BULLDOG CARNEY (1919)by W.A. Fraser (1857 - 1933)Chapter III. Owners UpCLATAWA had put racing in Walla Walla in cold storage. You can't have any kind of sport with one individual, horse or man, and Clatawa had beaten everything so decisively that the gamblers sat down with blank faces and asked, "What's the use?" Horse racing had been a civic institution, a daily round of joyous thrills--a commendable medium for the circulation of gold. The Nez Perces Indians, who owned that garden of Eden, the Palouse country, and were rich, would troop into Walla Walla long rolls of twenty-dollar gold pieces plugged into a snake-like skin till the thing resembled a black sausage, and bet the coins as though they were nickels. It was a lovely town, with its straggling clap-boarded buildings, its U.S. Cavalry post, its wide-open dance halls and gambling palaces; it was a live town was Walla Walla, squatting there in the center of a great luxuriant plain twenty miles or more from the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Snaky Dick had roped a big bay with black
points that was lord of a harem of wild mares; he had speed
and stamina, and also brains; so they named him
"Clatawa," that is,
"The-one-who- He was about three-quarter warm blood. How
the mixture nobody knew. Some half-bred mare, carrying a
foal, had, perhaps, escaped from one of the great breeding
ranches, such as the "Scissors Brand Ranch" where
the sires were thoroughbred, and dropped her baby in the
herd. And the colt, not being raced to death as a
two-year-old, had grown into a big, upstanding bay, with
perfect unblemished bone, lungs like a blacksmith's bellows
and sinews that played through unruptured sheaths. His
courage, too, had not been broken by the whip and spur of
pin-head jocks. There was just one rift in the lute, that
dilution of cold blood. He wasn't a thoroughbred, and until
his measure was taken, until some other equine looked him in
the eye as they fought it out stride for stride, no man
could just say what the cold blood would do; it was so apt
to quit.
At first Walla Walla rejoiced when Snaky Dick
commenced to make the Nez Perces horses look like pack
mules; but now had come the time when there was no one to
fight the "champ," and the game was on the hog, as
Iron Jaw Blake declared.
Then Iron Jaw and Snaggle Tooth Boone, and
Death-on-the-trail Carson formed themselves into a committee
of three to ameliorate the monotony.
They were a picturesque trio. Carson was a
sombre individual, architecturally resembling a leafless
gaunt-limbed pine, for he lacked but a scant half inch of
being seven feet of bone and whip-cord.
Years before he had gone out over the trail
that wound among sage bush and pink-flowered ball cactus up
into the Bitter Root Mountains with "Irish" Fagan.
Months after he came back alone; more sombre, more gaunt,
more sparing of speech, and had offered casually the
statement that "Fagan met death on the trail."
This laconic epitome of a gigantic event had crystallized
into a moniker for Carson, and he became solely
"Death-on-the-trail."
Snaggle Tooth Boone had a wolf-like fang on
the very doorstep of his upper jaw, so it required no
powerful inventive faculty to rechristen him with aptitude.
Blake was not only iron-jawed physically, but
all his dealings were of the bullheaded order; finesse was
as foreign to Iron Jaw as caviare to a Siwash.
So this triumvirate of decorative citizens,
with Iron Jaw as penman, wrote to Reilly at Portland,
Oregon, to send in a horse good enough to beat Clatawa, and
a jock to ride him. Iron Jaw's directions were specific,
lengthy; going into detail. He knew that a thoroughbred,
even a selling plater, would be good enough to take the
measure of any cross-bred horse, no matter how good the
latter apparently was, running in scrub races. He also knew
the value of weight as a handicap, and the Walla Walla races
were all matches, catch-weights up. So he wrote to Reilly to
send him a tall, slim rider who could pad up with clothes
and look the part of an able-bodied cow puncher.
It was a pleasing line of endeavor to
Reilly--he just loved that sort of thing; trimming
"come-ons" was right in his mitt. He fulfilled the
commission to perfection, sending up, by the flat river
steamer, the Maid of Palouse, what appeared to be an
ordinary black ranch cow-pony in charge of "Texas
Sam," a cow puncher. From Lewiston, the head of
navigation, Texas Sam rode his horse behind the old Concord
coach over the twenty-five miles of trail to Walla Walla.
The endeavor had gone through with swift
smoothness. Nobody but Iron Jaw, Death-on-the-trail, and
Snaggle Tooth knew of the possibilities that lurked in the
long chapp-legged Texas Jim and the thin rakish black horse
that he called Horned Toad.
As one spreads bait as a decoy, Sam was given
money to flash, and instructed in the art of fool talk.
Iron Jaw was banker in this game; while
Snaggle Tooth ran the wheel and faro lay-out in the Del
Monte saloon. So, when Texas dribbled a thousand dollars
across the table, "bucking the tiger," it was show
money; a thousand that Iron Jaw had passed him earlier in
the evening, and which Snaggle Tooth would pass back to its
owner in the morning.
There was no hurry to spring the trap. Texas
Sam allowed that he himself was an uncurried wild horse from
the great desert; that he was all wool and a yard wide; that
he could lick his fighting weight in wild cats; and bet on
anything he fancied till the cows came home with their tails
between their legs. And all the time he drank: he would
drink with anybody, and anybody might drink with him. This
was no piking game, for the three students of
get-it-in-big-wads had declared for a coup that would cause
Walla Walla to stand up on its hind legs and howl.
Of course Snaky Dick and his clique cast
covetous eyes on the bank roll that Texas showed an inkling
of when he flashed his gold. That Texas had a horse was the
key to the whole situation: a horse that he was never tired
of describing as the king-pin cow-pony from Kalamazoo to
Kamschatka; a spring-heeled antelope that could run rings
around any cayuse that had ever looked through a halter.
But Snaky Dick went slow. Some night when
Texas was full of hop he'd rush him for a match. Indeed the
Clatawa crowd had the money ready to plunk down when the
psychological pitch of Sam's Dutch courage had arrived.
It was all going swimmingly, both ends of
Walla Walla being played against the middle, so to speak,
when the "unknown quantity" drifted into the game.
A tall, lithe man, with small placid gray
eyes set in a tanned face, rode up out of the sage brush
astride a buckskin horse on his way to Walla Walla. He
looked like a casual cow-puncher riding into town with the
laudable purpose of tying the faro outfit hoof and horn,
and, incidentally, showing what could be done to a bar when
a man was in earnest and had the mazuma.
As the buckskin leisurely loped down the
trail-road that ran from the cavalry barracks to the heart
of Walla Walla, his rider became aware of turmoil in the
suburbs. In front of a neat little cottages the windows of
which held flowers partly shrouded by lace curtains, a lathy
individual, standing beside a rakish black horse, was
orating with Bacchanalian vehemence. Gathered from his
blasphemous narrative he knew chronologically the past
history of a small pretty woman with peroxided hair, who
stood in the open door. He must have enlarged on the
sophistication of her past life, for the little lady, with a
crisp oath, called the declaimer a liar and a seven-times
misplaced offspring.
The rider of the buckskin checked his horse,
threw his right leg loosely over the saddle, and restfully
contemplated the exciting film.
The irate and also inebriated man knew that
he had drawn on his imagination, but to be told in plain
words that he was a liar peeved him. With an ugly oath he
swung his quirt and sprang forward, as if he would bring its
lash down on the décolletéd shoulders of the
woman.
At that instant something that looked like a
boy shot through the door as though thrust from a catapult,
and landed, head on, in the bread basket of the cantankerous
one, carrying him off his feet.
The man on the buckskin chuckled, and slipped
to the ground.
But the boy had shot his bolt, so to speak;
the big man he had tumbled so neatly, soon turned him, and,
rising, was about to drive a boot into the little fellow's
rib. I say about to, for just then certain fingers of steel
twined themselves in his red neckerchief, he was yanked
volte face, and a fist drove into his midriff.
Of course his animosity switched to the
newcomer; but as he essayed a grapple the driving fist
caught him quite neatly on the northeast corner of his jaw.
He sat down, the goggle stare in his eyes suggesting that he
contemplated a trip to dreamland.
The little woman now darted forward, crying
in a voice whose gladsomeness swam in tears: "Bulldog
Carney! You always man--you beaut!" She would have
twined her arms about Bulldog, but the placid gray eyes, so
full of quiet aloofness, checked her.
But the man's voice was soft and gentle as he
said: "The same Bulldog, Molly, girl. Glad I happened
along."
He turned to the quarrelsome one who had
staggered to his feet: "You ride away before I get
cross; you smell like the corpse of a dead
booze-fighter!"
The man addressed looked into the gray eyes
switched on his own for inspection; then he turned, mounted
the black, and throwing over his shoulder, "I'll get
you for this, Mister Butter-in!" rode away.
The other party to the rough-end-tumble,
winded, had erected his five feet of length, and with a palm
pressed against his chest was In the midst of this vocal cocktail he broke
off suddenly to exclaim in astonishment:
"Holy Gawd!"
Then he scuttled past Carney, slipped a
finger through the ring of the buckskin's snaffle and peered
into the horse's face as if he had found a long-lost friend.
Perhaps the buckskin remembered him too, for
he pressed a velvet, mouse-colored muzzle against the lad's
cheek and whispered something.
The little man ran a hand up and down the
horse's canon-bones with the inquisitiveness of a blind man
reading raised print.
Then he turned to Carney who had been
chatting with Molly--in full dignity of Walla Walla
nomenclature Molly B'Damn--and asked: "Where the hell
d'you get Waster?"
A faint smile twitched the owner's tawny
mustache, chased away by a little cloud of anger, for in
that land of many horse stealings to ask a man how he had
come by his horse savoured of discourtesy. But it was only a
little wizen-faced, flat-chested friend of Molly B'Damn's;
so Carney smiled again, and answered by asking:
"Gentle-voiced kidaloona, explain what
you mean by the Waster. That chum of mine's name is
Pat--Patsy boy, often enough."
"Pat nothin'! nor Percy, nor Willie;
he's just plain old Waster that I won the Ranch Stakes on in
Butte, four years ago."
"Guess again, kid," Carney
suggested.
"Holy Mike! Say, boss, if you could
think like you can punch you'd be all right. That's Waster.
Listen, Mister Cowboy, while I tell you 'bout his friends
and relatives. He's by Gambler's Money out of Scotch Lassie,
whose breedin' runs back to Prince Charlie: Gambler's Money
was by Counterfeit, he by Spendthrift, and Spendthrift's
sire was imported Australian, whose grandsire was the
English horse, Melbourne. D'you get that, sage-brush
rider?"
"I hear sounds. Tinkle again, little
man."
Molly laughed, her white teeth and honest
blue eyes discounting the chemically yellow hair until the
face looked good.
The little man stretched out an arm, at the
end of it a thin finger levelled at the buckskin's head:
"Have you ever took notice of
them lop ears?"
"Once--which was continuous."
"And you thought there was a jackass
strain in him, eh?"
"Pat looked good to me all the time,
ears and all."
"Well, them sloppy listeners are a
throw-back to Melbourne, he was like that. I've read he was
a mean-lookin' cuss, with weak knees; but he was all horse:
and ain't Waster got bad knees? And don't he get that
buckskin from Spendthrift who was a chestnut, same's his
dad, Australian?" This seemed a direct query for he
broke off to cough.
"Go on, lad----"
"Excuse me, sorry"--Molly was
speaking--"this is Billy MacKay. My old school chum,
Bessie, his sister, wished him on me a month ago to see what
God's country could do for that busted chest."
The little man was impatient over the switch
to himself--the horse was the thing.
"If it wasn't for them dicky
forelegs--Gawd! what a horse Waster'd been. And if his
owner, Leatherhead Mike Doyle, had kept the weight offen him
he'd 've stood up anyway, for he was the truest thing. Say,
Bulldog,--don't mind me, I like that name, it talks
good,--Waster didn't need no blinkers he didn't need no
spurs; he didn't need no whip--I'd as lief hit a child with
the bud as hit him. He'd just break his Carney put a hand caressingly on Jockey
Mackay's shoulder, saying: "You stand pat with me,
kid--your heart is about human, I guess. What was that
hostile person's game?"
Molly explained with a certain amount of
asperity:
"He comes here to-day, Bulldog--Well,
you know----"
Carney nodded placidly.
"He'd seen me down in the Del Monte
joint, and thought--well, he was filled up on Chinese rum.
He wasn't none too much like a man in anything he said or
done, but I was standin' for him so long as he don't get
plumb Injun."
"Injun? Cripes! An Injun's a drugstore
gent compared to that stiff, Slimy Red," Billy
objected.
"Yes, that's what started it,
Bulldog,--Billy knew him."
"Knew him--huh! Slimy Red was the
crookedest rider that ever throwed a leg over a horse. He
used to give his own father the wrong steer and laugh when
the old man's money was burnt up on a horse that finished in
the ruck."
"He comes in here palmin' off the
moniker of Texas Sam, a big ranch guy that sees blood on the
moon when he's out for a time," Molly helped with.
"I didn't know him at first," the
little man admitted, "his face bein' a garden of black
alfalfa, till I sees that the crop is red for half an inch
above the surface where it had pushed through the dye. Then
he says, "Soon's Billy warbles, 'Good-bye,
stranger,'" Molly laughed, "this Texas person goes
up in the air. Well, you see the finish, Bulldog."
The little man had wrestled a coughing spell
into subjection and with apparent inconsistency asked,
"Did you ever hear of it rainin' bullfrogs, Mr.
Carney?"
Carney nodded, a suspicion flashing upon him
that the weak chest was twin brother to a weak brain in
Billy the Jock.
"Well, it's been rainin' discard
race-horses about Walla Walla."
"Much of a storm?"
"They're comin' kind of thick. There's
yours, Waster, and Slimy Red has got Ding Dong; he's out of
Weddin' Bells by Tambourine."
"Are you in a hurry, Bulldog?"
Molly asked, fancying that Carney's well-known courtesy was
perhaps the father of his apparent interest.
"I was, Molly, till I saw you," he
answered graciously, a gentle smile lighting up his stern
features.
"Oh, you gentleman knight of the
road--always the silver-tongued Bulldog. There's a bottle
inside with a gold necktie on it, waitin' for a real man
to pull the cork. Come on, kid Billy."
The boy looked at Carney, and the latter
said: "It's been a full moon since I pattered with
anybody about anything but fat pork and sundown. We'll
accept the little lady's invitation."
"I can give Waster four quarts of oats,
Mr. Carney; I've been ridin' in the way of a cure."
Carney laughed. "You're a sure little
bit of all right, kid; the horse first when it comes to
grub--that's me; but I'll feed Pat when he's bedded for the
night. "
Inside the cottage Molly and Bulldog jaunted
back over the life trail upon which they had met at
different times and in divers places.
But Jockey Mackay had been thrown back into
his life's environment at sight of Waster. He was as full of
racing as the wine bottle was full of bubbles; like the wine
he effervesced.
"You been here in Walla Walla
before?" he asked Carney, breaking in on the memory of
a funny something that had happened when Molly and Bulldog
were both in Denver.
"Some time since," Carney replied.
"D'you know about Clatawa?"
"Is it a mine or a cocktail,
Billy?"
"Clatawa's a horse."
"I might have known," Carney
murmured resignedly.
Then the little man narrated of Clatawa, and
the fatuous belief Walla Walla held that a horse with cold
blood in his veins could gallop fast enough to keep himself
warm. He waxed indignant over this, declaring that boneheads
that held such crazy ideas ought to be bled white, that is
in a monetary way.
Carney, being a Chevalier d'Industrie, had a
keen nose for oblique enterprises, but up to the present he
had enjoyed the little man's chatter simply because he loved
horses himself; but at this, the Clatawa disease, he pricked
his ears.
"What is your unsavory acquaintance,
Slimy Red, doing here with Ding Dong?" he asked.
A cunning smile twisted the lad's bluish lips
as he lighted a cigarette.
"Slimy Red is padded," he
vouchsafed after a puff at the cigarette.
"Padded!" Molly exclaimed, her blue
eyes rounding.
"Sure thing. That herrin' gut can ride
at a hundred and twenty pounds. He's a steeplechase jock,
gener'ly, though he's good on the flat, too. He's got a
couple of sweaters on under that corduroy jacket to make him
look big."
Carney laughed. "That explains
something. When I pushed my fist against his stomach I
thought it had gone clean through--it sank to the wrist; it
was just as though I had punched a bag of feathers."
"But the upper cut was all right, Mr.
Carney; it was a lallapaloosa."
"Why all the clothes?" Molly asked.
"I've been dopin' it out," the boy
answered. "It's all match races here, catch weights;
there ain't one of them could ride a flat car without givin'
it the slows, but they know what weight is in a race; they
know you can pile enough on to bring a cart horse and a
winner of the Brooklyn Handicap together."
"I see," Carney said
contemplatively; "Slimy Red, if he makes a match,
figures to get a big pull in the weights."
"Sure thing, Mike; Walla Walla will bet
the family plate on Clatawa; they'll go down hook, line, and
sinker, and then some. They'll fall for the clothes and
think Slimy weighs a hundred and seventy. D'you get
it?"
"Fancy I do," Carney chuckled.
"The avaricious Mister Red is probably here on a
missionary venture; he aims to separate these godless ones
from the root of evil through having a trained thoroughbred,
and an ample pull in the weight."
"Now you're talkin'," Jockey Mackay
declared. Then he relapsed into a meditative silence,
sipping his wine as he correlated several possibilities
suggested by the rainfall of racing horses in Walla Walla.
Carney and Molly drifted into desultory talk
again.
After a time Billy spoke.
"It ain't on the cards that a lot of
money is comin' to Slimy Red--he don't deserve it; he ought
to be trimmed hisself."
"He sure ought," Molly
corroborated.
"Hell!" the little man exclaimed;
"nobody could never trim Red, 'cause he never had
nothin'. I got it! Somebody in Walla Walla is the angel; and
Red'll get a rakeoff. He don't own Ding Dong; he couldn't
own a lead pad; booze gets his."
"Billy," Molly's face went serious;
"I can guess it in once--Iron Jaw! Oh, gee! I've been
blind. Iron Jaw, and Snaggle Tooth, and Death-on-the-trail
ain't men to cotton to a coot like Slimy Red; they're
gamblers, and don't stand for anything that ain't a man,
only just while they take his roll. They've been nursin'
this four-flusher. It's been, 'Hello, Texas!' and 'Have a
drink, Texas.' I've got it."
"Fancy you have, Molly," Bulldog
submitted.
"Gawd! that's the combination,"
Billy declared. "I was right."
"And Iron Jaw has got a down on Snaky
Dick that owns Clatawa over some bad splits in bets,"
Molly added.
"The old game," Carney laughed.
"When thieves fall out honest men win a bet. It would
appear from the evidence that Iron Jaw Blake--I know his
method of old--has sent out and got some one to ship in a
horse and rider to trim Clatawa, and turn an honest
penny."
"You're gettin' warm, Bulldog, as we
used to say in that child's game," Molly declared.
"I know the pippin; one Reilly, at Portland. I heard
Iron Jaw and this Texas talkin' about him."
Carney turned toward the little man.
"What are we going to do about it, Billy--do we draw
cards?"
Billy sprang from his chair, and paced the
floor excitedly. "Holy Mike! there never was such a
chance. Waster can trim Ding Dong to a certainty at a mile
and a quarter. See, Bulldog, that's his distance; he's a
stayer from Stayville; but he can't pack weight--don't
forget that. If you rode him--let's see----"
The little man stood back and eyed critically
the tall package of bone and muscle, that while it suggested
no surplus flesh, would weigh well.
"You're a hundred and seventy-five
pounds, and you ride in one of 'em rockin' chairs that'll
tip the beam at forty pounds. What chance? Slimy'll have a
five-pound saddle; he could weigh in, saddle and all, a
hundred and twenty-five. You'd be takin' on a handicap of
ninety pounds. What chance?"
"I might get an Indian boy," Carney
suggested.
"You might get a doll or a pet
monkey," Billy sneered. "What chance?"
"And they all work for Iron Jaw,"
Molly advised; "they'd blow; he'd bribe them to pull
the horse."
"What chance?" Billy repeated with
the mournful persistency of a parrot. "Guess I'll go
out and tell Waster to forget he's a gentleman and go on
pluggin' among the sage brush as a cow-pony."
Carney rose when Billy had gone, saying,
"Fancy I'll drift on to the rest joint, Molly. I rather
want to hold converse with a certain man while the seeing's
good, if he's about."
"Good-bye, Bulldog," Molly
answered, and her blue eyes followed the figure that slipped
so gracefully through the door, their depths holding a look
that was beautiful in its honest admiration.
"God!" she whispered; "why do women like
him--gee!"
Billy was tickling a lop ear on the buckskin.
"Mr. Carney," he said in a low
voice, one eye on the cabin door, "you heard what Molly
said about Bessie wishin' me on her, didn't you?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Let me give you the straight info.
Molly sent the money to Bessie to bring me here; we was both
broke. Then I found out Bessie had been gettin' it for a
year from her, 'cause I was sick and couldn't ride. I hadn't
saved none, thinkin' I'd got Rockefeller skinned to death as
a money-getter. It was the wastin' to make weight that got
me. I don't have to sweat off flesh now," he added
pathetically; "I'm a hundred and two."
"That's Molly Bur-dan" (her right
name) "all over--I know her. But don't worry kid. I
haven't got anybody to look after, and having money and no
use for it makes me lonesome. You give me Bessie's address,
and don't tout off Molly that you're doing it."
"I can get the money myself, Mr.
Carney--you just listen now. I didn't spring it inside
'cause Molly 'd get hot under the collar; she'd say that if
I rode in a race I'd bust a lung. Gee! ridin' to me is just
like goin' by-bye in a hammock; it 'd do me good."
Carney put a hand gently on the boy's shoulder,
saying: "The size of the package doesn't mean
much when it comes to being a man, does it, kid? Spring it;
get it off your chest."
Billy made a horseshoe in the sand with the
toe of his boot meditatively; then said:
"Slimy Red, of course, will be lookin'
for a match for Ding Dong. Most of the races here is
sprints, the old Texas game of half-a-mile, and weight don't
cut much ice that distance. He'll make it for a mile, or a
mile-and-a-quarter, 'cause Ding Dong could stay that
distance pretty well himself. If you was to match Waster
against the black, and let me ride him, I'd bring home the
bacon. He's a fourteen pound better horse than Ding Dong
ever was; a handicapper would separate them that much on
their form. Gee! I forgot somethin'," and Billy, a
shame-faced look in his eyes, gazed helplessly at Bulldog.
"What was it dropped out of your
think-pan, kid?"
"The roll. I've been makin' a noise like
a man with a bank behind him. A match ain't like where a
feller can go into the bettin' ring if he knows a couple of
hundred-to-one chances and parley a shoe-string into a block
of city houses; a match is even money, just about. And to
win a big stake you've got to have the long green."
"How much, Billy?"
"Well, the Iron Jaw bunch, bein' whisky
men and gamblers, naturally would stand to lose twenty
thousand, at least."
"I could manage it in a couple of days,
Billy, by keeping the wires hot."
"Before I forget it, Mr. Carney, if you
do buck this crowd make it catch weights. Slimy Red don't
own a hair in Ding Dong's tail, of course, but he'll have a
bill of sale right enough showin' he's the owner, and as he
can ride light they'll word it, 'owners up'".
Carney was thinking fast, and a glint of
light shot athwart his placid gray eyes.
"Happy thought, Kid; we'll string with
them on that; we'll make it owners up."
"I said catch weights," Billy
snapped irritably.
Carney answered with only a quizzical smile,
and the boy, turning, walked around the horse eyeing him
from every angle. He lifted first one foot and then the
others, examining them critically, pressing a thumb into the
frogs. He pinched with thumb and forefinger the tendons of
both forelegs; he squeezed the horse's windpipe till the
latter coughed; then he said:
"Please, Mr. Carney, mount and give him
half a furlong at top speed, finishin' up here. Make him
break as quick as you can till I see if he's got the
slows."
As obedient as a servant Bulldog swung to the
saddle, centered "Great!" the boy commented when
Carney, having gently eased the horse down, returned.
"He's the same old Waster; he flattens out in that
stride of his till he looks like a pony. His flanks ain't
pumpin' none. He'll do; he's had lots of work--he's in
better condition than Ding Dong, 'cause Slimy Red's been
puttin' in most of his trainin' time at the bar. I got a
three-pound saddle in my trunk that I won the 'Kenner
Stakes' at Saratoga on. Slimy Red will be givin' me about
ten pounds if you make the match catch weights; it'll be a
cinch--like gettin' money from home. But don't tell
Molly."
"We'll split fifty-fifty," Carney
said.
"Nothin' doin', Mister Mug; you cop the
coin for yourself--how much are you goin' to bet?"
"Five or ten thousand."
"Well, you give me ten per cent of the
five thousand--five hundred bucks, if we win. That'll square
Molly's bill for bringin' me up here."
"Come inside, kid," Carney said;
"I want to write out something."
Inside Carney said, "Molly, I'm going to
give Pat to Billy for a riding horse----"
"What?"
But Billy's gasp of astonishment was choked
by a frowning wink of one of Bulldog's gray eyes.
"Pat's getting a little old for the hard
knocks I have to give a horse," Carney resumed;
"that's partly what I came to Walla Walla for, to get a
young horse. Let me have a sheet of paper and a pen; it
doesn't do for a man to own a horse in this country without
handy evidence as how he came by him; and though this is a
gift I'm going to make it out in the form of a bill of
sale."
Carney drew up a simple bill of sale,
stating, that for one dollar, paid in hand, he transferred
his buckskin horse "Pat" to William Mackay. Molly
signed it as witness.
"I'll have to keep Pat for a day or two
till I get a new pony." Bulldog declared; "also
rather think I'll leave this bill of sale with a friend in
town for safe keeping, Billy might lose it," and a wink
closed one of the gray eyes that were turned on the boy's
face.
As Carney sat the buckskin outside, he
whispered, "Do you get it, Billy--owners up?"
"Gee! I get you."
The little man had been mystified.
"Don't be in a hurry over the
race," he advised; "make it for one week away.
That'll give me a chance to give Waster a few lessons in
breakin' to bring him back to the old days. I'll put a heavy
blanket about his neck for a gallop or two and sweat some of
the fat off his pipes. I can get a set of racin' plates made
for him, too, for a pound off his feet is four pounds off
his back. We'll give him all the fine touches, Mr. Carney,
and Waster 'll do his part."
The little man watched the buckskin lope down
toward Walla Walla, then he turned in to the cottage where
he was greeted by Molly's:
"Ain't Bulldog some man, Billy?"
"Will you tell me something,
Molly?" the boy asked hesitatingly.
"Shoot," she commanded.
"Is he--was he--the man--Bessie told me
something?"
"There ain't no woman on God's
footstool, Billy, can say Bulldog Carney was the man that
fell down. That's why we all like him. There ain't a woman
on the Gold Coast that ever lamped Bulldog that wouldn't
stake him if she had to put her sparklers in hock. And there
ain't a man that knows him that'll try to put one
over--'tain't healthy. He's got a temper as sweet as a bull
pup's, but he's lightnin' when he starts. He don't cotton to
no girl, 'cause he was once engaged to one of the sweetest
you ever see, Billy."
"Did she die, Molly?"
"The other man did! And nothin' was done
to Bulldog 'cause it was comin' to the hound."
Carney rode on till he came to the Mountain
House. Here he was at home for the proprietor was an old
Gold Range friend.
First he saw that the buckskin had a worthy
supper, then he ate his own.
When it had grown dark and the gleaming
lights of the Del Monte Saloon were throwing their radiancy
out into the street, he put the bridle on his buckskin and
rode to the house of "Teddy the Leaper," who was
Sheriff of Shoshone County.
The sheriff welcomed Carney with a
differential friendship that showed they stood well together
as man to man; for though Bulldog's reputation varied in
different places, and with different people, it stood
strongest with those who had known him longest, and who,
like most men of the West, were apt to judge men from their
own experience.
Teddy the Leaper admired Bulldog Carney the
man; he would have staked his life on anything Carney told
him. Officially, as sheriff, the County of Shoshone was his
bailiwick, and the County of Shoshone held nothing on its
records against Carney. "Always a gentleman," was
Teddy's summing up of Bulldog Carney.
Carney drew an envelope from his pocket,
saying: "Will you take care of this for me, Sheriff?
Inside is a bill of sale of my horse."
"What, Bulldog--the buckskin?"
Teddy's eyes searched the speaker's face; it was
unbelievable. A light dawned upon the sheriff; Bulldog had
put many a practical joke over--he was kidding. Teddy
laughed.
"Bulldog," he said, "I've
heard that you was English, a son of one of them bloated
lords, but faith it's Irish you are. You've as much humor as
you've nerve--you're Irish."
"There's also a note in that
envelope"--Carney ignored the chaff--"that directs
you to pay over to a little lad that's up against it out at
Molly's place, any money that might happen to be in your
hands if I suddenly--well, if I didn't need it--see?"
"I'll do that, Bulldog."
"Think you'll be at the Del Monte
to-night, Sheriff?" Carney asked casually.
Teddy's Irish eyes flashed a quizzical look
on the speaker; then he answered diplomatically: "There
ain't no call why I got to be there--lest I'm sent for, and
I ain't as spry gettin' around as I was when I made that
record of forty-six feet for the hop-step- Carney rippled one of his low musical laughs:
"I'd like to line you up at the bar, Sheriff, for a
thimbleful of poison."
Teddy's eyes again sought the speaker's
mental pockets, but the placid face showed no warrant for
expected trouble. The Sheriff coughed, then ventured:
"If you're goin' to stack up agin odds,
Bulldog, I'll dress for the occasion; I don't gener'ly go
'round hostile draped."
Again Carney laughed. "You might bring a
roomy pocket, Sheriff; it might so turn out that I'd like
you to hold a few eagle birds till such times as they're
right and proper the property of another man or myself. Does
that put any kink in your code?"
"Not when I act for you, Bulldog; 'cause
it'll be on the level: I'll be there."
Next Carney rode to the Del Monte and
hitching the buckskin to a post, he adjusted his belt till
the butt of his gun lay true to the drop of his hand.
As he entered the saloon slowly, his gray
eyes flashed over the bar and a group of men on the right of
the gaming tables, for there was one man perhaps in Walla
Walla he wanted to see before the other saw him. It wasn't
Slimy Red--it was a tougher man.
Iron Jaw was leaning against the bar talking
to Death-on-the-trail, and behind the bar Snaggle Tooth
Boone stood listening to the conversation.
As Carney entered a quick look of
apprehension showed for an instant in Iron Jaw's
heavy-browned eyes; then a smile of greeting curled his
coarse lips. He held out a hand, saying: "Glad to see
you, Old Timer. You seem conditioned. Know Carson?"
"Yes."
Carney shook hands with the two men, and
reached across to clasp Boone's paw, adding: "We'll
sample the goods, Snaggle Tooth."
Boone winced at the appellation, for Carney
did not smile; there was even the suspicion of a sneer on
the lean face.
"How is Walla Walla?" Carney
queried, as the four glasses were held toward each other in
salute. "Racing relieved by a little gun argument once
in a while, I suppose. Chief Joseph threatening to let his
Nez Perces loose on you?"
"Racin' is on the hog," Iron Jaw
growled. "There's a bum over yonder pikin' agin the
Wheel that's been stung by the racin' bug, but when he calls
for a show-down some of 'em will trim him. Hear that?"
Iron Jaw held up a thumb, and they could hear
a thin strident voice babbling:
"Walla Walla's a nursery for tin horn
sports. There ain't a man here got anythin' but a goose
liver pumpin' his system, and a length of rubber hose up his
back holdin' his ribs."
Somebody objected; and the voice, that Carney
recognized as Texas Sam's snarled:
"Five birds of liberty! You call that
bettin'--a hundred iron men?"
"Want to see him?" Iron Jaw
queried. "I can't place him. Texas Sam he comes here
as; seems to be well fixed; but he's a booze fighter. I
guess that's what gives him dreams."
Quiescently Bulldog followed the lead of Iron
Jaw and Death-on-the-trail across the room where, with his
back to the door, at a roulette table sat Texas Sam. He was
winning; three stacks of chips rose to a toppling height at
his right hand.
Carney noticed from the color that they were
five dollar chips. Knowing from Molly that Texas was a stool
pigeon he understood the philosophy of the high-priced
counters. It was easier to keep tally on what he drew and
what he turned back in after the game, for the losings and
the winnings were all a bluff, and the money furnished him
for the show had to be accounted for. Iron Jaw trusted no
man.
"The game's like roundin' up a bunch of
cows heavy in calf," Texas was saying as they
approached; "it's too damn slow. I want action."
He placed five chips on the thirteen as the
croupier spun the wheel, bleating:
"Hoodoo thirteen's my lucky number. I
was whelped on Friday the thirteenth, at thirteen
o'clock--as you old leatherheads make it, one A.M."
The little ivory ball skipped and hopped as
it slid down from the smooth plane of the wheel to the
number chambers. It almost settled into one, and then, as if
agitated by some unseen devil of perversity, rolled over the
thin wall and lay, like a bird's egg, in a black nest that
was number "13."
"By a nose!" Texas exulted.
"Do I win, Judge?"
The croupier's face was as expressionless as
the silver veil of Mahmoud as he built into pillars over
eight hundred dollars in chips, and shoved them across the
board to Texas.
The noisy one swept them to the side of the
table, and called for a drink.
It was a curiously diversified interest that
centered on this play of the uncouth Texas. Iron Jaw and
Death-on-the-trail viewed it with apathetic interest, much
as a trainer might watch a pupil punching the bag--it didn't
mean anything.
Carney, too, knowing its farcical value,
looked on, waiting for his opportunity.
Snaky Dick sat across the table from Texas,
dribbling a few fifty-cent chips here and there amongst
the numbers, also waiting. To him the play was real;
he had seen it in reality a thousand times--a man
loaded with bad liquor and in possession of money
running the gamut. Behind Snaky Dick sat others
of the Clatawa clique waiting for his lead. Their money
was ready to cinch the match as soon as made.
Iron Jaw watched Snaky Dick furtively; the time
seemed ripening. They had arranged, through some little
vagaries of the wheel, vagaries that could be brought out by
the assistance of the croupier, that apparently Texas
should make a killing.
Now the croupier called out: "Make your
bets, gentlemen." He gave the wheel a send-off with
finger and thumb, his droning voice singing the cadence of:
"Hurry up, gentlemen! Make your bets while the
merry-go-round plays on."
"For a repeat," Texas shrilled,
dropping the chips one after another on to the thirteen
square until they stood like a candle. Impatiently the
croupier checked him:
"Mind the limit, Mister."
"When I play the sky's my limit,"
Texas answered.
"Not here," the croupier
admonished, sweeping three-quarters of the ivory discs from
thirteen.
The little ball of peripatetic fate that had
held on its erratic way during this, now settled down into a
compartment painted green.
"Double zero!" the croupier
remarked, and swept the table bare.
Texas cursed. "There ain't no double
zero in racin'; there ain't no green-eyed horse runnin' for
the the track--everybody's got a chance. Here! I'm goin' to
cash in."
He shoved the ivory chips irritably across
the table, and the croupier, stacking them in his board,
said: "A thousand and fifty."
As methodically as he had built up the chips,
from a drawer he erected little golden plinths of
twenty-dollar pieces, and with both hands pushed them toward
the winner.
Texas put the palm of his hand on the shiny
mound, saying:
"I'm goin' to orate; I'm gettin' plumb
hide-bound 'cause of this long sleep in Walla Walla.
To-morrow I'm pullin' my freight down the trail to the
outside where men is. But these yeller-throated singin'
birds says I got a cow-hocked whang-doodle on four hoofs
named Horned Toad that can outrun anything that eats with
molars in Walla Walla, from a grasshopper's jump to four
miles. Now I've said it, ladies--who's next?"
A quiet voice at his elbow answered almost
plaintively: "If you will take your paw off those
yellow boys I'll bury them twice."
At the sound of that drawling voice Texas
sprang to his feet, whirled, and seeing Carney, struck at
him viciously. Carney simply bent his lithe body, and the
next instant Iron Jaw had Texas by the throat, shaking him
like a rat.
"You damn locoed fool!" he swore;
"what d'you mean?--what d'you mean?" each query
being emphasized by a vigorous shake.
"He simply means," explained
Carney, "that he's a cheap bluffer--a wind gambler.
When he's called he quits. That's just what I thought."
"Give him a chance, Blake,"
Death-on-the-trail interposed; "let go!"
Iron Jaw pressed Texas back into his chair,
saying:
"You've got too much booze. If you want
to bet on your horse sit there and cut out this Injun
stuff."
Snaky Dick had jumped to his feet, startled
by the fact that Carney was about to break in on his
preserve. Now he said: "If Texas is pinin' for a race
Clatawa is waitin'--so is his backin'."
Carney turned his gray eyes on the speaker:
"There's a rule in this country, Snaky,
that when two men have got a discussion on, others keep out.
I've undertaken to call this jack rabbit's bluff, and he
makes good, or takes his noisy organ away to play it outside
of Walla Walla."
Texas Sam had received a thumb in the rib
from Iron Jaw that meant, "Go ahead," so he said,
surlily: "There's my money on the table. Anybody can
come in--the game's wide open."
"That being so," Carney drawled,
"there's a little buckskin horse tied to the post
outside, that's carried me for three years around this land
of delight, and he looks good to me."
He unslung from his waist a leather roll, and
dropped its snake-like body across the Texas coin, saying:
"There's two thousand in twenties, and
if this cheap-singing person sees the raise, it goes for a
race at a mile-and-a-quarter between the little buckskin
outside and this cow-hocked mule he sings about."
"I want to see this damn buckskin,"
Texas objected.
"You don't need to worry," Iron Jaw
commented; "the horse is pretty nigh as well known as
Bulldog."
But Texas, having been born in a very nest of
iniquity, having been stable boy, tout, half-mile-track
ringer, and runner for a wire-tapping bunch, was naturally
suspicious.
"I don't match against an unknown,"
he objected; "let me lamp this Flyin' Dutchman of the
Plains; it may be Salvator for all I know."
"Let him get out the door," Carney
sneered "it will be good-bye--we'll never see him
again."
"And if we don't," Snaky Dick
interposed, "I'll cover your money, Carney."
Bulldog swung the gray eyes, and levelled
them at the red-and-yellow streaked beads that did seeing
duty in Snaky's face:
"You ever hear about the gent who was
kicked out of Paradise and told to go scoot along on his
belly for butting in?" Then he followed the little
crowd at Texas Sam's heels.
In the yellow glare of the Del Monte lights
the buckskin looked very little like a race horse. He stood
about fifteen and a quarter hands, looking not much more
than a pony, as, half asleep, he had relaxed his body; the
lop ears hanging almost at right angles to his lean bony
head suggested humor more than speed. He stood
"over" on his front legs, a habit contracted when
he favoured the weak knees. As he was a gelding his neck was
thin, so far removed from a crest that it was almost
ewe-like; his tremendous width of rump caused the hip bones
to project, suggesting an archaic design of equine
structure. The direct lamplight threw cavernous shadows all
over his lean form.
Texas Sam shot one rapid look of appraisement
over the sleepy little horse; then he laughed.
"Pinch me, Iron Jaw!" he cried;
"am I ridin' on the tail board of an overland bus
seein' things in the desert, and hearin' wings?"
He pointed a forefinger at the buckskin.
"Is that the lopin' jack-rabbit that runs for your
money?" he queried of Carney.
"That horse's name is Pat," Bulldog
answered quietly, "and we've been pals so long that
when any yapping coyote snaps at him I most naturally kick
the brute out of the way. But that's the horse, Buckskin
Pat, that my money says can outrun, for a
mile-and- Texas Sam was naturally of a vicious temper,
and this allusion caused him to flare up again, as Carney
meant it to. But Iron Jaw whirled him around, saying:
"Cut out the man end of it--let's get
down to cases. We ain't had a live hoss race for so long
that I most forget what it looks like. If you two mean
business come inside and put up your bets, gentlemen."
Iron Jaw abrogated to himself the duty of
Master of Ceremonies. First he set his croupier to work
counting the gold of Texas Sam and Bulldog Carney. There
were an even hundred twenty-dollar gold pieces in the belt
Carney had thrown on the table.
"You're shy on the raise," Iron
Jaw remarked, winking at Texas.
"I'll see his raise," the latter
growled. "You've got more'n that of mine in your safe,
Iron Jaw, so stack 'em up for me till they're level. I might
as well win somethin' worth while--there won't be no fun in
the race. That jack--that buckskin,"--he checked
himself--"won't make me go fast enough to know I'm in
the saddle."
"You let me in that and I'll furnish the
speed," Snaky Dick could not resist the temptation to
clutch at the money he saw slipping away from him.
"Make it a three-cornered sweep, Mr. Carney," he
pleaded; "I'll ante."
"It would be some race," Iron Jaw
encouraged; "some race, boys. I've seen the little
buckskin amble. I don't know nothin' about this Texas
person's caravan, but Clatawa, for a sauce bottle that holds
both warm and cold blood, ain't so slow--he ain't so slow,
gents."
The idea caught on; everybody in the saloon
rose to the occasion. Yells of, "Make it a sweep! Let
Clatawa in! Wake up old Walla Walla with something worth
while!" came from many throats.
Bulldog seemed to debate the matter, a smile
twitching his drab mustache.
"I've said it," Texas cried;
"she's wide open. Anybody that's got a pet eagle he
thinks can fly faster'n my cow-pony can run, can enter him.
There ain't no one barred, and the limit's up where the
pines point to."
Snaky Dick had edged around the table till he
stood close beside Bulldog, where he whispered: "Let me
in, Carney; I've been layin' for this flannel-mouth. I don't
want to see him get away with Walla Walla money. You save
your stake with me, if I'm in."
Carney pushed the little wizzen-face speaker
away, saying:
"Any kind of a talking bird can swing in
on a winning if he's got a copper-riveted, cinch bet. But
sport, as I understand it, gentlemen, consists in providing
excitement, taking on long chances."
"That's Bulldog talkin'," somebody
interrupted; and they all cheered.
"That being acknowledged," Carney
resumed, "I feel like stealing candy from a blind kid
when I crowd in on this Texas person. A yellow man wouldn't
know how to own a real horse; that money on the table is, so
to speak, mine now; but as Snaky Dick is panting to make it
a real race, purely out of a kindly feeling for Walla Walla
sports, I'm going to let him draw cards. Clatawa is
welcome."
"The drinks is on the house when I hear
a wolf howl like that!" Snaggle Tooth yelled.
"Crowd up, gentlemen--the drinks is on the house! Old
Walla Walla is goin' to sit up and take notice; Bulldog is
some live wire."
Chairs were thrust back; men crowded the bar;
liquors were tossed off. Sheriff Teddy the Leaper, who had
come in, felt his arm touched by Carney, and inclining his
head to a gentle pull at his coatsleeve, he heard the latter
whisper, "Stake holder for my sake." That was all.
Then the crowd swarmed back to the table
where the croupier had remained beside the mound of gold.
"You give Jim, there, a receipt for a
thousand, and he'll pass it out," Iron Jaw told Texas.
Jim the croupier took from the safe behind
him rolls of twenty-dollar gold pieces and stood them up in
Texas's pile. He removed a few coins, saying, "The pot
is right, gentlemen; two thousand apiece."
"Hold on," Snaky Dick cried;
"it ain't closed yet--I draw cards."
"Not till you see the bet and the
raise," Carney objected. "Nobody whispers his way
into this game; it's for blood."
"Give me a cheque book, Snaggle
Tooth," Snaky pleaded.
"Flimsies don't go," Carney
objected.
"Nothin' but the coin weighs in agin
me," Texas agreed; "put up the dough-boys or keep
out."
Snaky was in despair. Here was just the
softest spot in all the world, and without the cash he
couldn't get in.
"Will you cash my cheque?" he asked
Iron Jaw.
"If Baker'll O.K. it I figger you must
have the stuff in his bank--it'll be good enough for
me," Iron Jaw replied.
There was a little parley between Snaky Dick,
his associates, and Baker, who was a private banker. The
cheque was made out, endorsed, and cashed from the gambling
funds, Iron Jaw being a partner of Snaggle Tooth's in this
commercial enterprise.
When the pot was complete, six thousand on
the table, Texas said:
"We've got to have a stakeholder; put
the money in Blake's hands--does that go?"
Snaky Dick coughed, and hesitated. He had no
suspicion that Iron Jaw had any interest with Texas Sam, but
knowing the man as he did, he felt sure that before the race
was run Iron Jaw and Snaggle Tooth would be in the game up
to the eyes.
The drawling voice of Carney broke the little
hush that followed this request.
"You're from the outside, Texas; you
know all about your own horse, and that lets you out. The
selecting of a stakeholder, and such, most properly belongs
to Walla Walla, that is to say, such of us interested as
more or less live here. The Sheriff of Shoshone, who is
present, if he'll oblige, is the man that holds my money,
and yours, too, unless you want to crawfish. Does that suit
you, Snaky?"
"It does," the latter answered
cheerfully, for, fully believing that Clatawa was going to
show a clean pair of heels to the other horses, he wanted
the money where he could get it without gun-play.
"That's settled, then," Carney said
blithely, ignoring Texas completely. He turned to Teddy the
Leaper: "Will you oblige, Sheriff?"
The Sheriff was agreeable, saying that as
soon as they had completed details they would take the money
over to Baker's bank and lock it up in the safe, Baker
promising to take charge of it, even if it were at night.
"Just repeat the conditions of the
match," the Sheriff said, and he drew from his pocket a
note book and pencil.
Carney seized the opportunity to say:
"A three-cornered race between the
buckskin gelding Pat, the black gelding Horned Toad, and the
bay horse Clatawa at one mile and a quarter. The stake, two
thousand dollars a corner; winner take all. To be run one
week from to-day."
"Is that right, gentlemen?" the
Sheriff asked; "all agreed?"
"Owners up--this is a gentleman's
race," Texas snapped.
"Satisfactory?" the Sheriff asked,
his eyes on Carney.
The latter nodded; and Iron Jaw winked at
Snaggle Tooth.
Snaky Dick could scarce credit his ears:
surely the gods were looking with favor upon his fortunes;
the other riders would be giving him many pounds in this
self-accepted handicap.
At Sheriff Teddy's suggestion the gold was
carried over to Baker's bank, a stone building almost
opposite the Del Monte; the bag containing it was sealed and
placed in a big safe, Baker giving the Sheriff a receipt for
six thousand dollars.
Then they went back to the Del Monte for
target practise At this time Carney had taken the buckskin to
his stable, going back to the saloon.
Snaggle Tooth made a short patriotic speech,
the burden of which was that the saloon was full of men of
eager habit who had not had a chance to sit into the game,
and to ameliorate the condition of these mournful mavericks
he would sell pools on the race, for the mere honorarium of
five per cent.
Fever was in the men's blood; if he had
suggested twenty per cent it would have gone.
Snaggle Tooth took up his position behind a
faro table and called out:
"The pool is open, with Clatawa, Horned
Toad, and Pat in the box. What am I bid for first
choice?"
"Twenty dollars," a voice cried.
"Thirty," another said.
"Forty."
"Fifty."
A dry rasp that suggested an alkaline throat
squeaked: "A hundred. Is this a horse race, or are we
dribblin' into the plate at the synagogue?"
"Sold!" Snaggle Tooth yapped,
knowing well that excitement begat quick action. "Which
cayuse do you favor, plunger?"
"The range horse, Clatawa."
The croupier at Snaggle Tooth's elbow took
the bidder's five twenty-dollar gold pieces and passed him a
slip with Clatawa's name on it.
"A hundred dollars in the box and second
choice for sale," Snaggle Tooth drawled, his prominent
fang gleaming in the lamp light as he mouthed the words.
Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty was bid
like the quick popping of a machine gun; at seventy-five
the bids hung fire, and the auctioneer, thumping the
table with his bony fist, snapped, "Sold! Name your jack
rabbit."
"Horned Toad!" came from the bidder of the
seventy-five.
"A hundred and seventy-five in the box,"
Snaggle Tooth droned, "and the buckskin for sale. What
about it, you pikers--what about it?"
There seemed to be nothing about it, unless
silence was something. The hush seemed to dampen the
gambling spirit.
"What!" yelped Snaggle Tooth;
"two thousand golden bucks staked on the horse now, and
no tinhorn with sand enough in his gizzard to open his trap.
This is a race, not a funeral--who's dead? Bulldog, you laid
even money; here's a hundred and seventy-five goin'
a-beggin'. Ain't you got a chance?"
"Ten dollars!" Carney bid as if
driven into it.
"Ten dollars, ten dollars bid for the
buckskin; a hundred and seventy-five in the box, and ten
dollars bid for the buckskin. Sold!"
The first pool was followed by others, one
after another: the roulette table, the keno game, and faro
were in the discard--their tables were deserted.
It soon became evident that Clatawa was a hot
favorite; the public's money was all for the Walla Walla
champion.
Noting this, the Horned Toad trio hung back,
bidding less. Clatawa was selling for a hundred, Horned Toad
about fifty, and the buckskin sometimes knocked down at ten
to Carney, or sometimes bid up to twenty by someone tempted
by the odds.
At last Carney slipped quietly away, having
bought at least twenty pools that stood him between three
and four thousand to a matter of two hundred.
In the morning he rode the buckskin out to
Molly's cottage and turned him over to Billy.
The boy's voice trembled with delight when he
was told of what had taken place.
"Gee! now I will get well," he
said; "I'll beat the bug out now---I'll have heart. You
see, Mr. Carney, I got set down in California a year ago. It
wasn't my fault; I was ridin' for Timberleg Harley, and he
give the horse a bucket of water before the race; he didn't
want to win--was lettin' the horse run for Sweeney, layin'
for a big price later on. He had an interest in a book, and
they took liberties with the horse's odds--he was favorite.
He didn't dare tell me anything about it, the hound. When I
found the horse couldn't raise a gallop, hangin' in my hand
like a sea lion, I didn't ride him out, thinkin' he'd broke
down. They had me up in the Judges' Stand, and sent for the
books. It looked bad. Timberleg got off by swearin' I'd
pulled the horse to let the other one win; swore that I
stood in with the book that overlaid him. I was give the
gate, and it just broke my heart. I was weak from wastin'
anyway. And you can't beat the bug out if your heart's soft;
the bug'll win--it's a hundred-to-one on him. First thing
I'm goin' to give Waster a ball to clean him out, give him a
bran mash, too. He must be like a currycomb inside, grass
and hay and everything here is full of this damn cactus. A
week ain't much to ready up a horse for a race, but he ain't
got no fat to work off, and he knows the game. In a week
he'll be as spry as a kitten. I'll just play with him. I'll
bunk with him, too. If Slimy Red got wise to anything he'd
slip him a twig of locoe, or put a sponge up his nose. Do
you know what that thief did once, Mr. Carney? He was a
moonlighter; he sneaked the favorite for a race that was to
be run next day out of his stall at night and galloped him
four miles with about a hundred and sixty in the saddle.
That settled the favorite; he run his race same's if he was
pullin' a hearse.
"That's a good idea, Billy. There's
half-a-dozen Slimy Reds in Walla Walla: it's a good idea,
only I'll do the sleeping with the buckskin. I'd be lonesome
away from him."
The boy objected, but Carney was firm.
Billy was not only a good rider, but he was a
man of much brains. There was little of the art of training
that he did not know, for his father had been a trainer
before him--he had been brought up in a stable.
Fortunately the buckskin's working life had
left little to be desired in the way of conditioning; it was
just that the sinews and muscles might have become
case-hardened, more the muscles of endurance than activity.
But then the race was over a distance, a
mile-and-a-quarter, where the endurance of the thoroughbred
would tell over Clatawa. Indeed, full of the contempt which
a racing man has for a cold-blooded horse, Billy did not
consider Clatawa in the race at all.
"That part of it is just found
money," he assured Carney. "Clatawa will go off
with a burst of speed like those Texas half-milers, and
he'll commence to die at the mile; he hasn't a chance."
As to Ding Dong it was simply a question of
whether the black had improved and Waster gone back enough,
through being thrown out of training, to bring the two
together. Anywhere near alike in condition Waster was a
fourteen-pound better horse than Ding Dong. It might be that
now, his legs sounder than they had ever been when he was
racing, Waster might run the best mile-and-a-quarter of his
life.
Of course this might not be possible in a
three-quarter sprint, for, at that terrific rate of going,
running it from end to end at top speed, a certain nervous
or muscular system would be called upon that had practically
become atrophied through the more leisure ways of the trail
work.
The little man pondered over these many
things just as a man of commerce might mentally canvas great
markets, conveying his point of view to Carney generally. He
would map out the race as they sat together in the evening.
"Of course Snaky Dick will shoot out
from the crack of the pistol, and try to open up a gap
that'll break our hearts. He won't dare to pull Clatawa in
behind; a cold-blooded horse's got the heart of a
chicken--he'd quit. Slimy'll carry Ding Dong along at a rate
he knows will leave him enough for a strong run home; but
he'll think that he's only got Clatawa to beat and he'll
pull out of his pace--he'll keep within strikin' distance of
Clatawa. I'll let them go on. I know 'bout how fast Waster
can run that mile-and-a-quarter from end to end. Don't you
worry if you see me ten lengths out of it at the mile.
Waster won all his races comin' through his horses from
behind--'cause he's game. When "Glad you mentioned it, little
man," Carney remarked drily.
The buckskin was given a long steady gallop
the day after he had received the ball of physic; then for
three days he was given short sprinting runs and a little
practise Nobody who was a judge of a horse's pace had
seen Waster gallop his trial over the full course, for the
boy had arranged it cleverly. Texas Sam and Snaky Dick both
worked their horses in the morning, and sometimes gave them
a slow gallop in the evening. Billy knew that at the first
peep of day some of the Clatawa people would be on the
track, so he waited that morning until everybody had gone
home to breakfast, thinking all the gallops were over; then
he slipped on to the course and covered the
mile-and- The course was a straightaway, one hundred
feet wide, lying outside of the town on the open plain, and
running parallel to the one long street. The finish post was
opposite the heart of the town.
The week was one long betting carnival; one
heard nothing but betting jargon. It was horse morning,
noon, and night.
Carney had acquired another riding horse, and
the Horned Toad cabal laughed cynically at his seriousness.
Iron Jaw could not understand it, for Bulldog had a
reputation for cleverness; but here he was acting like a
tenderfoot. Once or twice a suspicion flashed across his
mind that perhaps Bulldog had discovered something, and
meant to call them after they had won the race. But there
was Clatawa; there was nothing to cover up in his case, and
surely Carney didn't think he could beat the bay with his
buckskin. Besides they weren't racing under Jockey Club
rules. They hadn't guaranteed anything; Carney had matched
his horse against the black, and there he was; names didn't
count--the horse was the thing.
Molly had heard about the match and had grown
suspicious over Billy's active participation, fearing it
might bring on a hemorrhage if he rode a punishing race.
When she taxed Billy with this he pleaded so hard for a
chance to help out, assuring Molly that Waster would run his
own race, and would need little help from him, that she
yielded. When she talked to Bulldog about it he told her he
was going to give the whole stake to Billy, the four
thousand, if he won it.
And then came the day of the great match.
From the time the first golden shafts of sunlight had
streamed over the Bitter Root Mountains, picking out the
forms of Walla Walla's structures, that looked so like a
mighty pack of wolves sleeping in the plain, till well on
into the afternoon, the border town had been in a ferment.
What mattered whether there was gold in the Coeur d'Alene or
not; whether the Nez Perces were good Presbyterians under
the leadership, physically, of Chief Joseph, and
spiritually, Missionary Mackay, was of no moment. A man lay
cold in death, a plug of lead somewhere in his chest, the
result of a gambling row, but the morrow would be soon
enough to investigate; to-day was the day---the day
of the race; minor business was suspended.
It made men thirsty this hot, parching
anticipation; women had a desire for finery. Doors stood
open, for the dwellers could not sit, but prowled in and
out, watching the slow, loitering clock hands for four
o'clock.
One phrase was on everybody's lips:
"I'll take that bet."
Numerically the followers of Clatawa were in
the majority; but there was a weight of metal behind Horned
Toad that steadied the market; it came from a mysterious
source. Texas Sam had been played for a blatant fool; nobody
had seen Horned Toad show a performance that would warrant
backing.
The little buckskin was looked upon as a
sacrifice to his owner's well-known determination, his wild
gambling spirit, that once roused, could not be bluffed.
They pitied Carney because they liked him; but what was the
use of stringing with a man who held the weakest hand? And
yet when somebody, growing rash, offered ten to one against
the buckskin, a man, quite as calm and serene as Bulldog
Carney himself, looking like a placer miner who worked a
rocker on some bend of the Columbia, would say, diffidently,
"I'll take that bet." And he would make good--one
yellow eagle or fifty. It was almost ominous, the quiet
seriousness of this man who said his name was Oregon, just
Oregon.
"Talk of gamblers," Iron Jaw said
with a spluttering laugh, and he pointed to the street where
little knots of people stood, close packed against some two,
who, money in hand, were backing their faith. Then the fatty
laugh chilled into a cold-blooded sneer:
"Snaggle Tooth, we'll learn these
tin-horns somethin'; tomorrow your safe won't be big enough
to hold it. But, say, don't let that Texas brayin' ass have
no more booze."
"If you ask me, Blake, I think he's
yeller. He's plumb babyfied now because of Carney--sober
he'd quit."
"Carney won't turn a hair when we
win."
"Course he won't. But you can't get that
into Texas's noodle with a funnel--he's hoodooed; wants me
to plant a couple of gun men at the finish for fear
Bulldog'll grab him."
"Look here, Snaggle, that coyote--hell!
I know the breed of them outlaws, they'd rather win a race
crooked than by their horse gallopin' in front--he just
can't trust himself; he's afraid he'll foul the others when
the chance flashes on him. You just tell him that we can't
stand to kiss twenty thousand good-bye because of any Injun
trick; the Sheriff wouldn't stand for it for a minute; he'd
turn the money over to the horse that he thought ought to
get it, quick as a wolf'd grab a calf by the throat."
That was the atmosphere on that
sweet-breathed August day in the archaic town of Walla
Walla.
It was a perfectly conceived race; three men
in it and each one confident that he held a royal flush;
each one certain that, bar crooked work, he could win.
The sporting Commandant of the U.S. Cavalry
troop had been appointed judge of the finish at the
Sheriff's suggestion; and another officer was to fire the
starting gun.
It was a springy turf course; just the going
to suit Waster, whose legs had been dicky. On a hard course,
built up of clay and sand, guiltless of turf, the fierce
hammering of the hoofs might even yet heat up his joints,
though they looked sound; his clutching hoofs might cup out
unrooted earth and bow a tendon.
An hour before race time people had flocked
out to the goal where would be settled the ownership of
thousands of dollars by the gallant steed that first caught
the judge's eye as he flashed past the post. Even Lieutenant
Governor Moore was there; that magnificent Nez Perces, Chief
Joseph, sat his half-blooded horse a six-foot-three bronze
Apollo, every inch a king in his beaded buckskins and his
eagle feathers. The picture was Homeric, grand; and behind
the canvas was the subtle duplicity of gold worshipers.
At half-past three a hush fell over the
chattering, betting, vociferating throng, as the judge, a
tall soldierly figure of a man, called:
"Bring out the horses for this race: it
is time to go to the post!"
Clatawa was the first to push from behind the
throng to the course where the judge stood. He was a
beautiful, high-spirited bay with black points, and a broad
line of white, starting from a star in his forehead, ran
down his somewhat Roman nose. Two men led him, one on either
side, and a blanket covered his form.
Then Horned Toad was led forward by a stable
man; beneath a loose blanket showed the outlines of a small
saddle. The horse walked with the unconcerned step of one
accustomed to crowds, and noise, and blare. Beside him
strode Texas Sam, a long coat draping his form.
Behind Horned Toad came the buckskin, at his
heels Bulldog Carney, and beside Carney a figure that might
have been an eager boy out for the holiday. The buckskin
walked with the same indifference Horned Toad had shown.
As he was brought to a stand he lifted his
long lean neck, threw up the flopped ears, spread his
nostrils, and with big bright eyes gazed far down the track,
so like a huge ribbon laid out on the plain, as if wondering
where was the circular course he loved so well. He knew it
was a race--that he was going to battle with those of his
own kind. The tight cinching of the little saddle on his
back, the bandages on his shins, the sponging out of his
mouth, the little sprinting gallops he had had--all these
touches had brought back to his memory the game his rich
warm, thoroughbred blood loved. His very tail was arched
with the thrill of it.
"Mount your horses; it is time to go to
the post!" Judge Cummings called, watch in hand.
The blanket was swept from Clatawa's back,
showing nothing but a wide, padded surcingle, with a little
pocket either side for his rider's feet. And Snaky Dick,
dropping his coat, stood almost as scantily attired; a pair
of buckskin trunks being the only garment that marked his
brown, monkey-like form.
Horned Toad carried a racing saddle, and from
a shaffle bit the reins ran through the steel rings of a
martingale.
At this Carney smiled, and more than one in
the crowd wondered at this get-up for a supposed cow-pony.
Then when Texas threw his long coat to a
stable man, and stood up a slim lath of a man, clad in light
racing boots, thin white tight-fitting racing breeches and a
loose silk jacket, people stared again. It was as if, by
necromancy, he had suddenly wasted from off his bones forty
pounds of flesh.
But there was still further magic waiting the
curious throng, for now the buckskin, stripped of his
blanket, showed atop his well-ribbed back a tiny matter of
pigskin that looked like a huge postage stamp. And the
little figure of a man, one foot in Carney's hand, was
lifted lightly to the saddle, where he sat in attire the
duplicate of Texas Sam's.
With a bellow of rage Iron Jaw pushed
forward, crying:
"Hold, there! What the' hell are you
doin' on that horse, you damn runt? Get down!"
He reached a huge paw to the rider's thigh,
as though he would yank him out of the saddle.
His fingers had scarce touched the boy's leg
when his hands were thrown up in the air, and he reeled back
from a scimitar-like cut on his wind-pipe from the flat open
hand of Carney, and choking, sputtering an oath of raging
astonishment, he found himself looking into the bore of a
gun, and heard a voice that almost hissed in its constrained
passion:
"You coarse butcher! You touch that boy
and you'll wake up in hell. Now stand back and make to Judge
Cummings any complaint you have."
Snaggle Tooth and Death-on-the-trail had
pushed to Iron Jaw's side, their hands on their guns, and
Carney, full of a passion rare with him, turned on them:
"Draw, if you want that, or lift your
hands, damn quick!"
Surlily they dropped their half-drawn guns
back into their pig-skin pockets. And Oregon, who had thrust
forward, drew close to the two and said something in a low
voice that brought a bitter look of hatred into the face of
Snaggle Tooth.
But Oregon looked him in the eye and said
audibly: "That's the last call to chuck--don't
forget."
Iron Jaw was now appealing to the judge:
"This match was for owners up."
He beckoned forward the stakeholder:
"Ain't that so, Sheriff--owners
up?"
"That was the agreement," Teddy
sustained.
"Wasn't that the bargain, Carney?"
Iron Jaw asked, turning on Bulldog.
"It was."
"Then what the' hell 're you doin'
afoot--and that monkey up?" And Iron Jaw jerked a thumb
viciously over his shoulder at the little man on Waster.
Carney's head lifted, and the bony contour of
his lower jaw thrust out like the ram of a destroyer:
"Mr. Blake," he said quietly,
"don't use any foul words when you speak to me--we're
not good enough pals for that; if you do I'll ram those
crooked teeth of yours down your throat. Secondly, that's
the owner of the buckskin sitting on his back. But the owner
of Horned Toad is sitting in a chair down in Portland, a man
named Reilly, and that thing on Ding Dong's back is Slimy
Red, a man who has been warned off every track in the West.
He doesn't own a hair in the horse's tail."
Iron Jaw's face paled with a sudden
compelling thought that Carney, knowing all this, and still
betting his money, held cards to beat him.
The judge now asked: "Do you object to
the rider of Horned Toad, Mr. Carney?"
"No, sir--let him ride. I'm not trying
to win their money on a technicality, but on a horse."
"Well, the agreement was owners up, you
admit?"
"I do," Carney answered.
"Did this boy on the buckskin's back own
him when the match was made?"
"He did."
"Is there any proof of the transaction,
the sale?" Major Cummings asked.
"Let me have that envelope I asked you
to keep," Carney said, addressing the sheriff.
When Teddy drew from a pocket the sealed
envelope, Carney tore it open, and passed to the judge the
bill of sale to MacKay of the buckskin. Its date showed that
it had been executed the day the match was made, and Teddy,
when questioned, said he had received it on that date, and
before the match was made.
"It was a plant," Iron Jaw
objected; "that proves it. Why did he put it in the
sheriff's hands--why didn't the boy keep it--it was
his?"
"Because I had a hunch I was going up
against a bunch of crooks," Carney answered suavely;
"crooks who played win, tie, or wrangle, and knew they
would claim the date was forged when they were beat at their
own game. And there was another reason."
Carney drew a second paper from the envelope,
and passed it to the Judge. It was a brief note stating that
if anything happened When the judge lifted his eyes Carney said,
with an apologetic little smile: "You see, the boy's
got the bug, and he's up against it. Molly Burdan is keeping
both him and his sister, and she can't afford it."
Major Cummings coughed; and there was a
little husky rasp in his voice as he said, quietly:
"The objection to the rider of the
buckskin horse is disallowed. This paper proves he is the
legitimate owner and entitled to ride. Go down to the
post."
A yell of delight went up from many throats.
The men of Walla Walla, and the riders of the plains who had
trooped in, were sports; they grasped the idea that the
gambling clique had been caught at their own game; that the
intrepid Bulldog had put one over on them. Besides, now they
could see that the race was for blood. The heavy betting had
started more than one whisper that perhaps it was a bluff;
some of the Clatawa people believing in the invincibility of
their horse, had hinted that perhaps there was a job on for
the two other horses to foul Clatawa and one of them go on
and win; though few would admit that Carney would be party
to cold-decking the public.
But accident had thrown the cards all on the
table; it was to be a race to the finish, and the stakes
represented real money.
Before they could start quite openly Carney
stepped close to the rider of Horned Toad, and said, in even
tones:
"Slimy Red, if you pull any dirty work
I'll be here at the finish waiting for you. If you can win,
win; but ride straight, or you'll never ride again."
"I'll be hangin' round the finish post,
too," Oregon muttered abstractedly, but both Iron Jaw
and Snaggle Tooth could hear him.
The three horses passed down the course,
Clatawa sidling like a boat in a choppy sea, champing at his
bit irritably, flecks of white froth snapping from his lips,
and his tail twitching and swishing, indicating his
excitable temperament; Horned Toad and Waster walked with
that springy lift to the pasterns that indicated the
perfection of breeding. Indians and cowboys raced up and
down the plain, either side of the course, on their ponies,
bandying words in a very ecstasy of delight. Old Walla Walla
had come into its own; the greatest sport on earth was on in
all its glory.
After a time the three horses were seen to
turn far down the course; they criss-crossed, and wove in
and out a few times as they were being placed by the
starter. The excitable Clatawa was giving trouble; sometimes
he reared straight up; then, with a few bucking jumps,
fought for his head. But the sinewy Snaky Dick was always
his master.
Atop the little buckskin the boy was scarce
discernible at that distance, as he sat low crouched over
his horse's wither. Almost like an equine statue stood
Waster, so still, so sleepy-like, that those who had taken
long odds about him felt a depression.
Horned Toad was scarcely still for an
instant; his wary rider, Texas, was keeping him on his
toes--not letting him chill out; but, like the buckskin's
jockey, his eye was always on the man with the gun. They
were old hands at the game, both of them; they paid little
attention to the antics of Clatawa--the starter was the
whole works.
Clatawa had broken away to be pulled up in
thirty yards. Now, as he came back, his wily rider wheeled
him suddenly short of the starting line, and the thing that
he had cunningly planned came off. The starter, finger on
trigger, was mentally pulled out of himself by this; his
finger gripped spasmodically; those at the finish post saw a
puff of smoke, and a white-nosed horse, well out in front,
off to a flying start.
The backers of Clatawa yelled in delight.
"Good old Snaky Dick!" some one
cried.
"Clatawa beat the gun!" another
roared.
"They'll never catch him!--never catch
him! He'll win off by himself!" was droned.
Behind, seemingly together, half the width of
the track separating them, galloped the black and the
buckskin. It looked as if Waster raced alone, as if he had
lost his rider, so low along his wither and neck lay the
boy, his weight eased high from the short stirrups. A hand
on either side of the lean neck, he seemed a part of his
mount. He was saying, "Ste-a-dy boy! stead-d-dy boy!
stead-d-dy boy!" a soft, low monotonous sing-song
through his clinched teeth, his crouch discounting the
handicap of a strong wind that was blowing down the track.
He could feel the piece of smooth-moving
machinery under him flatten out in a long rhythmic stride,
and his heart sank, for he knew it was the old Waster he had
ridden to victory more than once; that same powerful stride
that ate up the course with little friction. He was rating
his horse. "Clatawa will come back," he kept
thinking: "Clatawa will come back!"
He himself, who had ridden hundreds of races,
and working gallops and trials beyond count, knew that the
chestnut was rating along of his own knowledge at a pace
that would cover the mile-and-a-quarter in under 2.12.
Methodically he was running his race. Clatawa was sprinting;
he had cut out at a gait that would carry him a mile, if he
could keep it up, close to 1.40. Too fast, for the track was
slow, being turf.
He watched Horned Toad; that was what he had
to beat, he knew.
Texas had reasoned somewhat along the same
lines; but his brain was more flighty. As Clatawa opened a
gap of a dozen lengths, running like a wild horse, Texas
grew anxious; he shook up his mount and increased his pace.
The buckskin reached into his bridle at this,
as though he coaxed for a little more speed, but the boy
called, "Steady, lad, steady!" and let Horned Toad
creep away a length, two lengths; and always in front the
white-faced horse, Clatawa, was galloping on and on with a
high deer-like lope that was impressive.
At the finish post people were acclaiming the
name of Clatawa. They could see the little buckskin trailing
fifteen lengths behind, and Horned Toad was between the two.
Carney watched the race stoically. It was
being run just as Billy had forecasted; there was nothing in
this to shake his faith.
Somebody cried out: "Buckskin's out of
it! I'll lay a thousand to a hundred against him."
"I'll take it," Carney declared.
"I'll lay the same," Snaggle Tooth
yelled.
"You're on," came from Carney.
And even as they bet the buckskin had lost a
length.
Half-a-mile had been covered by the horses;
three-quarters; and now it seemed to the watchers that the
black was creeping up on Clatawa, the latter's rider, who
had been almost invisible, riding Indian fashion lying along
the back of his horse, was now in view; his shoulders were
up. Surely a quirt had switched the air once.
Yes, the Toad was creeping up--his rider was
making his run; they could see Texas's arms sway as he shook
up his mount.
Why was the boy on the little buckskin riding
like one asleep? Had he lost his whip--had he given up all
idea of winning?
They were at the mile: but a short quarter
away. A moan went up from many throats, mixed with hoarse
curses, for Clatawa was plainly in trouble; he was
floundering; the monkey man on his back was playing the
quirt against his ribs, the gyrations checking the horse
instead of helping him.
And the Toad, galloping true and straight,
was but a length behind.
Watching this battle, almost in hushed
silence, gasping in the smothered tenseness, the throng went
mentally blind to the little buckskin. Now somebody cried:
"God! look at the other one comin'! Look
at him--lo-ook at him, men!"
His voice ran up the scale to a shrill
scream. Other eyes lengthened their vision, and their owners
gasped.
Clatawa seemed to be And Horned Toad was but three lengths in
front now. Three lengths? It was two--it was one. Now the
buckskin's nose rose and fell on the black's quarters; now
the mouse-coloured muzzle was at his girth; now their heads
rose and fell together, as, stride for stride, they battled
for the lead: Texas driving his mount with whip and spur,
cutting the flanks of his horse with cruel blows in a
frantic endeavor to lift him home a winner.
How still the boy sat Waster; how well he
must know that he had the race won to nurse him like a babe.
No swaying of the body to throw him out of stride; no flash
of the whip to startle him--to break his heart; the brave
little horse was doing it all himself. And the boy, creature
of brains, was wise enough to sit still.
They could hear the pound of hoofs on the
turf like the beat of twin drums; they could see the eager
strife in the faces of the two brave, stout-hearted
thoroughbreds: and then the buckskin's head nod- ding in
front; his lean neck was clear of the black and he was
galloping straight as an arrow.
"The Toad is beat!" went up from a
dozen throats. "The buckskin wins--the buckskin
wins!" became a clamor.
Pandemonium broke loose. It was stilled by a
demoniac cry, a curse, from some strong-voiced man. The
black had swerved full in on to the buckskin; they saw Texas
clutch at the rider. Curses; cries of "Foul!"
rose; it was an angry roar like caged animals at war.
Carney, watching, found his fingers rubbing
the butt of his gun. The buckskin had been thrown out of his
stride in the collision: he stumbled; his head shot
down--almost to his knees he went: then he was galloping
again, the two horses locked together.
Fifty feet away from the finish post they
were locked: twenty feet.
The cries of the throng were hushed; they
scarce breathed.
Locked together they passed the post, the
buckskin's neck in front. Their speed had been checked; in a
dozen yards they were stopped, and the boy pitched headlong
from the buckskin's back, one foot still tangled in the
martingale of Horned Toad.
Men closed in frantically. A man--it was
Oregon--twisted Carney's gun skyward crying: "Leave
that coyote to the boys."
He was right. In vain Iron Jaw and
Death-on-the-trail sought to battle back the tense-faced men
who reached for Texas. Iron Jaw and Death-on-the-trail were
swallowed up in a seething mass of clamoring devils. Gun
play was out of the question: humans were like herrings
packed in a barrel.
Major Cummings, cool and quick-witted, had
called shrilly "Troopers!" and a little cordon of
men in cavalry uniform had Texas in the centre of a guarding
circle.
Carney, on his knees beside the boy, was
guarding the lad from the mad, trampling, fighting men;
striking with the butt of his pistol. And then a woman's
shrill voice rose clear above the tumult, crying:
"Back, you cowards--you brutes: the boy
is dying: give him room--give him air!"
Her bleached hair was down her back; her silk
finery was torn like a battered flag; for she had fought her
way through the crowd to the boy's side.
"Don't lift him--he's got a
hemorrhage!" she shrilled, as Carney put his arms
beneath the little lad. "Drive the men back--give him
air!" she commanded; and turned Billy flat on his back,
tearing from her shoulders a rich scarf to place beneath his
head. The lad's lips, coated with red froth, twitched in a
weak smile; he reached out a thin hand, and Molly, sitting
at his head, drew it into her lap.
"Just lie still, Billy. You'll be all
right, boy; just lie still; don't speak," she
admonished.
She could hear the lad's throat click, click,
click at each breath, the ominous tick tick, of "the
bug's" work; and at each half-stifled cough the
red-tinged yeasty sputum bubbled up from the life well.
The fighting clamor was dying down;
shame-faced men were widening the circle about the lad and
Molly.
The judge's voice was heard saying:
"The buckskin won the race,
gentlemen." And he added, strong condemnation in his
voice: "If Horned Toad had been first I would have
disqualified him: it was a deliberate foul."
The cavalry men had got Texas away, mounted,
and rushed him out to the barracks for protection.
"Get a stretcher, someone, please,"
Molly asked of the crowd. "Billy will be all right, but
we must keep him flat on his back.
"You'll be all right, Billy," she
added, bending her head till her lips touched the boy's
forehead, and her mass of peroxided hair hid the hot tears
that fell from the blue eyes that many thought only capable
of cupidity and guile.
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