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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Which one?" asked his companion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It looks good business for the Derby, Langdon."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Quite a feeler, Mister Jockey," thought Langdon to himself; "it's news you want, eh?" Then he answered aloud, with a diplomacy born of many years of turf tuition: "Fairish sort of time; it might have been better, perhaps—a shade under two-twelve. I thought they might have bettered that a couple of seconds. But they'll come on—they'll come on, both of them. If anybody asks you, Westley, The Dutchman was beaten off, see? I don't like to discourage the clever owners that has good 'uns in the Derby" Then he added as a sort of after thought, and with wondrous carelessness:

"It doesn't matter about the Black, you know; he's only a sellin' plater, so it doesn't matter. But all the same, Westley, when we find a soft spot for him, an over-night sellin' purse or somethin, you'll have the leg up, with a bet down for you at a long price, see?"

"I understand, sir."

By the time Langdon had slipped the saddle from Diablo's back the boy had thrown a hooded blanket over him, and he was led away. "Send them home, Westley. Now, Mr. Crane, we'll drive back to the house an' have a bit of lunch."

As they drove along Crane brought up the subject of the trial.

"The colt must be extra good, Langdon, or the Black is—well, as he was represented to be, not much account."

"I guess Diablo's about good enough to win a big handicap, if he happened to be in one at a light weight."

"He didn't win to-day."

"He came pretty near it."

"But where would he have been carrying his proper weight?"

"About where he was, I guess."

"You said as a four-year-old he should have had up a hundred and twenty-six, and he carried a hundred and twelve; and, besides, had the best boy by seven pounds on his back."

"Just pass me that saddle, Mr. Crane," said Langdon, by way of answer. "No; not that—the one I took off Diablo."

Crane reached down his hand, but the saddle didn't come quite as freely as it should have. "What's it caught in?" he asked, fretfully.

"In itself, I reckon—lift it." "Gad! it's heavy. Did Diablo carry that? What's in it?"

"Lead-built into it; it's my old fiddle, you know. You're the first man that's had his hand on that saddle for some time, I can tell you."

"Then Diablo did carry his full weight," commented Crane, a light breaking in upon him.

"Just about, and carried it like a stake horse, too."

"And you—"

"Yes; I changed the saddles after Westley weighed. He's a good boy, and don't shoot off his mouth much, but all the same things will out while ridin' boys have the power of speech."

"It looks as though Diablo had something in him," said Crane, meditatively.

"He's got the Brooklyn in him. Fancy The Dutchman in at seventy pounds; that's what it comes to. Diablo's got ninety to carry, an' he gave the other twenty pounds to-day. You've got the greatest thing on earth right in your hands now—"

Langdon hesitated for a minute, and then added: "But I guess you knew this all before, or you wouldn't have sent him here."

"I bought him for a bad horse," answered Crane, quietly; "but if he turns out well, that's so much to the good. But it's a bit of luck Porter's not having declared him out to save nearly a hundred. He seems to have raced pretty loose."

"I wonder if he thinks I'm taking in that fairy tale?" thought Langdon. Aloud, he said: "But you'll back him now, sir, won't you? He must be a long price in the winter books."

"Yes; I'll arrange that," answered the other, "and I'll take care of you, too. I suppose Westley will take the mount?"

"Surely."

"Well, you can just give him to understand that he'll be looked after if the horse wins."

"It's the Brooklyn, sir, is it?"

"Seems like it."

"I won't say anything about the race to Westley, though."

"I'll leave all that to you. I'll attend to getting the money on; you do the rest."

When Crane had gone, Langdon paid further mental tribute to his master's astuteness. "Now I see it all," he muttered; "the old man just thought to keep me quiet; throw me of the scent till he duplicated the other trial, whenever they pulled it off. Now he's got a sure line on the Black, an' he'll make such a killin' that the books'll remember him for many a day. But why does he keep throwin' that fairy tale into me about buyin' a bad horse to oblige somebody? A man would be a sucker to believe that of Crane; he's not the sort. But one sure thing, he said he'd look after me, an' he will. He'd break a man quick enough, but when he gives his word it stands. Mr. Jakey Faust can look after himself: I'm not goin' to take chances of losin' a big stable of bread-winners by doublin' on the Boss."

Langdon's mental analysis of Crane's motives was the outcome of considerable experience. The Banker's past life was not compatible with generous dealing. His act of buying Diablo had been prompted by newborn feelings of regard for the Porters, chiefly Allis; but no man, much less Langdon, would have given him credit for other than the most selfish motives.

True to his resolve, Langdon utterly refused to share his confidences with Jakey Faust.

"We've tried the horses," he said, "and the Dutchman won, but Crane knows more about the whole business than I do. You go to him, Jake, or wait till he sends for you, an' you'll find out all about it. My game's to run straight with one man, anyway, an' I'm goin' to do it."

That was all Faust could learn. When an occasion offered he slipped a ten-dollar note into Shandy's hand, for he knew the lad was full open to a bribe, but Shandy knew no more than did the Bookmaker. The Dutchman, had won the trial from the Black quite easily, was the extent of his knowledge. As to Diablo himself, Shandy gave him a very bad character indeed.



XXI

Faust was in a quandary. First Crane had confided in him over Diablo, but now his silence seemed to indicate that he meant to have this good thing all to himself.

Then Langdon had promised to cooperate, now he, too, had closed up like a clam; he was as mute as an oyster.

"Crane is dealin' the cards all the time," thought Faust; "but there's some game on, sure."

He determined to back Diablo for himself at the long odds, and chance it.

Two days later Crane received a very illiterate epistle, evidently from a stable-boy; it was unsigned:

"DERE Boss, Yous is gittin it in the neck. de big blak hors he didn't carre the sadel you think the blak hors had on his bak. Yous got de duble cros that time. Der bokie hes axin me wot de blak is good fer der bokie is playin fer to trow yous downe.

"No moar at presen."

This was the wholly ambiguous communication that Crane had found under his door. There was no stamp, neither place nor date written in the letter; nothing but an evident warning from some one, who, no doubt, hoped to get into his good graces by putting him on his guard.

As it happened, Crane had just made up his mind to make his plunge on Diablo while the odds were long enough to make it possible with the outlay of very little capital. He smoked a heavy Manuel Garcia over this new contingency. It did not matter about the saddles. Langdon had confided in him fully. But how had the writer of the ill-spelled missive known of that matter?

Yes, he had better make his bet before these whisperings came to other ears.

But the bookmaker mentioned? That must be Faust. Why was he prowling about among stable lads?

He sent for Faust. When the latter had come, Crane asked Diablo's price for the Brooklyn.

"It's thirty to one now," replied the Bookmaker; "somebody's backin' him."

Faust's small baby eyes were fixed furtively on Crane's pale, sallow face, as he imparted this information; but he might as well have studied the ingrain paper on the wall; its unfigured surface was not more placid, more devoid of indication, than the smooth countenance he was searching.

Crane remained tantalizingly silent for a full minute; evidently his thoughts had drifted away to some other subject.

"Yes," said Faust, speaking again to break the trying quiet, "some one's nibblin' at Diablo in the books. I wonder if it's Porter; did he think him a good horse?"

"It can't be Porter, nor any one else who knows Diablo. It's some foolish outsider, tempted by the long odds. I suppose, however, it doesn't matter; in fact, it's all the better. You took that five thousand to fifty for me, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, just lay it off. You can do so now at a profit."

"You don't want to back Diablo, then? Shall I lay against him further?"

"If you like—in your own book. I don't want to have anything to do with him, one way or the other. I always thought he was a bad horse, and—and—well, never mind, just lay that bet off. I shall probably want to back The Dutchman again shortly."

When Faust had gone, Crane opened the little drawer which held his betting book, took it out, and drew a pencil through the entry he had made opposite Allis's name.

"That's off for a few days, thanks to Mr. Faust," he thought. Then he ran his eye back over several other entries. "Ah, that's the man—Hummel; he'll do."

Next he consulted his telephone book; tracing his finger down the "H" column he came to "Ike Hummel, commission broker, Madison 71184."

Over the 'phone he made an appointment for the next day at eleven o'clock with Hummel; and the result of that interview was that Crane backed Diablo to win him a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars at the liberal odds of seventy-five to one; for Jakey Faust, feeling that he had made a mistake in backing the Black, had laid off all his own bets and sent the horse back in the market to the longer odds. Crane had completely thrown him of his guard.

No sooner had Faust congratulated himself upon having slipped out of his Diablo bets than he heard that a big commission had been most skillfully worked on this outsider for the Brooklyn. In his new dilemma he went to Crane, feeling very much at sea.

"They're backin' your horse again, sir," he said.

"Are they?"

"Yes; heavy."

"If he's worth backing at all I suppose he's worth backing heavily."

This aphorism seemed to merit a new cigar on Crane's part, so he lighted one.

"He's travelin' up and down in the market," continues Faust. "He dropped to thirty, then went back to seventy-five; now he's at twenty; I can't make it out."

"I shouldn't try," advised Crane, soothingly. "Too much knowledge is even as great a danger as a lesser amount sometimes."

Faust started guiltily and looked with quick inquiry at the speaker, but, as usual, there was nothing in his presence beyond the words to hang a conjecture on.

"I thought for your sake that I'd better find out."

"Oh, don't worry about me; that is, too much, you know. I go down to Gravesend once in a while myself, and no doubt know all that's doing."

A great fear fell upon Faust. Evidently this was an intimation to him to keep away from the stables. How did Crane know—who had split on him? Was it Langdon, or Shandy, or Colley? Some one had evidently aroused Crane's suspicion, and this man of a great cleverness had put him away while he worked a big commission through some one else. The thought was none the less bitter to Faust that it was all his own fault; his super-cleverness.

"An' you don't want me to work a commission for you on Diablo?" he asked, desperately.

"No; I sha'n't bet on him at present. And say, Faust, in future when I want you to do any betting on my horses, on my account, you know, I'll tell you. Understand? You needn't worry, that is—other people. I'll tell you myself."

"I didn't mean—" Faust had started to try a plausible explanation, but Crane stopped him.

"Never mind; the matter is closed out now."

"But, sir," persisted Faust, "if you've got your money all on, can I take a bit now? Is it good business? We've worked together a good deal without misunderstanding before."

"Yes, we have," commented Crane.

"Yes; an' I'd like to be in on this now. I didn't mean to forestall you."

Crane raised his hand in an attitude of supplication for the other man to desist, but Faust was not to be stopped.

"I made a mistake, an' I'm sorry; an' if you will tell me whether Diablo's good business for the Brooklyn, I'll back him now at the shorter price. There's no use of us bein' bad friends."

"I think Diablo's a fairly good bet," said Crane, quietly, entirely ignoring the question of friendship.

"It won't be poachin' if I have a bet, then?" asked the Cherub, more solicitous than he had appeared at an earlier stage of the game.

"Poachers don't worry me," remarked Diablo's owner. "I'm my own game keeper, and they usually get the worst of it. But you go ahead and have your bet."

"Thank you, there won't be no more bad breaks made by me; but I didn't mean to give you none the worst of it. Good day, sir," and he was gone.

"Faust has had his lesson," thought Crane, as he took from a drawer the stable-boy's ill-favored note.

"I wonder who sent me this scrawl? It gave me a pointer, though. I suppose the writer will turn up for his reward; but the devil of it is he'll sell information of this sort to anyone who'll buy. Must weed him out when I've discovered the imp. At any rate Faust will go straight, now he's been scorched. I'll just re-enter that bet to the Little Woman while I think of it. 'Three thousand seven hundred and fifty to fifty, Diablo for the Brooklyn, laid to Miss Allis Porter.'" Then he dated it. "She loses by this transaction, but that won't matter; it will be a pretty good win if it comes off. She may even refuse this, though she shouldn't, for it's a part of the bargain that I was to have a bet on for her, a small bet, of course. Yes, yes; I remember, a small bet. But this is a small bet. There was nothing said about the size of the winnings. She was probably thinking of gloves. Jingo, she has a lovely hand, I've noticed it; long slim fingers, even the palm is long; sinewy I'll warrant; nothing pudgy about that hand. Hey, Crane, you're silly!" he cried, half audibly, taking himself to task; "doing business in big moneys—a cool seventy-five thousand, if it materializes, perhaps even more—and then slipping off into a mooney dream, vaporing about a girl's slim hand. I suppose that's the love symptom. But at forty! it's hardly my normal condition, I fancy."

The slim hand beckoned him off into a disjointed reverie. Was he the better for it? What would the end be? Before the new emotion he could look back upon his past struggles with sordid satisfaction. Men in battle were not given to uneasy qualms of compunction, nor questionings as to the method that had led to victory. His life had been one long-drawn-out battle; the financial soldiers that had fallen by the wayside because of his sword play did not interest him; they were dead; being dead, their memory harrassed him not at all. If there were commercial blood stains upon his hand, they were hidden by the glove of success. After a manner he had had peace; now all was disquiet; the turmoil of an awakened gentler feeling clashing with the polemics of self-satisfying selfishness. And all because of a girl! To him that was the peculiar feature of the disturbance in his nature. He, Philip Crane, the strong man of strong men, to be shorn of his indifference to everything but success by a girl unskilled in managing anything but a horse.

"It's all very fine to argue it out with one's self," he thought, "but I simply can't help it." He was astonished to find that he was pacing up and down the floor of his apartment. Undoubtedly he was possessed of a tremendous regard for the girl Allis. But why not put it from him; why not conquer himself as he had always done? To let it master him meant the giving up of things that were almost second nature. He could not love the girl as a good woman should be loved, and—and—well, the gray eyes that had their strength because of supreme honesty would surely bring him disquietude. It would indeed be difficult to change his nature much; his habits were almost like leopard's spots; they were grown into the woof of his existence. Even if he won her it must be almost entirely because of a superior diplomacy. Everything told him that his love was not returned. It seemed almost impossible that it should be; there was not more disparity in their years than in their two selves. "All very fine again," he muttered, somewhat savagely; "I want her, I want her, not because of anything but love. What she is, or what I am counts for nothing; love is all compelling; my first master, I salute thee," this in sarcastic sincerity.

In his strength he relied upon his power to bring forth an answering love, at least regard, should he win Allis. Yes, it would surely come. He had not even a young rival to combat. Yes, he would win, first Allis, and afterward her love.

"I'm quite silly," he ejaculated; "but I can't help it. But I can go out and get some fresh air, and I will."



XXII

It was the middle of May. Down in the earth the strong heart of reawakened nature throbbed with a pulsating force that sent new life forth on its errand of rejuvenation. The apple trees had peeped out with pink eyes, and seeing the summer maiden stalking through the land, had thrown off their timid coyness and shaken loose a drapery of white, all rose-tinted and green-shaded, that turned their broad-acred homes into fairy ball rooms. And for music the bees, and the birds, and shrill fife-playing frogs volunteered out of sheer joyousness of life.

Tiny shavings of green wag, the gentle spring grass, lay strewn about the ballroom floor, and glistened in the warm light that was of one high-hung chandelier, the sun.

But all the newborn awakening, all the sweet strength of soul and life that was borne to the waiting land on the wings of soft winds, brought not the hoped-for allotment to John Porter.

At Ringwood they had waited for the springtime. That would work the cure the doctor's skill had failed of. A man of outdoors, it was the house caging that was killing him, keeping him back.

These things were said; but Doctor Rathbone only shook his wise, old head, with its world of good sense, and answered: "It is none of these things. The trouble is in his mind; he is fretting. A sensitive man, well in body, may be brought to illness by anticipated disaster. That could not have been the case with John Porter well, but John Porter ill is quite a different matter. It's as I have said before, give him hope, win him races."

So Allis was really glad at the near approach of the time of her trial. The day was coming fast, soon, when She was to go forth with her little band of horses, as a man almost in everything, to strive for the fulfillment of that which had been put upon her.

The nearness of the not-to-be-shirked responsibility drove into her veins an unlooked-for exhilaration of strength. She had thought that she would look with dread upon the going away from Ringwood; that a feeling much akin to stage fright would quite unnerve her at the very last. The riding at home, the horse lore, and the almost constant companionship with her father, always among horses and horsemen, though it appeared somewhat dreadful to the village folks had been as nothing to her. Now that she needed strength for the newer, stranger endeavor, it came to her, even as the blossoms came to the swaying apple trees, great and small.

What wouldn't she do? she asked herself many times, to bring a strength-giving peace to her father's troubled mind. Even Mrs. Porter, implacably bitter against racing, must condone what was so evidently Allis's study, if it tended to their happiness; the mother had softened somewhat in the austerity of her opposition.

Evening after evening they had discussed the gloomy outlook, with, always from Allis's side, a glimmer of hopeful light. The girl's patient resolve had worn down the mother's pessimistic dread of anticipated evil.

"You know, Allis," she had said, "how I look upon this thoroughly unchristian pursuit. Nothing can justify it from a true woman's point of view, absolutely nothing—not even poverty. I would willingly suffer the loss of all we possess—that it is so little is due to this dreadful, immoral horse racing—but I would sacrifice even what remains, if your father were well and willing to start afresh in some occupation befitting his noble character. I would help him, to endure every hardship, even deprivation, without a murmur."

"But, mother," interrupted Allis, "it's impossible now; I think it always was, for, as you know, father knew nothing of other business. Nothing would tempt him to be dishonest in racing, and he always enjoyed it because of his love for horses. But with all that, mother, if he had been in a position to please you, if he had felt that we—you, and Alan, and I—would not have suffered, I am sure he would have listened to your pleadings and given it up. He might perhaps have gone on breeding horses, for you wouldn't have objected to that, would you, mother?"

"No, it's the wicked associations of the race course which I felt degraded a man of your father's character. But I'm not going to dishearten you, Allis, nor hamper you now in your brave acceptance of the task that has come to you, because of wrong done before. It is distasteful to me, of course; it would be to any right-minded mother, to have her daughter in a position so repellant; but, strange as it may seem I'd rather you went with the horses than Alan."

"Alan couldn't go, mother; he couldn't give up his place in the bank; besides, father has purposely kept him from racing."

"I know it, Allis; I wasn't thinking of that, though. Alan has the gambling spirit born in him; it's not his fault; it's the visitation of the sins of the father upon the son. It came to your father in just the same way. No, I'm not even blaming your father for it; it has come down from generation to generation; but there has never been dishonor, thank God—there has never been a dishonest Porter in my husband's family, and, please God, there never may be. That would be too much! It would kill me. And it's better that you go, Allis, for Alan is but a boy, and the temptations to a young man at the race course must be almost impossible to resist. Besides, your going may bring new life to your father; the doctor is so hopeful—he says it will. He was afraid that he had shocked me, when he said you were to win races for your father's good. It displeased the pastor; I know it did, but perhaps he doesn't quite understand how much we have at stake."

"He's so narrow, mother."

"The Reverend Mr. Dolman thinks only of our souls, daughter; naturally, too, and one can hardly be a Christian and race horses. But we have got so much to consider. I hope I am not wrong in feeling glad that you are able to look after our interests. I should like to pray for your success even, Allis. It might be wrong; I might feel guilty; but if it makes your father better, don't you think I'd be forgiven?"

"I'm sure you would, mother, and it would make me stronger. I'm so glad. I didn't want to displease you. I wanted you to feel that I was doing right. It will be lighter now; I sha'n't mind what anybody says if you're with me, mother. Now everything will come out right; I know it will. And if it does, if father gets strong, just out of thankfulness, I'll coax him to try something else, for your sake, mother."

"No, for his own, Allis. I think only of him in this matter." The prospective commencement of the racing campaign seemed to foreshadow a complete fulfillment of the doctor's prophecy should success smile upon this modern Joan of Arc; for the bustle of preparation was music to the ears of the stricken man, and he fought the lethargic fever of discontent that was over him until his eyes brightened and his face took on a hopeful look of interest.

"Brave little woman," he said to Allis, "it's a shame for a great hulk as I am to lie up here, while you fight the sharks that were almost too much for your father."

Then he spoke a little lower, as a man utters unfamiliar words for the first time. "Your mother said that Providence would look after you. Sounds strange, doesn't it, girl? But I'm glad. Your mother was so bitter—I don't blame her—now she's turned right around. And, Allis, I believe with a little tempting, a little coaxing, she'd almost have a bet on Lucretia in your hands. Funny, isn't it?" And he gave a little chuckle.

Allis hadn't heard her father laugh for a long time. It wasn't much of a laugh, very dry, and very short lived, hardly lighting up his face at all, but still it was the feeble pulsation of humor which showed that the old John Porter spirit was not quite broken.

"About the betting, Allis, you must have Dixon come down here to see me, for the horses are to go to his stable again, aren't they?"

"Yes, father."

"That's right. I thought we had arranged it that way, but I seem to forget things since that bad tumble."

"You don't forget much now, father; you're getting stronger in every way."

"Blarney, girl. But I don't mind; your blarney is like the sunshine, that comes through the window every day at ten. Ah, I know to the very minute when to look for it. But about Dixon. Have him come down, for we must arrange to back Lucretia—she's worth it. She's been doing well, hasn't she, girl? O God! why can't I go out into the open and see the little mare do just one gallop? And then I'd like to sit and look at the trees sway back and forth in the wind. Their swing is like the free gallop of a good horse."

He dropped the brief, fretful remonstrance against fate with an apologetic turning away of his head, and continued about the Trainer.

"Lucretia's in the Brooklyn, Allis; you know that, of course. If Dixon starts her, the stake alone will be about enough to run for, for a three-year-old has a tough job ahead in that mob of picked horses. But you'll get a line on her there—I think she'll win with ninety-two pounds up; but if she shows good form, then she'll have to be backed for the Brooklyn Derby. Lucretia's the best three-year-old in the land, I know. We'll have to arrange for that money. There will be a couple of thousand to be had if it seems safe business. You and Dixon will judge of that. You're taking Lauzanne, girl. Is it worth while?"

"Lauzanne is going to do great things for us, father. I'm sure of it."

"Still young, Allis. I talked like that when I was your age. Fancy and horse racing go arm in arm always, and they're like an experienced man of forty hobnobbing with the little love god; they're just about as well mated."

Porter's irrelevant simile caused Allis to start, and Crane's relentless eyes came and peeped at her through the narrow-slitted lids.

"All right, though, little girl; your faith may make Lauzanne win, and I think Lucretia's speed will carry her to the front, so you may strike a bit of luck at last."



XXIII

A few days later Mike Gaynor took the stable up to Gravesend. Dixon had a cottage there, which he occupied with his wife, and Allis was to stop with them.

On the 20th of May the horses were settled in their racing quarters. Only four days remained for introducing Lucretia to the Gravesend track; on the 24th she would take up her ninety-two pounds and be tested to the utmost in the great Brooklyn Handicap.

Dixon felt that several things were in her favor. She was as quiet as an old cow at the post; many false starts would improve rather than diminish her chances, for nothing seemed to excite the gallant little brown mare. Her great burst of speed would enable the jockey to get out of the ruck and steal a good place to lie handy at the leader's heels. She could be nursed to the last furlong of the stretch, for the sight of horses in front would not daunt her brave spirit.

Against the mare were two or three rather important factors; she was slight of build, not overstrong, and the crush of contending horses might knock her out of her stride, should they close in. Then there was just a suspicion of lack of staying power in the Assassin strain; Lucretia might not quite last the mile and a quarter so early in the season, being a mare. However, she had a chance.

"But I'd hardly call it a betting chance," Dixon said, speaking to Allis; "there's never been a three-year-old won the Brooklyn yet. There'll be openings enough to put down the money later on—in the Derby, if the mare pans out well."

Andy Dixon was first of all 'a careful man. "There are risks enough in racin' without lookin' for them," he said. "When one has got an absolute lead-pipe cinch, it's two to one against its coming off." That was another of his conservative aphorisms.

Andy made no big wins, had never been booked as a successful plunger, had never skinned the ring; on the other hand, bringing the scales of equity to a dead level, he had never been forced to ask any man to pay his feed bills for him, nor let an account stand over for a time.

Allis was in good hands, and, what added to the value of the situation, she knew it, and would take Dixon's advice. The Trainer's opinion was borne out by the betting market; Lucretia stood a long way down in the list. Even Diablo, bad horse as he was supposed to be, was at a shorter price; the heavy outlay of his owner, and some intangible rumors having caused the bookmakers to feel inclined to hold him close up against their chests. His work since his trial with The Dutchman had been quite satisfactory. He looked upon Westley, the jockey, as a friend, and strode along in his gallops as though he had never sulked or shown temper in his life.

Favoritism for the Brooklyn was divided between The King, a five-year-old that had won it the year before, and White Moth, a three-year-old, winner of the last year's Futurity. Jockey Redpath had been riding Lucretia in her gallops since she had come to Gravesend. At last Dixon had been singularly fortunate in the matter of jockeys. Redpath was just making his reputation, making it as all jockey reputations are made, by winning races.

This somewhat unstudied factor in racing had loomed large on his mental vision. It might be possible to acquire a reputation in other professions by good fortune or favor. As a jockey, a light weight might possibly make money by dishonest methods, though that itself seemed doubtful, but there was no way to rise to the top of the tree except by riding winners; verily there was one royal road to fame in the field. Knowing all this, Redpath rode to win.

On the 22d Dixon gave Lucretia a good strong three-quarter gallop over the handicap course; on the 23d she had a quiet canter; and on the morning of the 24th, the eventful day, she poked her mouse-brown nozzle over the bar of her stall when Allis came to look at her and seemed to say, "I'll do my part to-day."

Nothing could have been wished for in Lucretia's appearance that wasn't there, except just the faint suspicion of a sacrifice of strength to speed. But if the frame wasn't there, the good strong heart was; the courage and the gentleness, and the wisdom, and the full glow of perfect health.

For hours the trains had borne to Long Island crowd after crowd of eager, impatient New Yorkers. Lovers of horses, lovers of gambling, pure and simple; holiday makers, and those who wished to see the Brooklyn run out of sheer curiosity; train after train whirled these atoms of humanity to the huge gates of the Gravesend arena, wherein were to battle that day the picked thoroughbreds, old and young.

Even like bees, black-coated and buzzing, the eager ones swarmed from the cars and rehived in the great stand. Betting ring, and paddock, and lawn became alive because of their buzz; tier after tier, from step to roof, the serrated line of whitefaced humanity waited for the grand struggle.

The first race was but a race, that was all. Horses galloped, but did they not gallop other days? It was not the Brooklyn. And also the second was but another race. How slow, and of what little interest were the horses! Verily, neither was it the Brooklyn, and it was the Brooklyn forty thousand pairs of eyes had come to see.

Down in the betting ring men of strong voices bellowed words of money odds, and full-muscled shoulders pushed and carried heads about that were intent on financial businesses. But what of that? It was not the Brooklyn, it was gambling.

Out in the paddock a small brown mare of gentle aspect, with big soft eyes, full of a dreamy memory of fresh-shooting grass, walked with easy stride an elliptical circle. Her fetlocks fair kissed the short grass in an unstable manner, as though the joints were all too supple. Inside of the circle stood Allis Porter and a man square of jaw and square of shoulder, that was Andy Dixon. Presently to them came Mike Gaynor.

"We're gittin' next it now, Miss Allis; we'll soon know all about it."

"We're all ready, Mike," said Dixon, with square solemnity. "When they've beat the little mare they'll be catchin' the judge's eye."

"There's nothing left now, Mike, but just a hope for a little luck," added the girl.

"Ye'r talking now, Miss Allis. Luck's the trick from this out. The little mare'll have a straight run this trip. Here's the b'y comin' now, and a good b'y he is."

A little man in blue jacket and white stars joined them, saluting Miss Allis with his riding whip. "Are you going to win, Redpath?" asked the girl.

"I'm going to try, Miss. She's a sweet mare to ride, but it's a big field. There's some boys riding that ought to be in the stable rubbing horses."

"You'll have to get out in front," said Dixon, speaking low; "your mare's too light to stand crowdin', an' even if you have to take her back for a breather after you've gone half the journey, she'll come again, for she's game."

"Them Langdon fellows thinks they've got a great chance wit' our cast-off, Diablo," volunteered Mike. "I had a peep at him in the stall, an' he's lookin' purty fit."

"He never was no class," objected Dixon.

"If ye'd see him gallop the day he run away, ye'd think he had class," said Mike. "Bot' tumbs up! ye'd a t'ought it was the flyin' Salvator."

"Well, we'll soon know all about it," declared Dixon. "There's the saddlin' bell. Have you weighed out, Redpath? Weight all right, ninety-two pounds?"

"All right, sir. It was a close call to make it, though; there was a few ounces over."

"All the better; it's a hot day, an' if they're long at the post it'll take them spare ounces out of you, I fancy."

Dixon held up his finger to the boy that was leading Lucretia, and nodding his head toward the stall led the way.

"We're number seven, Mike," said Allis, looking at the leather tag which carried the figure on Jockey Redpath's right arm.

"'There's luck in odd numbers, said Rory O'Moore,'" quoted Mike.

"I've a superstitious dread of seven," the girl said; "it's the one number that I always associate with disaster—I don't mind thirteen a bit."

"We'll break the bad luck seven to-day," asserted little Redpath, bravely.

"I hope so," answered Allis. "Let me put my finger on the number for good luck," and she touched the badge on his arm. "Now I'm going up to get a good seat in the stand," she continued; "I'll leave Lucretia to you, Redpath."



XXIV

As the slight figure, looking slighter still in a long trailing race coat, passed through the paddock gate to the stand enclosure, Mike Gaynor spoke to the jockey.

"Redpath, me b'y, it's up to ye to put yer best leg for'ard to-day. Ye'r ridin' for the greatest little woman in this big country. In all the stand up there, wit' their flounces and jewels, there isn't a lady like her. Not wan av them judys kin touch her as a rale proper lady. God bless me, she's de sweetest—" then he checked himself; he was going to say the sweetest filly, but even to his rough-hewn mind, tutored only by horse lore, it seemed sacrilege to speak of Miss Porter as anything but a lady.

"You're right, Mike," concurred the little man; "I'd rather ride the mare for her than White Moth, or The King, or any of the favorites for their owners."

"An' the ould man lyin' there at home on his back, eh, Redpath? He's as good as gold hisself; that's where the girl gets it; not sayin' a word ag'in Mrs. Porter; she don't understand, that's all. But ye'll put up the ride of your life, me b'y, won't ye?"

"I'll do that, old chap."

"Mike'll stand by ye," affirmed Gaynor. "Say, b'y," and he turned and looked squarely into the eyes of the little man, "I know if they beats ye to-day, 'twon't be yer fault 'cause why?"—and he put his hand on Redpath's shoulder-="'cause ye'r like many another man, sweet on the young Missis. Now, now, now stop that!" and he held up his finger warningly, as the other raised his voice in mild protest; "it's to yer credit. It'll do ye no good in wan way, av coorse, for, as ye say, she'll never know it." Redpath had not made the statement Mike attributed to him, but the latter was giving him a kindly pointer. "But it'll do ye no harm. The likin' av a good woman will sometimes make a man av a scoundrel, but ye'r a long way from bein' that, me b'y; so it'll do ye tons av good. There's the bugle; go an' mount, an' I'll watch how ye get on; an' good luck to ye."

Regally, one after another, in stately file, the turf kings, decked out with the silken jackets that rested a-top—crimson, and gold, and blue, and white, and magpie, passed through the paddock gate to the newly smoothed course. Very modest and demure number seven, the little brown mare, looked beside the strong-muscled giants, bright bay, golden chestnut, and raven-wing black, that overshadowed her in the procession that caught the forty thousand pairs of eyes. Something of this thought came to Allis, sitting in the stand. What a frail little pair they were, both of them, and to be there battling for this rich prize that was so hardly fought for, by strong men athirst for gold, and great horses a-keen for the gallop!

Ah, there was Diablo, the very number Allis had said carried no dread for her, thirteen. What a strange coincidence! What a cruel twist of fate it would be if he were to win!—he looked equal to it. A man sitting at Allis's elbow suddenly cried in a voice enthused into the joyous treble of a boy's: "Look at that big Black; isn't he a beaut? Number thirteen. That's a hoodoo number, if you like; it's enough to give a backer cold feet."

"I thought you weren't superstitious, Rex;" this was a woman's voice.

"I'm not, an' I'm going straight down to back that Black, thirteen and all."

On Allis's other side one of the party was ticking off the horses by their numbers as they passed; "One, two, that's White Moth; they say she'll win; three, Red Rover; four, what's that? that's George L.; five, six, seven; just look at that little runt. What is it? Oh, Lucretia. Might as well run a big calf, I should think."

"She's just lovely," declared a lady in the party. "She's as graceful as a deer, and I'm sure she'll run as fast as any of them."

"Can't live in that mob; they'll smother a little thing like her," declared the man, emphatically. "Where are we—ten, eleven, The King, that's the winner for a hundred. Look at him. He carries my money. It's all over now; they can't beat him. That's a fine looker, though, thirteen,—Diabo, eh? What's that horse Diablo, George?" turning to one of the men.

"No good—a maiden; I looked them all up in the dope book; how they expect to win the Brooklyn with a maiden gets beyond me."

Somewhat tortured, Allis listened to the voluble man on her left, who was short and fat, and red of face, as he graded, with egotistical self-sufficiency, the thirteen competitors for the big Handicap. Lucretia he had passed over in disdain. Crude as his judgment seemed, arrogantly insufficient, it affected Allis disagreeably. Now that everything had been done, that the last minute of suspense was on, she was depressed. The exhilaration of preparation had gone from her, and the words of the captious man on her left, "that little runt," hung with persistent heaviness on her soul. All the vast theater of the stand was a buzz of eager chatter. Verily it was a race; it was the Brooklyn Handicap. Lips that smiled gave a mocking lie to drawn, strained faces, and nervous, shifting eyes, that told of the acceptance of too deep a hazard. The weeks and months of mental speculation embodied in heavy bets would have their fruit ripened and plucked within a brief half hour.

Allis's gaze dropped to the grass lawn in front of the stand for a minute, her eyes seeking repose from the strain of watching the horses as they went down to the starting post. How fretfully erratic were the men who dotted its green sward with gray and solemn black! The deeper interest Allis had over there on the course where was the little mare, seemed to lift her to a great height above them. How like ants they were, crossing and recrossing each other's paths, twisting and turning without semblance of an objective point, creatures of an impulse almost lower than instinct, devoid of this well-directed governing motive. Yes, they were like an army of ants that had been suddenly thrown into confusion. She saw one of them come hurriedly out of the paddock, talking impetuously with bended head—for he was tall—to a short man in gray tweed, beyond doubt a trainer. Suddenly the tall man broke away, hurried to the rail which separated the lawn from the course, leaned far over its top to take a last look at the horses, and then with a queer shuffling trot he hurried to the mob that was surging and pushing about the bookmakers. Allis noted with minute observance each little act in this pantomime of the last-minute plunge. Just beneath where she sat two men were having a most energetic duel of words. A slim, darkskinned youth, across whose fox-like face was written in large letters the word "Tout," was hammering into his obdurate companion the impossibility of some certain horse being defeated. Presently the other man's hand went into his pocket, and when it came forth again five ten-dollar bills were counted with nervous reluctance and hesitatingly made over to the Tout. Tight clutching his prize this pilot of the race course slipped from Allis's sight and became lost in the animated mass that heaved and swayed like full-topped grain in a harvest breeze.

Within all that enclosure there seemed no one possessed of any calm. To the quiet girl it was a strange revelation; no one could have as much at stake as she had, and yet over her spirit there was nothing beyond the lethargy of depression. No; no one is calm, she thought. Ah, the assertion was too sweeping. Coming up the steps, just at her right, was a man who might have been walking in a quiet meadow, or a full-leafed forest, for all there was of agitation in his presence. A sudden new thought came to Allis; she had never seen that face distraught but once. The collected man was Philip Crane. A tinge of almost admiration tingled the girl's mind. To be possessed of calm where all was nervous strain was something.

Suddenly the unimpassioned face lighted up; the narrow-lidded eyes gleamed with brightened interest. As eagerly as a boy their owner, Crane, came forward and saluted Allis. At that instant the man of many words on her left rose from his seat to chase through the interminable crowd on the lawn a new victim.

Allis had sought to be alone in this short time of trial; she was hardly sure of herself. If Lucretia failed she might break down; for what would come to her father should the message home be one of disaster? Even if the little mare won her joy might lead her to commit strange pranks; she felt that her heart would burst out of sheer joy, if she did not shout in exultation, or caper madly, as she had seen others do in the hour of victory. She was sorry that Crane had come.

"I was looking for you," he said; "I want to see you win this race; that is, if—I mean, like every other man here, I have harked back to my natural instinct of covetous acquisition and had a bet on."

"Not Lucretia?"

"No—I've bet on Diablo. Langdon thinks he'll win. Do you remember the agreement about his purchase?"

"What was that? I've half forgotten it."

"Just a little bet on your account, you know."

"Oh, I remember; but that was only in fun, wasn't it?"

"It was part of the bargain, and it's on. You'll take it, won't you, if he wins—"

"They're off!" Some one had shouted the magic words from the head of the steps. In a second every voice of the thousands was stilled, and there was only the noise of shuffling feet, as eager watchers stood up to see the horses.

"It's a false start," said Crane, quietly, turning toward the girl. "It would have been well for you, Miss Allis, had the starter let them go. Lucretia was well out in the lead; it was Diablo's fault, too, that they had to go back—he was left standing."

Crane's voice was Fate's voice. Would there never be anything but Lucretia and Diablo, seven and thirteen, thirteen and seven?

"Diablo's a bad horse at the post, sure," ejaculated Crane, letting his field glass rest for an instant on his knee; "he just backs up and shakes his head viciously; evidently he doesn't like the idea of so much company."

"How is Lucretia acting, Mr. Crane?"

"Perfectly. You must have instilled some of your own patience into her."

The girl hardly heard the implied compliment.

Would the patience be rewarded? Or would thirteen, that was symbolical of evil, and its bearer, Diablo, who was an agent of evil, together snatch from her this prize that meant so much? It was strange that she should not think of the other horses at all. It was as though there were but two in the race—Lucretia and Diablo—and yet they were both outsiders.

"The Starter is having a bad time of it; that makes six false breaks," said Allis's companion; "it will end by his losing patience with the boys, I fear, and let them go with something off in a long lead. But they say this Fitzpatrick is a cool hand, and gives no man the best of it. He'll probably fine Diablo's rider a hundred dollars; I believe it's customary to do that when a jockey persistently refuses to come up with his horses. Just look at that!—the black fiend has lashed out and nearly crippled something."

"Not Lucretia, Mr. Crane!" gasped Allis.

"No, it's a chestnut—there they go! Good boy, Westley. I mean Diablo's jockey has done a fiendish clever thing. He came through his horses on the jump, carried them off their feet, they all broke—yes, the flag's down, and he's out with a clean lead."

Down in front a bell was clanging viciously; people were rushing with frenzied haste from the betting ring, and clambering up the steps of the stand; in the stand itself the whole vast mob had risen to its feet, and even now the rolling beat of eager hoofs was in the aid, hushed of the mob's clamor.

Yes, Crane had spoken truly; a great striding black, along whose neck hung close a tiny figure in yellow and red, was leading the oncoming horses. Allis strained her eyes trying to discover the little mare, but she was swallowed up in the struggling mob that hung at Diablo's heels. As they opened a little, swinging around the first turn, Allis caught sight of the white-starred blue jacket. Its wearer was quite fifth or sixth.

"Lucretia is doing well," said Crane; "she's holding her own; she's lapped on White Moth."

It seemed strange to Allis that any other thought should come into her mind at that time other than just concern for Lucretia, but she caught herself wondering at Crane's professional words of description. For the time he was changed; the quick brevity of his utterance tokened an interested excitement. He was not at all like the Crane she knew, the cold, collected banker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XXV

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

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

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

"Was it too far for her, Dixon?"

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

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

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

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

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

When the Trainer had gone the jockey turned to Allis, hesitatingly, and said: "Dixon's correct about the little mare; she's all right. I wouldn't speak even afore him, though he's all right too, but" and he looked about carefully to see that nobody was within ear-shot. Two men were talking a little farther out in the paddock, and Redpath, motioning to Allis, stepped close to the stall that was next to the one Lucretia had occupied, "I could a-been in the money."

The girl started. Crane had said that the jockey had stopped riding.

"Yes, Miss; you mustn't blame me, for I took chances of bein' had up afore the Stewards."

"You did wrong if you didn't try to win," exclaimed Allis, angrily.

"I did try to win, but I couldn't. I saw that I'd never catch that big Black; he was going too strong; his long stride was just breaking the little mare's heart. She's the gamest piece of horseflesh—say, Miss Porter, believe me, it just hurt me to take it out of her, keeping up with that long-legged devil. If I could a-headed him once, just got to him once—I tried it when we turned into the straight—he'd have quit. But it was no use—the mare couldn't do it. With him out of the race I'd have won; I could a-been second or third as it was, but it might have done the little mare up so she wouldn't be any good all season. I thought a bit over this when I was galloping. I knew she was in the Brooklyn Derby, an' when I had the others beat at a mile, thinks I, if the public don't get onto it, Mr. Porter can get all his losses back in the Brooklyn Derby. That's why I eased up on the little mare. You don't think I could do anything crooked against you, Miss? Give me the mount in the Derby, an' your father can bet his last dollar 'that Lucretia'll win."

As he finished speaking Mike Gaynor shuffled moodily up to them. Usually Mike's clothes suggested a general despondency; his wiry body, devoid of roundness as a rat trap, seemed inadequate to the proper expression of their original design. The habitual air of endeavorless decay had been accentuated by the failure of Lucretia to win the Brooklyn. Mike had shrunken into his allenveloping coat with pathetic moroseness. The look of pity in his eye when it lighted upon Allis gave place to one of rebellious accusation as he turned his head slowly and glared at Redpath.

"Ye put up a bad ride there, b'y," he commenced, speaking in a hard, dry, defiant tone; "a bad ride, an' no mistake. Mind I'm not sayin' ye could a-won, but ye might a-tried," and he waited for Redpath's defense.

"She was all out, Mike, beat; what was the use of driving her to death when she hadn't the ghost of a chance?"

"You're a little too hard on Redpath," remonstrated Allis; "he's just been telling me that he didn't wish to punish the mare unnecessarily."

"His business was to win if he could, Miss," answered Mike, not at all won over. "It was a big stake, an' he ought to've put up a big finish. The Black would've quit if ye'd ever got to his throat-latch; he's soft, that's what he is. An' just where ye could have won the race, p'r'aps, ye quit ridin' an' let him come home alone. It's queer b'ys that's ridin' now, Miss," Gaynor added, fiercely, nodding his head in great decision, and, turning away abruptly, the petulant moroseness showing deeper than ever in his wrinkled face.

"You mustn't mind Mike, Redpath," said Allis; "he's a good friend of our family, and is upset over the race, that's all."

"I don't blame him," answered the jockey; "he would have rode it out and spoiled your chance with the mare—that would have done no good."

"Still, I hardly like it," answered the girl. "I know you did it for my sake, but it doesn't seem quite right. Don't do anything like this again. Of course, I don't want Lucretia pushed beyond her strength, nor cut up with the whip, but she ought to get the place if she can. People might have backed her for the place, and we've thrown away their money."

"The bettors will look after their own interests, Miss Porter, and they wouldn't help you a little bit if you needed it; they'd be more like to do you a bad turn. If I'd driven the mare to death, an' been beaten for the place, as I might have, the papers would have slated me for cruelty. You must believe that I did it for the best, Miss."

"I do, and I suppose I must thank you, but don't do it again. I'd rather you didn't carry your whip at all on Lucretia; she doesn't need it; but don't ease her up if you've got a chance till you pass the winning post."

As the two finished speaking, and moved away, a thin, freckled face peered furtively from the door of stall number six. Just the ferret-like eyes and a knife-thin nose showed past the woodwork, but there could be no mistaking the animal. It was Shandy.

"I've got you again," he muttered. "Blast the whole tribe of you! I'll just pip you on that dirty work, blowed if I don't."



XXVI

The Brooklyn had been run and won; won by Langdon's stable, and lost by John Porter's. That night Allis spent hours trying to put into a letter to her mother their defeat and their hopes in such a way as to save distress to her father. She wound up by simply asking her mother to get Dr. Rathbone to impart as much information as he deemed advisable to his patient.

They were a very depressed lot at Dixon's cottage that evening. Dixon was never anything else but taciturn, and the disappointment of the day was simply revolving in his mind with the monotonous regularity of a grindstone. They had lost, and that's all there was about it. Why talk it over? It could do no good. He would nurse up Lucretia, and work back into her by mile gallops a fitting strength for the Brooklyn Derby. With incessant weariness he rocked back and forth, back and forth in the big Boston rocker; while Allis, at a little table in a corner of the room, sought to compose the letter she wished to send home.

With apathetic indifference the girl heard a constrained knock at the cottage door; she barely looked up as Dixon opened to a visitor. It was Crane who entered.

At almost any other time his visit would have been unpleasant. In his presence even the most trivial conversation seemed shrouded in a background of interested intentions; but to-night Dixon's constrained depression weighed heavy on her spirits and irritated her.

"Luck was against you to-day, Dixon," exclaimed the visitor.

"They were too strong for the little mare," answered the Trainer, curtly. "Our cast-off won, of course, but there were a half dozen in the race that would have beaten Lucretia, I fancy."

Allis looked inquiringly at the Trainer; he had not talked that way to her. Then a light dawned upon the girl. She had not associated Dixon with diplomacy in her mind, she knew that he could maintain a golden silence, but here he was, actually throwing out to the caller a disparaging estimate of Lucretia's powers. This perpetual atmosphere of duplicity was positively distasteful. In the free gallop of the horses there was nothing but an inspiration to honest endeavor; but in this subtle diplomacy Allis detected the touch of defilement which her mother so strongly resented. Perhaps to-night she was more sensitive to depressing influences; at any rate she felt a great weariness of the whole business. Then the spirit of resolve rose in open rebellion against these questionings; almost Jesuitical she became at once. What mattered the ways or means, so that she did no wrong? Was not the saving of her father's health and spirit, and his and her mother's welfare above all these trivial questionings; did not the end justify the means; might not her success, if the fates in pity gave her any, save her from—from—she did not even formulate in thought the contingency, for there stood the living embodiment of it-Crane; everything seemed crowding her into the narrow confines of her sacrificial crypt.

Crane had spoken to her on his entry. As she was writing he had continued his discussion of the race with Dixon; perhaps, even—it was a hopeful thought, born of desire—he had come to see the Trainer. Crane's next words dispelled that illusion. It was in answer to an observation from Dixon that he was forced to go to the stables, that Crane said: "If Miss Porter has no objection I'll remain a little longer; I want to discuss a matter concerning her father."

Allis felt quite like fleeing to the stables with Dixon; she dreaded that Crane was going to bring up again the subject of his affection for her. But the Trainer had passed out before she could muster sufficient moral courage to put in execution her half-formed resolve.

"I wanted to speak about that wager on Diablo," began Crane. A thrill of relief shot through the girl's heart. Why had be troubled himself to come to her over such a trifling matter—a pair of gloves, perhaps half a dozen pairs even.

"I put the bet on some time ago," he continued, "when Diablo was at a long price. It was only a trifle, as we agreed upon—" Allis noticed that he laid particular stress upon "agreed." "But it has netted you quite a nice sum, three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars."

Crane said this in a quiet voice, without unction; but it startled the girl—she stared in blank amazement. Her companion was evidently waiting for her to say something; seemed to expect an exclamation of joyous approval. She noticed that the gray eyes she so distrusted had taken on that distasteful peeping expression, as though he were watching her walk into a trap.

"I cannot take it," answered Allis, decisively, after a pause.

Crane raised his hand in mild protest.

"It was good of you, kind; but how could I accept a large sum of money like that when I am not entitled to it?"

"You are—it's yours. The bet was made in your name I entered it at the time in my book, and the bookmaker is ready to pay the money over."

"I can't take it—I won't. No, no, no!"

"Don't be foolishly sensitive, Miss Allis. Think what your father lost when he parted with Diablo for a trivial thousand dollars; and it was my fault, for I arranged the sale. Your father's needs—pardon me, but I know his position, being his banker—yes, he needs this money badly."

"My father needs a good many things, Mr. Crane, which he would not accept as a gift; he would be the last man to do so. We must just go on doing the best we can, and if we can't succeed, that's all. We can't accept help, just yet, anyway."

She was bitter; the reference to her father's troubles, though meant partly in kindness, angered her. It caused her to feel the meshes of the net drawing closer about her, and binding her free will. The fight was indeed on. More than ever she determined to struggle to the bitter end. Almost indefinably she knew that to accept this money, plausible as the offering was, meant an advantage to Crane.

"You can't leave this large sum with the bookmaker," he objected. "He would like nothing better; he would laugh in his sleeve. I can't take it; it isn't mine."

"I won't touch it."

"Perhaps I had better speak to your father about it," said Crane, tentatively; "he can have no objection to accepting this money that has been won."

"Father won't take it, either," answered the girl; "I know his ideas about such matters. He won't take it."

Crane brought all his fine reasoning powers to bear on Allis, but failed signally in his object. He was unaccustomed to being balked, but the girl's firm determination was more than a match for his adaptable sophistry. He had made no headway, was quite beaten, when Dixon's opportune return prevented absolute discomfiture. Crane left shortly, saying to Allis as he bade them good night: "I'm sorry you look upon the matter in this light. My object in coming to-night was to give you a little hope for brightness in your gloomy hour of bad luck; but perhaps I had better speak to your father."

"I'd rather you didn't," she answered, somewhat pleadingly. "Dr. Rathbone has cautioned us all against worrying father, and this could have no other result than but to distress him."

Allis's letter had been completed, but she now added a postscript, telling her mother briefly of Crane's insistence over the bet, and beseeching her to devise some plan for keeping this new disturbing element from her father.

Crane was remaining over night in Gravesend, and, going back to his quarters, he reviewed the evening's campaign. He had expected opposition from Allis, but had hoped to overcome the anticipated objections; he had failed in this, but it was only a check, not defeat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Accustomed to reading Langdon's mind, Crane surmised from the Trainer's manner that the latter had something that he had not yet broached. Their talk had been somewhat desultory, much like the conversation of men who have striven and succeeded and are flushed with the full enjoyment of their success. Suddenly the Trainer drew himself together, as if for a plunge, and said: "Did you notice Porter's mare in the Brooklyn, sir?"

"Yes; she ran a pretty good race for a three-year-old."

"She did, an' I suppose they'll start her in the Derby. Do you happen to know, sir?"

"I fancy they will," answered Crane, carelessly.

"She stopped bad yesterday; but I've heard somethin'."

Crane remembered his own suspicion as to Lucretia's rider, but he only said, "Well?"

"After the race yesterday the jockey, Redpath, was talkin'—to the Porter gal—"

Crane started. It jarred him to hear this horseman refer to Allis as "the Porter gal."

"Redpath told her," proceeded Langdon, "that when he saw he couldn't quite win he pulled his mount off to keep her dark for the Derby."

"How do you know this?"

"A boy in my stable happened to be in the stall an' heard 'em."

"Who's the boy? Can you believe him?"

"It's Shandy. He used to be with the Porters."

Like a flash it came to Crane that the spy must be the one who had written him the note about Faust and the change of saddles.

"Well, that doesn't affect us, that I can see," commented Crane. "I'm not backing their mare."

"It means," declared Langdon, with great earnestness, "that if Lucretia could have beat all the others but Diablo, she has a rosy chance for the Derby; that's what it means. The Black got away with a flyin' start, and she wore him down, almost beat him; I doubt if The Dutchman could do that much. She was givin' him a little weight, too."

"Well, we can't help it. I've backed The Dutchman to win a small fortune, and I'm going to stand by it. You're in it to the extent of ten thousand, as you know, and we've just got to try and beat her with our colt; that's all there is to it."

"I don't like it," muttered Langdon, surlily. "She's a mighty good three-year-old to put up a race like that."

"She may go off before Derby day," suggested Crane; "mares are uncertain at this time of year."

"That's just it; if she would go off we'd feel pretty sure then. I think the race is between them."

"Well, we'll know race day; if she goes to the post, judging from what you say, it'll be a pretty tight fit."

"She didn't cut much figure last year when Lauzanne beat her." Langdon said this with a drawling significance; it was a direct intimation that if Lucretia's present jockey could be got at, as her last year's rider had been—well, an important rival would be removed.