Taking Chances Part 4

"I lost the colors when they turned into the stretch, but I saw that the favorite was still a good two lengths in front. The track was so deep in dust that I couldn't make out the others until they were well into the stretch for the lope to the wire. Then when they were all settled down to their barrels in the flying yellow dust, I saw one of the front divisionites behind the leader shoot out around on the outside and bend down to it. Say, I closed my lamps down tight. That horse coming on the outside like a black devil, with his bit almost crunched into flinders, was Jodan. I opened up my eyes when they were about sixty yards from the wire. In the middle of the whirlwind of dust I saw the favorite faltering, with Jodan a neck away and going like as if his distance was only a quarter of a mile and he a-covering it there in the stretch. Then I pulled my gla.s.ses away from my head, sat down, shut my eyes again and shook hands with death for a few seconds while the Indians all around me were howling 'Jodan!' 'Jodan!'

"'Jodan wins!' they yelled when the horses got under the wire, and I opened up my eyes just in time to see Jodan with open daylight between him and the favorite. That was a three-legged miracle, all right. I was in a daze, but I had a picture in my head of five fellows in Was.h.i.+ngton that had treated me right waiting for the race train to get in so that I could hand them each a thousand. I couldn't stand for that, and I had too many different kinds of heartbreak warping me out under my vest to feel like trying to explain the thing to them. So I walked over to Alexandria and caught the afternoon train for Richmond, after leaving my b.u.m string in the hands of another trainer. From Richmond I went on down to New Orleans, where I had some luck-never enough luck, though, to square the game up with me for that win of Jodan's, which made me feel old and tired for a long time afterward.

"If I outlive those five Was.h.i.+ngton fellows, or they take it into their lids to go to the Klondike together, maybe I'll have another look around under the shadow of that big dome yonder. But I don't want to meet them.

Explaining's too hard work, and the circ.u.mstances of that St. Asaph happening, which occurred as I've spieled it, were 'agin' me!"

STORY OF AN "ALMOST" COMBINATION.

_It Paid $2,000 to $2, and Looked Like a Winner Until the Last Jump, But--_

There was a period of prolonged, nerve-racking excitement one afternoon last week in a demure and retiring Harlem poolroom that doesn't draw any color line. A colored sport was threatening to tear the place loose from its foundations and to fire a volley over the ruins-in a purely figurative sense, that is to say. Literally he didn't commit any breach of the peace at all. But he had a combination ticket in his clothes for a couple of hours that practically made all the rest of the people in the place forget what they were there for. He was as black as that overworked one-spot of spades. He was known to his envied intimates only as Mose, and the very large checked suit of plaid that he wore had a certain cake-walk suggestiveness, as did his huge red necktie, his patent leathers with blue polka-dotted uppers, and his three large yellow diamonds, two of them on his fingers and the other screwed in the middle of his s.h.i.+rt bosom with crimson horizontal bars. He was a "spote"

all right.

He entered the poolroom alone, looked up at the board, and then dug a bit of paper, obviously a telegram, out of his Oxford cloth Newmarket overcoat. A man who was rude enough to look over his shoulders saw that the telegram was a night message and that it bore the New Orleans date.

It contained the names of five horses, with the initials of the sender.

"He's a po'tuh on uh Pullman," vouchsafed the sport to the privileged character who had looked over his shoulder at the despatch. "An' he's uh babe, yo' heah me! He knows 'em lak he knows uh blackin' brush. Ah's uh gwine tuh mek uh combinashun on de hull five. De ticket 'll win in uh walk."

After sizing up the house betting on the New Orleans races for a few minutes, he walked up to the counter where the combination tickets exuded from the lightning calculator. Just at that moment there was nothing doing at the combination counter. The sport produced his telegram, cleared his throat, and began.

"Ah's got de hull five babies," he said with a grin to the ticket writer. "An' ah's uh gwine tuh tek 'em all tuh win. Doan' want none o'

'em fo' place or show. Dey's all got tuh come in all alone."

"Shoot 'em out," said the ticket writer.

The sport named the five horses that he knew were going to win the New Orleans races. They were, in the order of the races, Mint Sauce, Russell R., Deyo, Benneville and Donna Rita.

The ticket writer executed his bit of lightning head work, with frequent glances at the board to get the prices on the runners, and then he looked up at the sport with a grin.

"Huntin' for a hog killin', ain't you?" he asked. "Goin' to put us out o' business? It figures a thousand to one. How much do you want on it?"

"Two dolluhs," replied the sport and he pa.s.sed up the money. The ticket writer pencilled the names of the horses down on the ticket, placed the figures "$2,000 to $2" at the bottom of it, and handed the bit of pasteboard to the sport with the remark:

"You're a good thing. Come again."

"Yo' all kin do yo' hollern' w'en de hosses run," was the sport's good-natured reply, and then he went to the extreme outer row of seats in the pool room and sat down to wait for $2,000 to accrue to him on an investment of $2.

Along toward 3 o'clock the betting came in on the first race at New Orleans. The horse Mint Sauce that the sport had in his combination ticket was the odds-on favorite, although he had been at a good price in the house betting. The queer crowd of players surged up to the counters to put their money down on things they liked, that figured all right in the dope books; but the sport kept his seat. His speculation for the day was over. He was simply waiting for his $2 to grow to $2,002.

Then they were off at New Orleans, as the telegrapher announced with a bored air, electrifying the crowd into silence. It was a six-furlong race, and there was nothing to it but Mint Sauce all the way. At the three-quarters, when the telegrapher announced that Mint Sauce was third and just galloping, the sport leaned back in his seat with an it's-all-over expression, snapped his fingers a couple of times for luck, and said:

"It's uh cake-walk fo' dat baby. Ah'm on right so far."

"Mint Sauce wins by two lengths," announced the operator, and the announcement was received with silence. Poolroom crowds don't play favorites as a rule.

"Mah nex' is this heah Russell R.," said the sport, gazing at his ticket again, "an' Russell R. he's dun got tuh win. Ah feels uh leetle squeenchy uhbout he all, but Russell R. he'll buck-jump in."

The betting came in on the race a few moments later, and Russell R. was at a long price. Several horses in the race were at much shorter prices.

The sport didn't look worried a little bit over this.

"Russell R. he's dun got tuh win," he said, and that was all there was about it.

"Off at New Orleans," announced the weary looking operator again, and then he began to call off the way the race was being run. It looked bad for the sport's ticket until the telegrapher had carried the nags along to the three-quarter post and then Russell R., who hadn't been anywhere, got his first call, joining the bunch as third at that stage of the journey.

"Sadie Burnham in the stretch by a length!" announced the telegrapher.

"Lomond second by a length, Russell R. third," and then the sport began to root for his horse. He swayed back and forth in his wicker rocking chair, moaning, "Come, yo' Russell hoss! Yo' heah me uh-talkin', hoss-come, yo' Russell-or yo' doan' git no oats-ketch him, yo' baby, an'

yo' pa'll treat yo' right"--

"Russell R. wins, by a head!" announced the telegrapher.

"Oh, yo' wahm thing, yo' Russell!" suppressedly exclaimed the sport, his finger-snapping suddenly stopping and an upturned crescent grin spreading over the whole area of his chocolate countenance.

It seemed that some of the less important sports must have been "riding"

Russell R. too, for their exultant "Uh-huhs!" rang around the room. The colored sport dearly loves a long shot.

"De nex' on mah piece o' pas'e-boa'd," said the sport, ransacking through his pockets again for his ticket, "is dain'jus. Ah doan' lak dis heah hoss Deyo, but Ah ain't uh-playin' whut Ah laks, but whut's dun sent tuh me. So Deyo she's dun got tuh win, too."

It was after 4 o'clock by this time, and the poolroom was filling up with young fellows turned loose from the down-town offices. Many of these late arrivals had straight tips in the form of telegrams on the third race at New Orleans and they almost overwhelmed the ticket writers. When the betting came in on that race Deyo was at a long price, much longer than the house betting had quoted the nag, and the sport looked a bit anxious over this. His worried look disappeared, however, when the second line of betting came in, showing that Deyo was being backed down some on the New Orleans track.

"Dey's sumthin' uh-doin' on that mule," he said, and the telegrapher began to call off the race. It was something easy for Deyo, who beat the favorite by three lengths. The sport didn't have to snap his fingers or sway in his chair at all. Deyo was in front all the way. Three-fifths of the $2,000 to $2 ticket was won.

By this time the sport was the cynosure of a good many pairs of eyes.

The possibilities of the ticket he had in his pocket were whispered about, and a number of the real things in the sport line edged over and asked to have a look at the ticket.

"It's a alimpey-boolera," they said, and they rubbed the back of it for luck. Then a lot of them went up to the combination desk and got combination tickets for the remaining two horses that appeared on the colored sport's ticket. By the time the betting came in on the fourth race it was known all over the room that the sport had a $2,000 to $2 ticket with three of the horses already over the plate. The sport enjoyed it all with becoming modesty.

"Dis heah hoss, Benneville, will now step out an' run seben fuhlongs fo'

me," he said, referring to his ticket again. "Ah doan' know mahse'f jes'

how good dis heah Benneville is jes' now, but dis is his day tuh win by uh block."

Benneville came in an odds-on favorite, and won by three open lengths.

The sport again was relieved of the necessity of rooting.

"Ah'n dun rode dat one mahse'f," he said grinning, and he found himself in the middle of a crowd of sports of his own color.

"Look uh-heah, nigguh, doan' yo' all remembuh me?" a lot of them inquired of him as they crowded around him.

"Remembuh nothin'," said he impartially. "Ah doan' mek it mah bizness tuh remembuh n.o.body."

"Hey, what does your ticket call for in the next?" was a question that fifty men threw at him as he sat in state in his wicker rocker.

"De nex' skate on de list," he replied, spelling out the letters on his ticket, which was being rubbed a good deal for luck by all hands within rubbing distance, "is de maiuh Donna Rita. Ah wouldn't give $2 fo' Donna Rita mahse'f, de way she's bin un-runnin', but Donna Rita's dun got tuh walk in all by huhse'f dis time," whereupon he returned the ticket to his pocket as if it already represented $2,002.

The sport had got down Donna Rita into his combination at a long price in the house betting. When the first line of betting came in from New Orleans, however, Donna Rita was seen to be the favorite for the race, with a big field to beat.