The Skipper and the Skipped Part 21

Nearly every horse was off his stride, the drivers sawing at the bits.

Marengo Todd had drawn the pole, but by delaying, in order to blast the Honorable J. Percival with his glances, he was not down to turn with the others, and now came pelting a dozen lengths behind, howling like a Modoc.

Some railbird satirist near the wire bawled "Go!" as the unspeakable riot swept past in dust-clouds. The Honorable Bickford had early possessed himself of the bell-cord as his inalienable privilege. He did not ring the bell to call the field back. He merely leaned far out, clutching the cord, endeavoring to get his eye on the man who had shouted "Go!" He declaimed above the uproar that the man who would do such a thing as that was no gentleman, and declared that he should certainly have a constable arrest the next man who interfered with his duties.

In the mean time President Kitchen was frantically calling to him to ring the gong. The horses kept going, for a driver takes no chances of losing a heat by coming back to ask questions. It was different in the case of Marengo Todd, driver of the pole-horse, and ent.i.tled to "protection." He pulled "Maria M." to a snorting halt under the wire and poured forth the vials of his artistic profanity in a way that piqued Cap'n Sproul's professional interest, he having heard more or less eminent efforts in his days of seafaring.

Lashed in this manner, the Honorable J. Percival Bickford began retort of a nature that reminded his fellow-townsmen that he was "Jabe" Bickford, of Smyrna, before he was donor of public benefits and libraries.

The grimness of Cap'n Sproul's face relaxed a little. He forgot even the incubus of the plug hat. He nudged Hiram.

"I didn't know he had it in him," he whispered. "I was afraid he was jest a dude and northin' else."

In this instance the dog Hector seemed to know his master's voice, and realized that something untoward was occurring. He came bounding out from under the stand and frisked backward toward the centre of the track in order to get a square look at his lord. In this blind progress he b.u.mped against the nervous legs of "Maria M." She promptly expressed her opinion of the Bickford family and its attaches by rattling the ribs of Hector by a swift poke with her hoof.

The dog barked one astonished yap of indignation and came back with a snap that started the crimson on "Maria's" fetlock. She kicked him between the eyes this time--a blow that floored him. The next instant "Maria M." was away, Todd vainly struggling with the reins and trailing the last of his remarks over his shoulder. The dog was no quitter. He appeared to have the n.o.ble blood of which his master had boasted. After a dizzy stagger, he shot away after his a.s.sailant--a cloud of dust with a core of dog.

The other drivers, their chins apprehensively over their shoulders, took to the inner oval of the course or to the side lines. Todd, "Maria M.," and Hector were, by general impulse, allowed to become the whole show.

When the mare came under the wire the first time two swipes attempted to stop her by the usual method of suddenly stretching a blanket before her. She spread her legs and squatted. Todd shot forward. The mare had a long, stiff neck. Her driver went astraddle of it and stuck there like a clothes-pin on a line. Hector, in his cloud of dust, dove under the sulky and once more snapped the mare's leg, this time with a vigor that brought a squeal of fright and pain out of her.

She went over the blanket and away again. The dog, having received another kick, and evidently realizing that he was still "it" in this grotesque game of tag, kept up the chase.

No one who was at Smyrna fair that day ever remembered just how many times the antagonists circled the track. But when the mare at last began to labor under the weight of her rider, a half-dozen men rushed out and anch.o.r.ed her. The dog growled, dodged the men's kicking feet, and went back under the stand.

"What is this, jedges, a dog-fight or a hoss-trot?" raved Todd, staggering in front of the stand and quivering his thin arms above his head. "Whose is that dog? I've got a right to kill him, and I'm going to. Show yourself over that rail, you old sausage, with a plug hat on it, and tell me what you mean by a send-off like that! What did I tell ye, trustees? It's happened. I'll kill that dog."

"I want you to understand," bellowed the Honorable Bickford, using the megaphone, "you are talking about my dog--a dog that is worth more dollars than that old knock-kneed plug of yours has got hairs in her mane. Put your hand on that dog, and you'll go to State Prison."

"Then I'll bet a thousand dollars to a doughnut ye set that dog on me," howled Marengo. "I heard ye siss him!"

The Honorable J. Percival seemed to be getting more into the spirit of the occasion.

"You're a cross-eyed, wart-nosed liar!" he retorted, with great alacrity.

"I'll stump ye down here," screamed Todd. "I can lick you and your dog, both together."

"If I was in your place," said "Judge" Hiram Look, his interest in horse-trotting paling beside this more familiar phase of sport, "I'd go down and cuff his old chops. You'll have the crowd with you if you do."

But Mr. Bickford, though trembling with rage, could not bring himself to correlate fisticuffs and dignity.

"He is a miserable, cheap horse-jockey, and I shall treat him with the contempt he deserves," he bl.u.s.tered. "If it hadn't been for my dog his old boneyard could never have gone twice around the track, anyway."

The crowds on the grand stand were bellowing: "Trot hosses! Shut up!

Trot hosses!"

"Er--what other races have we?" inquired the Honorable J. Percival, as blandly as his violated feelings would allow.

"We haven't had any yet," cried a new voice in the stand--the wrathful voice of Trustee Silas Wallace, of the horse department. After quite a struggle he had managed to tip President Kitchen off the trap-door and had ascended. "We never will have any, either," he shouted, shaking his finger under the president's nose. "What did I tell you would happen? We'll be reported to the National a.s.sociation."

The crowd across the way roared and barked like beasts of prey, and the insistent and shrill staccato of Marengo Todd sounded over all.

Cap'n Sproul deliberately and with much decision took off his silk hat and held it toward the Honorable Bickford.

"I resign!" he said. "I was shanghaied into this thing against my good judgment, and it's come out just as I expected it would. It ain't no place for me, and I resign!"

"It isn't any place for gentlemen," agreed Mr. Bickford, ignoring the proffered hat. "We seem to be thrown in among some very vulgar people," he went on, his ear out for Marengo's taunts, his eyes boring Trustee Wallace. "It is not at all as I supposed it would be. You cannot expect us to be patrons of the races under these circ.u.mstances, Mr. Kitchen. You will please call our barouche. We leave in great displeasure."

"I don't give a red hoorah how you leave, so long as you leave before you've busted up this fair--trot programmy and all," retorted Mr.

Wallace, bridling. "I've got three men waitin' ready to come into this stand. They don't wear plug hats, but they know the diff'runce between a dog-fight and a hoss-trot."

"Take this! I don't want it no more," insisted the Cap'n, stung by this repeated reference to plug hats. He poked the head-gear at Mr.

Bickford. But that gentleman brushed past him, stumped down the stairs, and strode into the stretch before the stand, loudly calling for the carriage.

Marengo Todd, accepting his sudden and defiant appearance as gage of battle, precipitately withdrew, leaping the fence and disappearing under the grand-stand.

It was five minutes or more ere the barouche appeared, Mr. Parrott requiring to be coaxed by President Kitchen to haul the three disgraced dignitaries away. He seemed to sniff a mob sentiment that might damage his vehicle.

Mr. Bickford's two a.s.sociates followed him from the stand, the Cap'n abashed and carrying the tall hat behind his back, Hiram Look muttering disgusted profanity under his long mustache.

"I want to say, gentlemen," cried Mr. Bickford, utilizing the interval of waiting to address the throng about him, "that you have no right to blame my dog. He is a valuable animal and a great family pet, and he only did what it is his nature to do."

Marengo Todd was edging back into the crowd, his coat off and something wrapped in the garment.

"Blame no creature for that which it is his nature to do," said Mr.

Bickford. "He was attacked first, and he used the weapons nature provided."

"Fam'ly pets, then, has a right to do as it is their nature for to do?" squealed Todd, working nearer.

Mr. Bickford scornfully turned his back on this vulgar railer. The carriage was at hand.

"How about pets known as medder hummin'-birds?" demanded Todd.

The Cap'n was the first in. Hiram came next, kicking out at the amiable Hector, who would have preceded him. When the Honorable J.

Percival stepped in, some one slammed the carriage-door so quickly on his heels that his long-tailed coat was caught in the crack.

Todd forced his way close to the carriage as it was about to start.

His weak nature was in a state of anger bordering on the maniacal.

"Here's some more family pets for you that ain't any dangerouser than them you're cultivatin'. Take 'em home and study 'em."

He climbed on the wheel and shook out of the folds of his coat a hornets' nest that he had discovered during his temporary exile under the grand-stand. It dropped into Mr. Bickford's lap, and with a swat of his coat Todd crushed it where it lay. It was a coward's revenge, but it was an effective one.

Mr. Bickford leaped, either in pain or in order to pursue the fleeing Marengo, and fell over the side of the carriage. His coat-tail held fast in the door, and suspended him, his toes and fingers just touching the ground. When he jumped he threw the nest as far as he could, and it fell under the horses. Hiram endeavored to open the hack-door as the animals started--but who ever yet opened a hack-door in a hurry?

Cap'n Aaron Sproul's first impulse was the impulse of the sailor who beholds dangerous top-hamper dragging at a craft's side in a squall.

He out with his big knife and cut off the Honorable Bickford's coat-tails with one mighty slash, and that gentleman rolled in the dust over the hornets' nest, just outside the wheels, as the carriage roared away down the stretch.

Landlord Parrott was obliged to make one circuit of the track before he could control his steeds, but the triumphal rush down the length of the yelling grand-stand was an ovation that Cap'n Sproul did not relish. He concealed the hateful plug hat between his knees, and scowled straight ahead.