possibility in a practical, routine-following horseman. To her they were almost human; the play of their minds was as attractive and interesting as the development of their muscles was to a trainer. When the stable had been taken back to Ringwood, she had asked for Lauzanne as a riding horse.

"I'm going to give him away," her father had replied; "I can't sell him—nobody would buy a brute with such a reputation." This word brought to Porter's mind his chief cause of resentment against the Chestnut. The public having got into its head that Porter was playing coups, generously suggested that he was pulling Lauzanne to get him in some big handicap light.

"I won't feed such a skate all winter," he declared angrily, after a little pause.

"Well, give him to me, father," the girl had pleaded; "I am certain that he'll make good some day; you'll see that he'll pay you for keeping your word."

As Allis rode Lauzanne she discovered many things about the horse; that instead of being a stupid, morose brute, his intelligence was extraordinary, and, with her at least, his temper perfect.

Allis's relationship with her father was unusual. They were chums; in all his trouble, in all his moments of wavering, buffeted by the waves of disaster, Allis was the one who cheered him, who regirt him in his armor:—Allis, the slight olive-faced little woman, with the big, fearless Joan-of-Arc eyes.

"You'll see what we'll do next summer, Dad," she said cheerily. "You'll win with Lucretia as often as you did with her mother; and I'll win with Lauzanne. We'll just keep quiet till spring, then we'll show them."

Langdon's horses, so silently controlled by Philip Crane, Banker, had been put in winter quarters at Gravesend, where Langdon had a cottage. Crane's racing season had been as successful as the Master of Ringwood's had been disastrous. He had won a fair-class race with The Dutchman—ostensibly Langdon's horse—and then, holding true to his nature, which was to hasten slowly, threw him out of training and deliberately planned a big coup for the next year. The colt was engaged in several three-year-old stakes, and Crane set Langdon to work to find out his capabilities. As his owner expected, he showed them in a severe trial gallop the true Hanover staying-power.

Although Crane had said nothing about it at the time, he had his eye on the Eastern Derby when he commissioned Langdon to purchase this gallant son of Hanover. It was a long way ahead to look, to lay plans to win a race the following June, but that was the essence of Crane's existence, careful planning. He loved it. He was a master at it. And, after all, given a good stayer, such as he had in The Dutchman, the mile-and-a-half run of the Derby left less to chance than any other stake he could have pitched upon; the result would depend absolutely upon the class and stamina of the horses. No bad start could upset his calculations, no little interference in the race could destroy his horse's chance if he were good enough to win. The Dutchman's races as a two-year-old would not warrant his being made a favorite, and Langdon, properly directed, was clever enough to see that The Dutchman was at a comfortable price for betting purposes.

Many things had crowded into this year of Crane's life. The bank, doing but a modest business always, was running so smoothly that it required little attention from the owner. This was one reason why he had thrown so much subtle energy into his racing; its speculation appealed to him. The plucking he had received as a moneyed youth rankled in his heart. The possession of such a faithful jackal as Langdon carried him to greater lengths than he would have gone had the obnoxious details been subject to his own execution. Though conscienceless, he was more or less fastidious. Had a horse broken down and become utterly useless, he would have ordered him to be destroyed without experiencing any feeling of compassion—he would have dismissed the matter entirely from his mind with the passing of the command; but rather than destroy the horse himself, he probably would have fed him. And so it was with men. If they were driven to the wall because of his plans, that was their own look out; it did not trouble Philip Crane.

Porter he had known simply in a business way. From the first he had felt that Ringwood would pass out of its owner's possession, and he had begun to covet it. The Lauzanne race had been Langdon's planning altogether. Crane, cold-blooded as he was, would not have robbed a man he had business dealings with deliberately. He had told his trainer to win, if possible, a race with Lauzanne, and get rid of him. That Langdon's villainous scheme had borne evil fruit for John Porter was purely a matter of chance selection. There was a Mephistophelean restitution in not striving to wrest the Eclipse from Lucretia with The Dutchman.

And now, in this year, had come the entirely new experience of an affection—his admiration for Allis Porter. It conflicted with every other emotion that governed his being. All his life he had been selfish—considering only Philip Crane, his mind unharrassed by anything but business obstacles in his ambitious career. Love for this quiet, self-contained girl, unadorned by anything but the truth, and honesty, and fearlessness that were in her big steadfast eyes, had come upon him suddenly and with an assertive force that completely mastered him. By a mere chance he had heard Allis give her recitation, "The Run of Crusader," in the little church at Brookfield. Crane was not an agnostic, but he had interested himself little in church matters; and the Reverend Dolman's concert, that was meant to top down many weeds of debt that were choking the church, had claimed him simply because an evening in Brookfield had come to hang heavily on his hands. Now when the Reverend Dolman received Philip Crane's check for fifty dollars the next day, to be applied to the church encumbrance, he sought to allay his surprise by attributing the gift to his own special pleading that evening, of course backed up by Providence. If anybody had stated that the mainspring of the gift had been the wicked horse-racing poem of their denunciation he would have been scandalized and full of righteous disbelief. It is quite likely that even Crane would have denied that Allis's poem had inspired him to the check; but nevertheless it had.

The world of feeling and sympathy and goodness that had hung in her voice had set a new window in his soul slightly ajar—so slightly ajar that even now, months afterward, the lovelight was only beginning to stream through. When love comes to a man at forty he is apt to play the game very badly indeed; he turns it into a very anxious business, and moves through the light-tripping measure with the pedantic dignity of a minuet dancer. But Philip Crane was not given to making mistakes; he knew that, like Crusader, "His best racing days (in the love stakes) were over"—especially where the woman was but a girl. So he sat down and planned it all out as he planned to win the Brooklyn Derby months later. And all the time he was as sincerely in love as if he had blundered into many foolishness; but his love making was to be diplomatic. Even now all the gods of Fate stood ranged on his side; Allis's brother was in his bank, more or less dependent upon him; Ringwood itself was all but in the bank; he stood fairly well with John Porter, and much better with Allis's mother, for already he had begun to ingratitate himself with Mrs. Porter. He would cast from the shoulders of the Reverend Dolman a trifle more of the load he was carrying. He would send the reverend gentleman another check.

Why he should think it necessary to prepare his suit with so much subtlety he hardly knew; in all reason he should be considered a fair match for Allis Porter. He was not a bad man as the world understood him; he did not profess Christianity, but, on the other hand, his life was extremely respectable; he did not drink; he was not given to profane language; even in racing his presence seemed to lend an air of respectability to the sport, and it was generally supposed that he raced purely for relaxation. In truth, it seemed to him that his marriage with Allis would be a deuced good thing for the Porters.

In actuality there were just two things that stood in the way—two things which his position and wealth could not obviate—his age, and the Porter pride. If Porter had not been dubbed "Honest John" early in life, he might have been saddled with "Proud Porter" later on. The pride had come up out of old Kentucky with all the other useless things—the horse-racing, and the inability to make money, and the fancy for keeping a promise. Something whispered to Crane that Allis would never come to him simply out of love; it might be regard, esteem, a desire to please her parents, a bowing to the evident decree of fate. Perhaps even the very difficulty of conquest made Crane the more determined to win, and made him hasten slowly.



IX

As a rule few visitors went to Ringwood.

John Porter had been too interested in his horses and his home life to care much for social matters. Mrs. Porter was a home-body, too, caring nothing at all for society—at best there was but little of it in Brookfield—except where it was connected with church work. Perhaps that was one reason why Allis had grown so close into her father's life. It was a very small, self-contained household.

Mike Gaynor had become attached to the staff at Ringwood this winter as a sort of assistant trainer to Porter. Dixon only trained the Ringwood horses during the racing season, Porter always supervising them in winter quarters. Perhaps it was Porter's great cloud of evil fortune which had cast its sinister influence over Mike because of his sympathy for the master of Ringwood; certain it is that the autumn found him quite "on his uppers," as he graphically described his financial standing. An arrangement was made by which Mike's disconsolate horses were fed at Ringwood, and he took care of both strings. This delighted Allis, for she had full confidence in Gaynor's integrity and good sense.

The early winter brought two visitors to Ringwood—Crane, who came quite often, and Mortimer, who went out to the farm a couple of times with Alan.

George Mortimer might be described as an angular young man. His face, large-featured, square-jawed, and bold-topped by broad forehead, suggested the solemnity Alan had found so trying. Of course a young man of his make-up was sure to have notions, and Mortimer's mind was knotted with them; there seemed no soft nor smooth places in his timber. That was why he had reasoned with the butcher by energetically grasping his windpipe the evening that worthy gentleman had expressed himself so distastefully over Allis Porter's contribution to the Reverend Dolman's concert. Perhaps a young man of more subtle grace would have received some grateful recognition for this office, but the matter had been quite closed out so far as Mortimer was concerned; Alan tried to refer to it afterward, but had been curtly stopped.

George Mortimer's chief notion was that work was a great thing, seemingly the chief end of man. Another notion almost equally prominent—he had derived it from his mother—was, that all forms of gambling were extremely bad business. First and foremost in this interdiction stood horse racing. The touch of it that hung like a small cloud over the Brookfield horizon had inspired Mrs. Mortimer, as it had other good people of the surrounding country, with the restricted idea that those who had to do with thoroughbred horses were simply gamblers—betting people. Her home was in Emerson, a dozen miles from Brookfield.

Quite paradoxically, if Allis Porter had not given "The Run of Crusader"—most certainly a racing poem—in the little church, this angular young man with stringent ideas about running horses probably would have never visited Ringwood. Something of the wide sympathy that emanated from her as she told of the gallant horse's death struck into his strong nature, and there commenced to creep into his thoughts at odd intervals a sort of gratuitous pity that she should be inextricably mixed up with race horses. His original honesty of thought and the narrowness of his tuition were apt to make him egotistically sure that the things which appealed to him as being right were incapable of variation.

At first he had liked Alan Porter, with no tremendous amount of unbending; now, because of the interest Allis had excited in him, the liking began to take on a supervisory form, and it was not without a touch of irritation in his voice that Alan informed his sister that he had acquired a second father, and with juvenile malignity attributed the incumbrance to her seductive influence.

With all these cross purposes at work it can be readily understood that Mortimer's visits to Ringwood were not exactly rose-leaved. In truth, the actors were all too conventionally honest, too unsocialized, to subvert their underlying motives. Allis, with her fine intuition, would have unearthed Mortimer's disapprobation of racing—though he awkwardly strove to hide it—even if Alan had not enlarged upon this point. This knowledge constrained the girl, even drove her into rebellion. She took his misunderstanding as a fault, almost as a weakness, and shocked the young man with carefully prepared racing expressions; reveled with strange abandon in talks of gallops, and trials, and work-outs, and breathers; threw ironmouthed horses, pullers, skates, and divers other equine wonders at his head until he revolted in sullen irritation. In fact they misunderstood each other finely; in truth their different natures were more in harmony two miles apart, the distance that lay between the bank and Ringwood.

By comparison Crane's visits to Ringwood were utopianly complacent. Strangely enough, Mrs. Porter, opposed to racing as she was, came quite readily under the glamor of his artistic unobtrusiveness. He had complete mastery over the science of waiting. His admission to the good lady of a passing interest in horses was an apology; there seemed such an utter absence of the betting spirit that the recreation it afforded him condoned the offense.

There was this difference between the two men, the old and the young: Crane knew exactly why he went there, while Mortimer had asked himself more than once, coming back from Ringwood feeling that he had been misunderstood—perhaps even laughed at—why he had gone there at all. He had no definite plan, even desire; he was impelled to it out of some unrecognized force. It was because of these conditions that the one potter turned his images so perfectly, and the other formed only poor, distorted, often broken, dishes of inferior clay.

It stood in the reason of things, however, that Mortimer, in spite of his uncompromising attitude toward racing, should be touched by its tentacles if he visited at Ringwood.

His first baptism came with much precipitancy on the occasion of his fourth visit to the Porters. He had driven out with Alan to spend his Saturday afternoon at Ringwood. An afternoon is not exactly like an evening in the matter of entertaining a guest; something must be done; cigars, or music, or small chatter are insufficient. If one is on the western slope of life's Sierra perhaps a nap may kill the time profitably enough, but this was a case where a young man had to be entertained, a young man difficult of entertainment under the circumstances.

Alan had some barbarous expedition of juvenile interest on hand; the unearthing of a woodchuck, or it might have been a groundhog, in a back field; but Allis would not become a party to the destruction of animal life for the sport of the thing. She had a much better programme mapped out for Mortimer. Some way she felt that if he could see the thoroughbred horses in their stalls, could come to know them individually, casually though it might be, he would perhaps catch a glimmer of their beautiful characters. So she asked Mr. Mortimer to go and have a look at her pets. Alan would none of it; he was off to his woodchuck or groundhog.

"I'm glad you don't want to go and kill anything," she said, turning gratefully to Mortimer when he refused Alan's invitation, saying that he preferred to look at the horses. "I'll show you Diablo, and Lucretia, and Lauzanne the Despised—he's my horse, and I'm to win a big race with him next year. Gaynor is down at the stables; and I'll give you a tip"-Mortimer winced—"if you want to stand well in with Mike, let him suspect that you're fond of horses."

At the stable door they met Mike Gaynor. Mike usually vacillated between a condition of chronic anger at somebody or something, and an Irish drollery that made people who were sick at heart laugh. Allis was as familiar with his moods as she was with the phases of Lauzanne's temper. On Mike's face was a map of disaster; the disaster might be trivial or great. That something was wrong the girl knew, but whether it was that a valuable horse was dead, or that a mouse had eaten a hole in a grain bag she could only discover by questioning Gaynor, for there were never degrees of expressed emotion in Mike's facile countenance; either a deep scowl or a broad grin were the two normal conditions.

"What's the matter, Mike?" questioned Allis.

"Mather, is it?" began Gaynor, "it's just this, Miss Allis; if yer father thinks I'm goin' to stand by an' see good colts spiled in their timper just because a rapscallion b'y has got the evil intints av ould Nick himself, thin he's mistook, that's all."

"Who is it Mike—Shandy?"

"That's him, Miss. He's the divil on wheels, bangin' thim horses about as though he was King Juba."

Allis saw that Gaynor was indeed angry.

"I'll speak to father about him, Mike," she answered; "I won't have the horses abused."

"Mark my words, Miss Allis, Diablo'll take it out of his hide some day. The b'y'll monkey wit' him once too often, then there'll be no b'y left."

"May we see the horses, Mike—are they having their lie-down, or anything?"

"Not yet, Miss; they're gettin' the rub-down now; don't ye hear Diablo bastin' the boords av his stall wid that handy off hind-foot av his?"

"There's a filly for yer life," exclaimed the Trainer, rapturously, as he opened gently the door of Lucretia's box stall. "There's the straightest filly iver looked through a halter," he continued, putting his arm with the gentleness of a woman over the brown mare's beautiful neck. "Come here, ould girl," he said, coaxingly, as he drew the haltered head toward the visitors.

Mortimer looked with interest at the big, comfortable box stall, littered a foot deep with bright, clean, yellow straw. How contented and at home the mare appeared! It seemed almost a complete recompense, this attentive care, for the cruelty he imagined race horses suffered.

"You don't tie her up?" he asked.

"Tie her up!" ejaculated Mike, a fine Celtic scorn in his voice; "I'd rather tie up a wife—if I had one," he added by way of extenuation. "No man would tie up a mare worth tin thousand dollars if she's worth a cent, an' take chances av her throwin' hersilf in the halter; av coorse she's hitched fer a bit after a gallop while she's havin' a rub-down, but that's all."

Lucretia's black nozzle came timidly forward, and the soft, velvety upper lip snuggled Allis's cheek.

"She knows ye, Miss," said Mike. "That's the way wit' horses—they're like children; they know friends, an' ye can't fool thim. Now she's sizin' ye up, Mister," as Lucretia sniffed suspiciously at Mortimer's chin, keeping a wary eye on him. "She'll know if ye like horses or not, an' I'd back her opinion agin fifty min's oaths."

Allis watched with nervous interest the investigation. She almost felt that if Lucretia liked her companion—well, it would be something less to dislike in him, at all events. Lucretia seemed turning the thing over in her mind, trying to think it out. There was some mystery about this new comer. Evidently she did not distrust him entirely, else she would have put her ears back a trifle and turned away with a little impatient warning shake of her delicate head. She always turned in that cross manner from Shandy, the stable boy. She had also discovered that the visitor was not completely a horseman; she did not investigate his pockets, nor put her head over his shoulder, as she would have done with Mr. Porter or Mike, or even with one who was a stranger, as was Mortimer, had she felt the unmistakable something which conveyed to her mind that he was of the equine brotherhood.

"Lucretia has found you out," said Allis, presently. "You do like horses; she knows it."

"Oh, I like animals, I don't deny," Mortimer answered, "but I know very little about them—nothing about race horses."

Mike frowned and looked disparagingly at the visitor. "He must be a quare duck," he muttered to himself. That a man should know nothing of thoroughbreds was perfectly inexplicable to Gaynor. He knew many racing men whose knowledge of horseflesh was a subject for ridicule, but then they never proclaimed their ignorance, rather posed as good judges than otherwise.

But with startling inconsistency Mike explained: "There's many like ye, sir, only they don't know it, that's all; the woods is full av thim. Would ye like to give the filly a carrot, Miss?" he added, turning to Allis. "I'll bring some."

When he returned Allis gave one to Lucretia, then they passed to the next stall.

"That's a useful horse," explained the Trainer; "he's won some races in his 'time."

"What's his name?" asked Mortimer.

"Game Boy. He's by the Juggler. Ye remember him, don't ye?"

Mortimer was forced to confess that he didn't quite remember Juggler.

"That's strange," commented Mike, turning the big bay about with evident pride; "he won the 'Belmont,' at Jerome Park, did the ould Juggler. Ye must av heerd av that."

Mortimer compromised by admitting that he had probably forgotten it.

"Well, I haven't," declared Mike, reproachfully. "If Game Boy stands a prep this summer ye'll hear from him," he confided to Mortimer, as they left the stall. "Jist remember Game Boy; see, ye can't forget—a big bay wit' a white nigh fore leg, an' a bit rat-tailed. Yes, Game Boy's all right," monologued Mike; "but here's a better; this is Diablo. He must have tabasco in his head, fer he's got the divil's own timper. But he can gallop a bit; he can go like a quarterhorse, an' stay till the cows come home; but he's like Lauzanne acrost yonder, he's got a bee in his bonnet an' it takes a divil to ride him."

"That's hard on me, Mike," expostulated Allis. "You see, Lauzanne goes better with me in the saddle than any of the boys," she explained to Mortimer.

"The divil or angels, I was going to say, Miss, when ye interrupted me," gallantly responded Mike.

Diablo's head was tied high in a corner of the stall, for Shandy, the boy, was hard at work on him with a double hand of straw, rubbing him down. The boy kept up a peculiar whistling noise through his parted lips as he rubbed, and Diablo snapped impatiently at the halter-shank with his great white teeth as though he resented the operation.

Mortimer gazed with enthusiasm at the shining black skin that glistened like satin, or watered silk. Surely there was excuse for people loving thoroughbreds. It was an exhilaration even to look at that embodiment of physical development. It was an animate statue to the excellence of good, clean living. Somehow or other Mortimer felt that though the living creature before him was only a horse, yet nature's laws were being adhered to, and the result was a reward of physical perfection and enjoyment of life. He began to feel that a man, or even a woman—it was the subtle presence of the woman at his side that made him involuntarily interject this clause into his inaudible thoughts—yes, even a woman of high moral attributes might find the most healthy form of interested amusement in watching the superb development of horses that were destined for no other purpose than to race and beget sons and daughters of the same wondrous stamina and courage and speed. His detestation of racing had been in reality an untutored prejudice; he had looked upon but one phase of the question, and that quite casually, as it introduced itself into his life by means of sensational betting incidents in the daily papers. To him all forms of betting were highly disastrous—most immoral. But here, like a revelation, came to him, in all its fascination, the perfect picture of the animal, which he was forced to admit stood next to man in its adornment of God's scheme of creation.

As Shandy swept his wisp of straw along the sensitive skin of Diablo's stomach, the latter shrunk from the tickling sensation, and lashed out impatiently with a powerful hind leg as though he would demolish his tormentor.

"He's not cross at all just," explained Mike; "he's bluffin', that's all. Shure a child could handle him if they'd only go the right way about it."

Then he leaned over and whispered in an aside to the visitors—"Bot' t'umbs up!" (this was Mike's favorite oath). "Diablo hates that b'y an' some day he'll do him up, mark my words."

"Here, Shandy," he cried, turning to the rubber, "loose the Black's head an' turn him 'round."

Mortimer almost shrank with apprehension for the boy, for Diablo's ears were back on his flat, tapering neck, and his eyes looking back at them, were all white, save for the intense blue-shimmered pupil. To Mortimer that look was the incarnation of evil hatred. But the boy unsnapped the halter-shank without hesitation, and Diablo, more inquisitive than angry, came mincingly toward them, nodding his head somewhat defiantly, as much as to say that the nature of the interview would depend altogether upon their good behavior.

"See that!" ejaculated Mike, a pleasant smile of satisfaction rippling the furrows of his face; "see how he picks out the best friend the stable's got."

Diablo had stretched his lean head down, and was trying to nibble with gentle lip the carrot Allis held half hidden behind her skirt. There was none of Lucretia's timidity in Diablo's approach; it was full of an assumption of equality, of trust in the intentions of the stranger who had come with the mistress he hart faith in.

"They're all like that when Miss Allis is about," explained Mike; "there never would be a bad horse if the stable-b'ys worked the same way. Tie him up, Shandy," he added. "Even the jockeys spoil their mounts," Gaynor continued in a monotone; "the horse'll gallop better for women any time—they treat thim gentler, that's why."

"Most interesting," hazarded Mortimer, feeling some acknowledgment of Mike's information was due.

"It's the trut'. Miss Allis'd take Lauzanne, or the Black, or the little mare, an' get a better race out av thim than any jock I've seen ridin' hereabout."

"Mike," exclaimed Allis, "you flatter me; you almost make me wish that I were a jockey."

"Well, bot' t'umbs up! Ye'd av made a good un, Miss, an' that's no disrespect to ye, I'm sayin'."

Mortimer smiled condescendingly. Allis's quick eye caught his expression of amused discontent; it angered her. Mike's praise had been practically honest. To him a good jockey was the embodiment of courage and honesty and intelligence; but she knew that to Mortimer it simply meant a phase of life he considered quite outside the pale of recognized respectability. Somehow she felt that Mike's encomium had lowered her perceptibly in the opinion of this man whom she herself affected to look upon with but toleration.

They visited all the other stalls, eight of them, and listened to Mike's eulogies on the inmates. Coming down the other side of the passage, the last occupied box stall contained Lauzanne.

"Miss Porter'll tell ye about this wan," said Mike, diplomatically. "He's shaped like a good horse, an' his sire, old Lazzarone, landed many a purse, an' the 'Suburban,' too—won it on three legs, fer he was clean gone in his pins, I'll take me oath to that. He was a good horse—whin he liked. Perhaps Lauzanne'll do the same some day, fer all I know."

There was such a tone of doubt in the Trainer's voice that even Mortimer noticed it. Neither was there much praise of the big Chestnut; evidently Mike did not quite approve of him, though hesitating to say so in the presence of his mistress.

"Yes, Lauzanne is my horse," volunteered Allis. "I even ride him in all his work now, since he took to eating the stable-boy."

"And you're not afraid?" asked Mortimer.

For answer the girl slipped quietly into the stall, and going up beside the Chestnut, who was standing sulkily with his head in the corner of his box, took him by the ear and turned him gently around.

"He's just a quiet-mannered chap, that's all," she said. "He's a big, lazy, contented old boy," and she laid her cheek against his fawn-colored nozzle. "You see," she explained, "he's got more brains than any of the other horses, and when he's abused he knows it."

"But he's grateful when he's kindly treated," commented Mortimer.

"Yes; that's why I like horses better than men."

"Oh!" the exclamation slipped from Mortimer's lips.

"Most men, I mean," she explained. "Of course, father, and Alan, and—" she hesitated; "you see," she went on to explain, "the number of my men friends is limited; but except these, and Mike, and Mr. Dixon, I like the horses best."

"I almost believe you're right, Miss Porter," concurred Mortimer; "I've known men myself that I fancy were much worse than even Diablo."

"Mike thinks Lauzanne is a bad horse," the girl said, changing the subject, "but he'll win a big race this coming season. You just keep your eye on Lauzanne. Here's your carrot, old chap," she said, stroking the horse's neck, "and we must go if we're to have that drive. Will you hitch the gray to the buggy for us, Mike?" she asked of Gaynor, as they came out of the stable, "we'll wait here."

As Mike started off there came to their ears a sound of turmoil from Diablo's box; impatient kicks against the boards from the horse, and smothered imprecations from the boy.

"Hear that fiend!" the girl exclaimed, and there was wrath in her voice.

"He does seem a bad horse," concurred Mortimer.

"I didn't mean Diablo; it's the boy. It's all his evil doing. Oh, I've only one glove," she exclaimed. "I know where it is, though; that mischievous rascal, Lauzanne, nibbled it from the front of my jacket; I saw him do it, but forgot to pick it up."

"Allow me, Miss Porter; I'll get it for you."

"No; please don't!" with emphasis. As he started back, she laid a detaining hand on his arm. "I'd much prefer to go myself; Lauzanne distrusts strangers and might make trouble."

As the girl entered the stable, Mortimer sauntered on in the direction Mike had gone.

Allis opened the door of Lauzanne's stall, passed in, and searched in the straw for the lost glove.



X

The noise of strife in Diablo's box had increased. There came the sound of blows on the horse's ribs; a muttered oath, and suddenly a scream of terror from the boy, drowned in an instant by the ferocious battlecry of the enraged stallion. Mortimer, thirty yards away, heard it, and felt his heart stand still; he had never heard anything so demoniac in his life. He turned in such haste that his foot slipped on the frozen earth, and he fell heavily.

At the first sound of blows Allis had started angrily toward Diablo's box. She was at the door when Shandy's cry of terror rang out. For an instant the girl hesitated; what she saw was enough to make a strong man quail. The black stallion was loose; with crunching jaws he had fastened on the arm of Shandy, in the corner of the stall, and was trying to pull the boy down that he might trample him to death. But for a second she faltered; if ever quick action were needed, it was now.

"Back—back, Diablo! back!" she cried, as pushing past the black demon she brought her hunting-crop down with full force between his ears.

Whether it was the sound of his mistress's voice, or the staggering blow, Diablo dropped the boy like a crushed rat, and, half rearing, looked viciously at the brave girl.

"Quick! through the hay window!" commanded Allis, standing between Shandy and the horse, and drawing the whip back over her left shoulder, ready to give it to Diablo full in the throat should he charge again.

Cowed, the boy clambered through the opening. Enraged at the sight of his assailant's escape, the horse gave another scream of defiance and sought with striking forefeet and spread jaws to pull down this new enemy. Not until then had Allis thought of calling for help; her one idea had been for the boy's safety.

Like a flash the full peril of the situation dawned upon her; perhaps her life would be given for the boy who well deserved his punishment. She had seen two stallions fight, and knew that their ferocious natures, once roused, could only be quelled by a force stronger than she possessed. Yes, surely she would be killed-her young life trampled out by the frenzied animal. Incoherently but altogether these thoughts filled her mind; also the knowledge that Mike was beyond hearing.

"Help, Mortimer!" she called.

He heard it as he reached the stable door. Even then he would have been too late had not other rescue come more quickly.

In rushing from Lauzanne's stall Allis had left the door swinging on its hinges. At the first cry of defiance from the black stallion Lauzanne had stretched high his head and sent back, with curled nostril, an answering challenge. Then with ears cocked he had waited for a charge from his natural enemy. When the mingled call of his mistress and Diablo's bugle note came to him he waited no longer, but rushed across the passage and seized the black horse by the crest just as he was overpowering the girl.

It was at that instant Mortimer reached the scene—in his hand a stable fork he had grabbed as he raced down the passage. Even Lauzanne's attack, though it gave Allis a respite, would not have saved her life; the madly fighting horses would have kicked and trampled her to death.

"My God! Back, back, you devils!" And pushing, crowding, hugging the side of the stall, Mortimer fought his way to the girl.

Once Diablo's hoof shot out and the man's left arm, snapping like a pistol, dropped useless at his side. His brain reeled with the shock. The oddly swinging arm, dangling like a doll's, with the palm turned backward, seemed to fascinate him. Why was he there? What was he doing? Why was he hammering the horses over the head with a stable fork held tightly in his right hand? He hardly knew; his mind was clouded; he was fighting by instinct, and always crowding along the wall toward the farther corner. The girl had quite faded from his sight. Somehow he felt that he must drive the horses back, back, out of the stall.

Allis, too, was fighting; bringing the crop down with cutting force over the withers, neck, head, any part of the plunging mass in front of her. She could escape now through the opening where the boy had gone; but was not Mortimer in the same position she had been? She had seen him drop to his knees when Diablo lashed out; he must be sorely hurt; now he was reeling like a drunken man as he fought the mad brutes.

"This way," she panted, catching him by the coat, and pulling him toward the window.

Ah, that was it! He saw her now. It steadied his senses. It was the girl, and she had called him—"Mortimer!"

"Back," he yelled irrelevantly, in answer, cutting Diablo across the face with the fork. It was pandemonium.

"Get through the window!" the girl screamed in his ear. "Quick! Now!" and she pushed him toward it.

"You—first—back, you devils!" and he pressed away from her, closer to the horses, thrusting and striking with the steel-pointed fork.

The horses were giving way; Diablo was fighting half through the door, weakening before the onslaught of the powerful chestnut. Even in battle, as in a race, the stamina of the Lazzarone blood was telling; the bulldog courage of the strain was strong upon Lauzanne, now that he was roused.

"Quick! You can get out!" again called the girl.

"You first!"

This drear, repetition was the only expression Mortimer's numbed senses were equal to; but he fought with the ferocity of a tiger—his wound but enraged him.

They could both escape, Allis knew, if she could bring Mortimer to understand; but they must do it quick, if at all. It was useless. He seemed conscious of but the one idea that he must drive the fighting animals out into the passage to save her. She was not afraid now; the man's presence had driven that all away. It was useless to speak to him of the window, neither would go first; so, with her riding whip she fought side by side with Mortimer; springing back from the swift-cutting forefeet; sometimes even hugging close to the side of a horse as he lashed out from behind; and once saving her companion from being cut down by pulling him swiftly from under a raised foot. In the end the stallions were forced out into the passage, just as Mike came rushing upon the scene.

But the battle had waned. Twice Diablo had been pulled to his knees, forced down by the fierce strength that was Lauzanne's; the Black was all but conquered. The Trainer's voice checked Lauzanne's fury; even the boy had plucked up courage to return; and between them the Chestnut was driven into his stall. All the fight had been taken out of Diablo. He struggled to his feet, and stood trembling like a horse that had come out of a fierce cutting race. On his neck were the marks of Lauzanne's teeth, where they had snapped like the jaws of a trap; from his crest trickled a red stream that dripped to the floor like water from a running eave. All the fierce fire of hate had gone from his eyes. He hung his head dejectedly, and his flanks quivered. Lauzanne, too, bore evidence of the vicious strife. On one quarter, where Diablo's sharp hoof had ripped, was a cut as though he had been lashed with a sickle, and his withers were torn.

Mortimer and Allis had come out of the stall. The man, exhausted by the struggle, leaned wearily, with pale, drawn face, against the wall; the floor seemed slipping from under him; he felt a sensation of swiftly passing off into nothingness. He was sleepy, that was all; but a sleepiness to fight against—he must still fight.

"You are badly hurt." It was the girl's voice. He was almost surprised that he recognized it, everything was so confused. He answered heavily, "Yes, I'm—I'm—I want—to lie down."

"Here, lean on my shoulder." It was Mike's voice this time. "This is bad business," the Trainer was saying; "we must get him out of this; he's nearly knocked out. Are ye all right, Miss?" turning to Allis.

The wounded man turned guiltily; he had forgotten the girl. Yes, surely she had been in that hell of noises with him—fighting too.

"I'm just frightened, that's all," answered Allis. "Mr. Mortimer saved me."

Had he? he wondered. How had he come in there, anyway? His mind refused to work out the problem; his side was so sore.

"Yer arm's broke," said Mike, passing to Mortimer's right side. "Come, lean on me, sir. Can ye walk? I'll put ye in the buggy and drive ye to the house."

At the first step Mortimer staggered and swayed like a drunken man. In his side were many sharp things pulling him down like grappling irons; on his head was a great weight that crushed his feet into the hard planks; his knees gave under this load, and he would have fallen but for Mike's strong arm.

"I'm—afraid;" then he set his teeth hard, his voice had sought to end the sentence in a groan of anguish; the thing that was tearing at his side had whistled in his lungs.

Allis stepped forward swiftly, and passing her arm about his waist, helped Mike lead him to the door. Twice she put her left hand up and brushed tears from her eyes; the struggle had unnerved her. Very helplessly against her swayed the man she had laughed at half an hour before. And he had been crushed saving her! But that was not why the tears came—not at all. She was unstrung. "And he's got grit," she kept muttering to herself; "he has never even groaned."

Together they succeeded in getting him into the buggy; then, gently, Mike drove to the house.



XI

Mrs. Porter, reading a book on the veranda, heard the crunch of wheels as a buggy, slow-moving, turned into the drive. She raised her eyes leisurely, the matter of the story still in her mind; but with a quick cry of "John!" she sprang to her feet, the volume, left to itself, rustling from her lap to the floor. The mother eyes saw that something was wrong, and the mother heart felt that some evil had come to Allis. Mrs. Porter had gone white in an instant. Over her hung heavy at all times the dread of some terrible accident coming to Allis through the horses.

"Did you call, wife?" Porter asked as he came to the door. Then he sprang quickly across the veranda at sight of his wife's blanched face, and made to catch her in his arms. But she stopped him, pointing down the drive. "It's Allis, John; oh, my God!"

"No, no," he answered, "they're just coming back; here, sit down again, I'll see," and he raced down the steps just as Mike pulled up.

"What's the matter, girl?" he began.

"The young gentleman's got a bit shook up, sir; nothin' bad loike," Mike broke in hastily. The diplomatic rider, "nothin' bad," was added for Mrs. Porter's benefit, his quick eye having seen her white face.

"Miss Allis 's not hurt at all," he continued. "We'll help the young gintleman in, an' I'd best go for the docthor, I'm thinkin."

Even as he was speaking they had helped Mortimer from the rig. He had not uttered a sound; his teeth were set hard against the agony that was in his side, and the queer dizziness that was over him left little beyond a consciousness that he was being looked after, and that if he could only keep going for a little, just use his legs a trifle, he would presently be allowed to sleep. Yes, that was what he wanted; he was so drowsy. As he went up the steps between the two men, a haggard face peered at him over the rail. It was familiar; he felt that some recognition was due, for it was a woman's face. He tried to smile. Then he was on a bed, and—and—sleep at last.

When the three men with the silence of disaster over them passed struggling into the house, Mrs. Porter threw herself on Allis's neck, and a passion of tears flooded down and damped the girl's shoulder.

"God be thanked, God be thanked!" gasped the troubled woman, and one hand that was over the girl's shoulder patted her with erratic rapidity. Then she interrupted herself. "What am I saying—it's wicked, and Mr. Mortimer like that. But I can't help it—I can't help it. Oh, Allis! my heart was in my mouth; I feel that some day you will come home like this."

At that instant Gaynor dashed by them, leaped into the buggy, and called, as he drove off: "I'll have the docthor in a jiffy; the young man's all right!" He was still talking as the whirr of swift-rushing wheels smothered out his voice, and the dust rose like a steam-cloud, almost blotting him from the landscape.

"Oh, girl! I thought you'd been killed."

"Here, sit down, mother; you're all worked up," and Allis put a cool hand on her mother's hot forehead.

But the shock to her feelings had loosed the good woman's vocabulary. At all times smouldered in her heart a hatred of racing, even of the horses. "It's the anger of God," Mrs. Porter denounced vehemently. "This gambling and racing is contrary to His law. Never a night passes, Allis, that I do not pray to God that He may open your father's eyes to the sin of racing. No good can come of it—no good has ever come of it—nothing but disaster and trouble. In a day the substance of a year is wasted. There never can be prosperity living in sin."

"Hush, mother," crooned Allis, softly. This outburst from Mrs. Porter startled the girl; it was so passionate, so vehement. When they had talked of racing in the home life the mother had nearly always preserved a reproachful silence; her attitude was understood and respected.

"I must speak, girl," she said again; "this sinful life is crushing me. Do you think I feel no shame when I sit in meeting and hear our good minister denounce gambling and racing? I can feel his eyes on me, and I cannot raise my voice in protest, for do not I countenance it? My people were all church people," she continued, almost apologetically, "tolerating no sin in the household. Living in sin there can be no hope for eternal life."

"I know, mother," soothed the girl; "I know just how you feel, but we can't desert father. He does not look upon it as a sin, as carrying any dishonor; he may be cheated, but he cheats no man. It can't be so sinful if there is no evil intent. And listen, mother; no matter what anybody may say, even the minister, we must both stick to father if he chooses to race horses all his life."

"Ah, sweetheart!" John Porter cried out in a pleased voice, as he came out to them, "looking after mother; that's right. Cynthia has helped me fix up Mortimer. He'll be all right as soon as Mike gets back with Rathbone. I think we'd better have a cup of tea; these horses are trying on the nerves, aren't they, little woman?" and he nestled his wife's head against his side. "How did it happen, Allis? Did Mortimer slip into Diablo's box, or—"

"It was all over that rascally boy, Shandy. Diablo was just paying him back for his ill-treatment, and I went in to rescue him, and Mortimer risked his life to save mine."

"He was plucky; eh, girl?"

"He fought the Black like a hero, father. But, father, you must never think bad of Lauzanne again; if he hadn't come Mr. Mortimer would have been too late."

"It's dreadful, dreadful," moaned the mother.

Allis shot a quick look at her father. He changed the subject, and commenced talking about Alan—wondering where he was, and other irrelevant matters.

Then there was fresh divertisement as Mike rattled up, and Doctor Rathbone, who was of a great size, bustled in to where Mortimer lay.

Three smashed ribs and a broken arm was his inventory of the damage inflicted by Diablo's kick, when he came out again with Porter, in an hour.

"I'm afraid one of the splintered ribs is tickling his lung," he added, "but the fellow has got such a good nerve that I hardly discovered this unpleasant fact. He'll be all right, however; he's young, and healthy as a peach. Good nursing is the idea, and he'll get that here, of course. He doesn't want much medicine; that we keep for our enemies,—ha! ha!" and he laughed cheerily, as if it were all a joke on the battered man.

"Thim docthers is cold-blooded divils," was Mike's comment. "Ye'd a thought they'd been throwin' dice, an' it was a horse on the other gintleman. Bot' t'umbs! it was, too. Still, if ould Saw-bones had been in the box yonder wit' Diablo, he wouldn't a-felt so funny."

"Mortimer behaved well; didn't he, Mike?" asked Porter.

"Behaved well; is it? He was like a live divil; punched thim two big stallions till they took water an' backed out. My word! whin first I see him come to the stable wit' Miss Allis, thinks I, here's wan av thim city chumps; he made me tired. An' whin he talked about Lauzanne's knees, m'aning his hocks, I had to hide me head in a grain bag. But if ye'd seen him handle that fork, bastin' the Black, ye'd a thought it was single sticks he was at, wit' a thousand dollars fer a knock-out."

"One can't always tell how a colt will shape, can they, Mike?" spoke Porter, for Mike's fanciful description was almost bringing a smile to Mrs. Porter's troubled face.

"Ye can't, sor, an' yer next the trut' there. I've seen a herrin'-gutted weed av a two-year-old—I remember wan now; he was a Lexington. It was at Saratoga; an' bot' t'umbs! he just made hacks av iverythin' in soight—spread-eagled his field. Ye wouldn't a-give two dollars fer him, an' he come out an' cleaned up the Troy Stake, like the great horse he was."

"And you think Mortimer has turned out something like that; eh, Mike?"

"Well, fer a man that knows no more av horses than I know av the strology av stars, he's a hot wan, an' that's the God's trut'."

Mortimer's gallant act had roused the Irishman's admiration. He would have done as much himself, but that would have been expected of a horseman, constantly encountering danger; that an office man, to be pitied in his ignorance, should have fearlessly entered the stall with the fighting stallions was quite a different matter.

Even Allis, with her more highly developed sense of character analyzation, felt something of this same influence. She had needed some such manifestation of Mortimer's integral force, and this had come with romantic intensity in the tragic box-stall scene. This drama of the stable had aroused no polished rhetoric; Mortimer's declamation had been unconventional in the extreme. "Back, you devils!" he had rendered with explosive fierceness, oblivious of everything but that he must save the girl. The words still rang in the ears of Allis, and also the echo of her own cry when in peril, "Mortimer!" There must have been a foreshadowing in her soul of the man's reliability, though she knew it not.

Even without the doctor's orders, it was patent that Mortimer must remain at Ringwood for a few days.

It was as if Philip Crane, playing with all his intense subtlety, had met his master in Fate; the grim arbiter of man's ways had pushed forward a chessman to occupy a certain square on the board for a time.

Mortimer had been most decisively smashed up, but his immense physique had wonderful recuperative powers. The bone-setting and the attendant fever were discounted by his vitality, and his progress toward recovery, was marvelous.



XII

Crane heard of the accident on one of his visits to Brookfield a couple of days later, and of course must hurry to Ringwood to see his employee. It happened that the Reverend Mr. Dolman graced the Porter home with his presence the same evening that Crane was there.

Naturally the paramount subject of interest was the narrow escape of Miss Allis; but the individuality of discussion gradually merged into a crusade against racing, led by the zealous clergyman. John Porter viewed this trend with no little trepidation of feeling.

It was Mrs. Porter who precipitated matters by piously attributing Allis's escape to Providence.

"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly!" Mr. Dolman said, putting the points of his fingers together in front of his lean chest. He paused a moment, and Porter groaned inwardly; he knew that attitude. The fingers were rapiers, stilettos; presently their owner would thrust, with cutting phrase, proving that they were all indeed a very bad lot. Perhaps John Porter would have resented this angrily had he not felt that the Reverend Inquisitor was really honest in his beliefs, albeit intolerably narrow in his conclusions.

Dolman broke the temporary silence. "But we shouldn't tempt Providence by worshiping false images. Love of animals is commendable—commendable"—he emphasized this slight concession—"but race horses always appeal to me as instruments of the Evil One."

"It wasn't the horse's fault at all, Mr. Dolman," Allis interposed, "but just a depraved human's. It was the boy Shandy's fault."