. . . . . . . . . .
Jakey Faust learned of Diablo's transition from Porter's to Langdon's stable. This information caused him little interest at first; indeed, he marveled somewhat at two such clever men as Crane and Langdon acquiring a horse of Diablo's caliber.
Faust's business relationship with Crane was to a certain degree tentative. Crane never confided utterly in anybody; if agents obeyed his behests, well and good; and each transaction was always completed in itself. He had discovered Faust and used him when it suited his purpose.
Some time after the purchase of Diablo, Jakey, reading his Morning Telegraph, came with much interest upon the entries for the Brooklyn Handicap, published that day. They were all the old campaigning Handicap horses, as familiar to Faust as his fellow members of the betting ring. As his eye ran down the long list a sudden little pig grunt of surprise bubbled up through his fat throat. “Gee, Diablo! Oh, ho, Mr. Crane!”
He tore out the list and put it in his pocket; then he sat for a time, thinking. The result was a run down to Gravesend to pay just a friendly visit to Langdon.
As far as Crane was concerned, the Trainer and the Bookmaker were like two burglars suddenly coming upon each other while robbing the same house; they were somewhat in a condition of armed neutrality, toward each other.
Faust hoped that Langdon would talk about Diablo; but the Trainer was like most of his guild generally, a close-mouthed man, so Jakey had to make his own running.
“What's the boss goin' to do with Diablo?” he asked Langdon.
“Must 've bought him for a work horse, I guess,” the Trainer answered.
“Is he any good?”
“He can eat; that's all I see from him yet.”
“What did he buy him for?”
“To help a snoozer that was sittin' in bad luck.”
Faust had an odd habit of causing his fat sides to ripple like troubled water when he wished to convey the impression that he was amused; he never laughed, just the rib ripple.
“What's funny?” Langdon asked, eying Jakey, with querulous disfavor.
“Crane buying a horse to help a man,” answered the Cherub, wondering if Langdon was so devoid of humor as to take it seriously.
“Crane told me so himself,” said the Trainer; “Porter's hurt, an' I guess they're in a hole, an' the boss took over Diablo.”
“Say, Dick,” and Faust edged close enough to tap the other man's ribs with his thumb, “were you born yesterday? I say,” continued the Cherub, for Langdon had turned away somewhat impatiently, “what's the good av givin' me that gup; you didn't stand for it yourself—not on yer life. Th' old man's pretty slick; buys a bad horse to help a poor mutt, an' enters him in the Brooklyn, eh?”
“The Brooklyn!” exclaimed Langdon, thrown off his guard.
With corpulent intensity the Cherub melodramatically drew from his pocket the Telegraph clipping and tendered it to Langdon, watching the latter's face closely. “That's the pea, Dick, eh?” he asked.
Langdon was thinking. Was Crane doubling on him all around? Why the devil hadn't he told him?
“Now you ain't takin' in that fairy tale of Crane's any more'n I am, Dick. Why can't we do a bit for ourselves over this; it won't hurt the boss none. Won't throw him down. This horse was a good youngster, an' Crane didn't get him without seein' him do somethin'. You jest keep me posted, an' if he shapes good I can back 'm fer an old-time killin', see? I'll divvy up straight.”
Langdon didn't answer at once—not with satisfaction to Faust; he knew that Crane held the butter for his bread, even the bread itself; but here was a man with cake, and he loved cake. Finally, in the glamour of Jakey's talk of untold wealth to be acquired, Langdon, swayed by the cupidity of his nature rather than his better judgment, promised half-heartedly to cooperate with Faust.
But no sooner had the latter gone than the lode-star of Langdon's self-interest flickered clearly in view, and he promised Mr. Jakey, mentally, a long trip to a very hot place, indeed, rather than a surreptitious partnership over Diablo.
It was some little time after this, while Faust was feeling somewhat irritated at the absence of information from Langdon, that he had an interview with Crane.
“I want you to back The Dutchman to win fifty thousand for me over the Brooklyn Derby,” the latter said.
“But there's no winner book on it,” objected Faust.
“That's just where your cleverness will come in,” suavely answered Crane. “There's no hurry, and there are always people looking for foolish money. There's one such in Chicago, O'Leary; and I fancy they could even be found in New York. But you ought to get fifty to one, about it, if you put it on easy.”
“I see you have Diablo entered for the Brooklyn,” Faust put out as a feeler. “Don't you want a commission worked on him?”
“I didn't enter him; that was somebody else's foolishness, and I don't want to back him.”
“He's a hundred to one.”
“A thousand would be short odds, I should say,” answered Crane. “But wait a bit. I bought him just to—well, I took him from some people who were tired of his cannibal ways, and promised to have a small bet on him the first time he ran, for—for the man.” The equivocation was really a touch of delicacy. “You might take the odds to fifty for me; there's not one chance in a million of his starting, but I might forget all about this little matter of the bet, even if I were foolish enough to pay post-money on him.”
“Hadn't I better dribble on more from time to time, if he has a chance?”
“Not of my money, thanks!” The “thanks” clipped like a steel trap, and the business was completed.
Faust went away more than ever suspicious of Crane and Diablo. That fifty dollars being put on for anybody else was bunkum. What was Crane up to anyway? If he really meant to back the horse he would not have started with such a trifle. Perhaps Diablo had been stuck in the Brooklyn simply to see how the handicapper would rate him.
Faust was convinced that Crane had some big coup in view; he would wait a little, and at the first move have a strong play himself.
Langdon was a consummate trainer, a student of horse character. He knew that while biniodide of mercury would blister and put right a bowed tendon, or the firing iron take the life out of a splint, that a much finer knowledge than this was requisite to get fullhearted work out of a thoroughbred. Brain must be pitted against brain; so he studied his horses; and when Diablo came into his hands, possessed of a mind disease, he worked over him with considerable intelligent patience.
This study of horse character was the very thing that had caused him to go wrong over Lauzanne. He had not gone quite far enough; had not waited for time to demonstrate clearly the horse's temperament, but had recourse to a cocaine stimulant. But with him Lauzanne's case had been exceptional.
At first there was little encouragement over Diablo, but almost by accident Langdon discovered that the Black's bad temper was always fanned into a blaze by the sight of the boy Shandy.
Then came a glint of hope. Diablo took a fancy to Westley, the jockey, who was experimentally put on his back in the working gallop. After that Shandy was kept out of the way; Westley took Diablo under his care, and the big horse began to show a surprising improvement.
Crane had been quite honest in his statement that he thought Diablo a bad horse. His having been entered by Porter in the “Brooklyn” suggested the possiability that his former owner must have seen some merit in the horse. At any rate, he advised Langdon to give Diablo a patient trial. He really had very little idea that the horse would start in the Handicap—it seemed improbable. Langdon was also convinced that Porter had discovered something great in Diablo; that Crane knew this, and had paid a stiff price for the horse, and to his own ends was keeping it dark.
As the winter turned into April he intimated to Crane that it was time for them to decide the placing of the horses, and suggested that they try them out. Crane had already decided to race The Dutchman this year in his own name and not in Langdon's. If The Dutchman came up to expectation they could give him a slow preparation up to Derby time; they could find out whether Diablo was worth keeping for—well, for Morris Park or Gravesend, or they could hurry him on a little, and start him at Aqueduct.
Crane agreed with this reasoning, and it was decided to give the two horses a home trial.
On the day that Langdon had said he would try Diablo and The Dutchman, Crane went down to Gravesend. When he got to the Trainer's house he found the latter waiting for him.
“I sent the horses over with the boys,” Langdon said; “if you'll just wait a minute, I'll have a buggy hitched up and we'll drive over.”
A stable-boy brought the trap to the door in a few minutes, and Langdon, telling Crane to get in, disappeared into the house, returning presently with two saddles, which he placed in the buggy.
“A couple of favorite saddles of mine,” he explained, “they're like old fiddles that great players carry about under their arms an' sleep with, an' never let no one but themselves touch.”
“Are you that particular with these?” asked Crane by way of conversation, not feeling at all interested in what he considered a fad of the Trainer's.
“Yes; I mostly handle 'em myself. They cost a bit. I had 'em made to order. The boys is that careless, they'd smash anything.”
As they jogged along, Langdon kept up a monologue dissertation on the merits of the two horses. “It's a good day for a gallop,” and he flicked the driving beast's quarter with the whip; “there's not much wind, an' the air's a bit sharp. They'll be on their mettle, the both of 'em, more 'specially Diablo. I had his plates changed. 'Pears to me he hadn't been shod in three moons; I'll bet the smith took an inch off his toes.” Then he broke off to chuckle awhile.
Crane was not skilled in the anatomy of a horse, beyond as it worked out in winning races and money. That a horse had toes had never quite come into his knowledge, and Langdon's gurgle of mirth he put down to a suspicion that the Trainer was taking a rise out of him in what he had said.
“I was thinking of Paddy Caramagh when he shod Diablo the other day. I think you've heard Pat swear. He holds the belt for cussin' in this part of the country. Well, he let it all out of him before he'd finished with the Black. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I can hear him still, with the sweat running off his face like oats spilling from a feed bag. I says to Paddy, 'Rub his nose a bit,' for I could see it was more nervousness with the horse than sheer deviltry. 'With what?' says Paddy, 'the hammer? Be gor! You're right, though,' says he, and with that he tries to put a twister on Diablo's nose. Holy mother! Diablo reached for him, and lifted the shirt clean off his back. Say, there was a scared Irishman, if you ever saw one in your life. He threw down the plate, cussin' as only Paddy can, and swore the brute could run till he'd wore his hoofs off, for all of him. Well, I takes hold of the Black's head, an' kids him a bit, only firm-like, and we shod him right enough.”
“He is bad tempered, then?” asked Crane.
“No; just wants a fair deal; that's all. You make him believe you're on the square, an' he'll do what's right. But he hasn't got no use for any of the guys that gets a cranky play in on him; he won't stand it. I'm going to put Westley up on him to-day.”
“What about The Dutchman?”
“Colley'll do. Any kid can ride him, if they sit still. He's just the easiest-tempered horse ever looked through a bridle; he knows what's doin' all the time. But Colley ain't no good on Diablo, an' if he can smell Shandy, that settles it—it's all over. I'll put Westley up; it takes a man to ride that horse.”
“What about this gallop?” asked Crane; “there'll be spies about trying to find out things, won't there?”
“Bet yer life, there'll be somebody, sir. It's just like when I was out in Colorado; you couldn't see a vulture if you traveled forty days, perhaps, but plant a dead thing anywhere and in an hour the sky simply rained 'em down. These touts is most like vultures of anything I know; you've just got to work your stunt to give 'em the go-by, that's all.”
Crane took but an apathetic interest in the matters that held full sway over the Trainer's mind; looking after these incidents was Langdon's part of the contract.
That was why they were so strong together. Langdon could do it. Just how the trial was to benefit them alone, with the inevitable tout at hand, Crane knew not, neither did he investigate; that was up to the Trainer.
They drove into the paddock. Westley, Colley, and the two stable lads were there.
“Shall we bring out the horses?” asked Westley, as Langdon sat swinging a leg loosely over the end of the buggy seat.
“Any of the talent about, Bill?”
“Quite likely, though I haven't seen none.”
“Well, we'll slip 'em now. Just saddle up careless like, and no preliminary, mind you. The sharks won't look for a brush till you've gone around once. Take your mounts down the stretch to the quarter post, an' then come away the first break; if there's anyone toutin' you off, they'll think it just a pipe opener, an' won't catch the time. Run out the mile-an'-a-quarter, make a race of it, but don't go to the bat. Diablo an' The Dutchman don't need no whip to give us about the best they've got.”
“All right, sir,” answered Westley. “If I'm a judge, when the Black's through pullin', he's done racin', 'cause he's a keen one, so there won't be no call to put the bud to him. If any of the rail birds is lookin' they'll think we're goin' under a strong wrap, even when we're all out.”
Lang don nodded his head. He was a man not given to exuberant appreciation. The boys averred that when Dick Langdon didn't curse at them they had done pretty well, indeed.
“What's your weight?” he asked of Westley, abruptly.
“I've just tipped the scales at a hundred-and-three in my sweater.”
“One hundred and three,” mused the Trainer, making a mental calculation. “What's Colley's weight?”
“He's as near a hundred as you can make it.”
“Did you bring over a saddle?”
“Yes; two of 'em; one apiece for the horses.”
“Tell Colley to take one, and some leads, and weigh out a hundred and twelve. That'll be three pounds above the scale for May, weight for age, for the three-year-old, The Dutchman. I guess he won't need more'n seven pounds dead weight, for it's a five-pound saddle, I think. Let me see, you said a hundred and three, you were.”
“Yes, sir; in the sweater; I can take that off—”
“No; never mind. Take this saddle,” and he lifted one from the buggy; “it'll just suit Diablo; he's got a herring-bone of a wither, an' this is high in the tree, an' won't cut him. Here's the cloth an' some leads; weigh out a hundred and twelve too. Weight for age—Diablo's a four-year-old; you ought to carry a hundred and twenty-six, but he's not The Dutchman's class, an' the ycungster'd lose him before they'd gone half the journey. We'll run 'em at level weights, an' he'll get closer to The Dutchman, an' the sharks won't have such a fairy tale to tell about our horse.”
“A hundred and twelve, you said, sir?” queried Westley, as he put the saddle that Langdon handed him over his left arm, slipped the thin sheets of lead in his pocket, and stood dangling the linen weight cloth in his right hand.
“Yes; level weights—a hundred an' twelve pounds.”
“Westley,” the Trainer called as the little man started off, “just bring the saddle back to me here when you've weighed. I'll put it on Diablo myself; he's a touchy cuss, and I don't want him ruffled by careless handlin'.”
“You take considerable trouble over it,” remarked Crane. “One would think it was a big handicap you meant to capture this morning.”
Langdon started visibly. Was Crane thinking of the Brooklyn? Did this quiet, clever man sitting at his elbow already know as much as he hoped to discover in his present gallop?
He answered: “Handicaps is usually won pretty much like this; they're generally settled before the horse goes to the post for the trip itself. When he goes through the paddock gate the day of the big race he's out of his trainer's hands; the man's got no more to do with the race himself than a kid sittin' up in the grand stand. Here's where I come in, if we mean to land the Brooklyn,” and he looked searchingly at Crane, a misleading grin on his lips. But the latter simply joined in the laugh, doubtingly, perhaps.
“A hundred and twelve, neat,” declared Westley, as he returned, throwing some loose leads into the buggy. “Colley's gone to saddle The Dutchman.”
“All right,” answered Langdon, getting down from the seat and taking the saddle. “Go and tell the boy to bring Diablo out of the stall. I'll saddle him in the open. He generally kicks the boards when I cinch him up, an' it puts him in a bad humor.”
Langdon started off with the jockey, but turned back, saying, “Oh, Mr. Crane, I wanted to ask you—”
By this he had reached the buggy, while Westley continued on his way to the stalls.
“It's a fine day, sir,” continued Langdon, finishing his sentence, and exchanging the saddle held in his hand for the one that was in the buggy.
“Going to put the other on?” asked Crane.
“Yes; I fancy Diablo will like this better. Touchy brutes, these race horses; got to humor 'em. Come on over to the stalls—the horse'll stand.”
Diablo was being led around in a small circle by his boy. He was a magnificent creature, sixteen and a half hands high, and built on the same grand scale; perhaps a bit leggy for the huge barrel that topped the limbs; that was what caused him to go wrong in his younger days. His black skin glistened in the noonday sun.
“That's what I call the mirror of health,” said Langdon, in an unwonted burst of poetic eloquence, as he passed his hand across the horse's ribs. Then feeling that somehow he had laid himself open to a suspicion of gentleness, added, “He's a hell of a fine looker; if he could gallop up to his looks he'd make some of the cracks take a back seat.”
Even Diablo had resented either the mellifluous comparison or the rub of Langdon's hand, for he lashed out furiously, with a great farreaching leg that nearly caught Crane unawares.
“Your polite language seems to be as irritating to him as the blacksmith's oaths,” ejaculated Crane, as he came back from the hasty retreat he had beaten.
“It's only play. Good horses is of two kinds when you're saddlin' 'em. The Dutchman there'll hang his head down, and champ at the bit, even if you bury the girt' an inch deep in his belly; he's honest, and knows it's all needed. That's one kind; and they're generally the same at the post, always there or thereabouts, waitin' for the word 'go.' An' they race pretty much the same all the time. If you time 'em a mile in 1:40 at home, they'll do it when the colors is up, an' the silk a-flappin' all about 'em in the race.
“Whoa! Hold still, you brute! Steady, steady! Whoa!” This to Diablo, for while talking he had adjusted the weight cloth with the gentleness of a cavalier putting a silk wrap about his lady love's neck, and had put a fold of soft woolen cloth over the high-boned wither.
“Stand out in front of him and hold his head down a bit;” this to the boy. Then as he slipped the saddle into place and reached underneath for the girths, he continued his address to Crane on the peculiarity of racers.
“Now this is a horse of another color, this one; he ain't takin' things easy at no stage of the game. He objects to everything, an' some day that'll land him a winner, see? He'll get it into his head that the other horses want to beat him out, an' he'll show 'em a clean pair of heels; come home on the bit, pullin' double. Whoa, boy! Steady, steady, old man!” Then he ceased talking, for he had taken the girth strap between his teeth, and was cinching up the big Black with the firm pull of a grizzly. Diablo squirmed under the torture of the tightening web on his sensitive skin, and crouched as though he would fall on the Trainer.
“Yes, sir;” continued Langdon, as he ran the stirrups up under the saddle flap out of the way, and motioned to the boy to lead Diablo about. “Yes, sir; this fellow's different. He's too damn sensitive. At the post he's like as not to act like a locoed broncho, an' get one blamed for having 'juiced' him, but he don't need no dope; what he needs is steadying. If he gets away in front, them long legs of his will take some catchin'. He's the kind that wins when the books are layin' a hundred to one against him. But the worst of it is with his sort, like as not the owner hasn't a penny on them; but the public'll howl; they'll call it in-an'-out runnin'; an' the scribblers'll get their paper to print a notice that the stable ought to be ruled off; an' all the time you're breakin' your heart trying to get him to give his true—Hello! there's Colley out on The Dutchman; mount your horse, Westley—wait, you don't need no spurs; yes, carry a whip, an' give the guys that is watchin' a stage play with it; but don't hit the Black. We'll just see what he'll do himself, this trip,” he added, addressing Crane.
Taking Westley's small-booted foot in his hand, he lifted the lad to Diablo's back, and led the horse out through a gate to the course.
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.
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.”