Thoroughbreds Part 26

After Langdon had gone Crane lighted a fresh cigar and let his thoughts circle about Allis and Diablo. It would be just like the play of Fate for the horse to turn out good, now that John Porter had got rid of him.

When evil fortune set its hard face against a man he could do little toward making the wicked G.o.d smile, and Porter, even when he was about, was a poor hand at compelling success.

Jakey Faust learned of Diablo's transition from Porter's to Langdon's stable. This information caused him little interest at first; indeed, he marveled somewhat at two such clever men as Crane and Langdon acquiring a horse of Diablo's caliber.

Faust's business relations.h.i.+p with Crane was to a certain degree tentative. Crane never confided utterly in anybody; if agents obeyed his behests, well and good; and each transaction was always completed in itself. He had discovered Faust and used him when it suited his purpose.

Some time after the purchase of Diablo, Jakey, reading his Morning Telegraph, came with much interest upon the entries for the Brooklyn Handicap, published that day. They were all the old campaigning Handicap horses, as familiar to Faust as his fellow members of the betting ring.

As his eye ran down the long list a sudden little pig grunt of surprise bubbled up through his fat throat. "Gee, Diablo! Oh, ho, Mr. Crane!"

He tore out the list and put it in his pocket; then he sat for a time, thinking. The result was a run down to Gravesend to pay just a friendly visit to Langdon.

As far as Crane was concerned, the Trainer and the Bookmaker were like two burglars suddenly coming upon each other while robbing the same house; they were somewhat in a condition of armed neutrality, toward each other.

Faust hoped that Langdon would talk about Diablo; but the Trainer was like most of his guild generally, a close-mouthed man, so Jakey had to make his own running.

"What's the boss goin' to do with Diablo?" he asked Langdon.

"Must 've bought him for a work horse, I guess," the Trainer answered.

"Is he any good?"

"He can eat; that's all I see from him yet."

"What did he buy him for?"

"To help a snoozer that was sittin' in bad luck."

Faust had an odd habit of causing his fat sides to ripple like troubled water when he wished to convey the impression that he was amused; he never laughed, just the rib ripple.

"What's funny?" Langdon asked, eying Jakey, with querulous disfavor.

"Crane buying a horse to help a man," answered the Cherub, wondering if Langdon was so devoid of humor as to take it seriously.

"Crane told me so himself," said the Trainer; "Porter's hurt, an' I guess they're in a hole, an' the boss took over Diablo."

"Say, d.i.c.k," and Faust edged close enough to tap the other man's ribs with his thumb, "were you born yesterday? I say," continued the Cherub, for Langdon had turned away somewhat impatiently, "what's the good av givin' me that gup; you didn't stand for it yourself--not on yer life.

Th' old man's pretty slick; buys a bad horse to help a poor mutt, an'

enters him in the Brooklyn, eh?"

"The Brooklyn!" exclaimed Langdon, thrown off his guard.

With corpulent intensity the Cherub melodramatically drew from his pocket the Telegraph clipping and tendered it to Langdon, watching the latter's face closely. "That's the pea, d.i.c.k, eh?" he asked.

Langdon was thinking. Was Crane doubling on him all around? Why the devil hadn't he told him?

"Now you ain't takin' in that fairy tale of Crane's any more'n I am, d.i.c.k. Why can't we do a bit for ourselves over this; it won't hurt the boss none. Won't throw him down. This horse was a good youngster, an'

Crane didn't get him without seein' him do somethin'. You jest keep me posted, an' if he shapes good I can back 'm fer an old-time killin', see? I'll divvy up straight."

Langdon didn't answer at once--not with satisfaction to Faust; he knew that Crane held the b.u.t.ter for his bread, even the bread itself; but here was a man with cake, and he loved cake. Finally, in the glamour of Jakey's talk of untold wealth to be acquired, Langdon, swayed by the cupidity of his nature rather than his better judgment, promised half-heartedly to cooperate with Faust.

But no sooner had the latter gone than the lode-star of Langdon's self-interest flickered clearly in view, and he promised Mr. Jakey, mentally, a long trip to a very hot place, indeed, rather than a surrept.i.tious partners.h.i.+p over Diablo.

It was some little time after this, while Faust was feeling somewhat irritated at the absence of information from Langdon, that he had an interview with Crane.

"I want you to back The Dutchman to win fifty thousand for me over the Brooklyn Derby," the latter said.

"But there's no winner book on it," objected Faust.

"That's just where your cleverness will come in," suavely answered Crane. "There's no hurry, and there are always people looking for foolish money. There's one such in Chicago, O'Leary; and I fancy they could even be found in New York. But you ought to get fifty to one, about it, if you put it on easy."

"I see you have Diablo entered for the Brooklyn," Faust put out as a feeler. "Don't you want a commission worked on him?"

"I didn't enter him; that was somebody else's foolishness, and I don't want to back him."

"He's a hundred to one."

"A thousand would be short odds, I should say," answered Crane. "But wait a bit. I bought him just to--well, I took him from some people who were tired of his cannibal ways, and promised to have a small bet on him the first time he ran, for--for the man." The equivocation was really a touch of delicacy. "You might take the odds to fifty for me; there's not one chance in a million of his starting, but I might forget all about this little matter of the bet, even if I were foolish enough to pay post-money on him."

"Hadn't I better dribble on more from time to time, if he has a chance?"

"Not of my money, thanks!" The "thanks" clipped like a steel trap, and the business was completed.

Faust went away more than ever suspicious of Crane and Diablo. That fifty dollars being put on for anybody else was bunk.u.m. What was Crane up to anyway? If he really meant to back the horse he would not have started with such a trifle. Perhaps Diablo had been stuck in the Brooklyn simply to see how the handicapper would rate him.

Faust was convinced that Crane had some big coup in view; he would wait a little, and at the first move have a strong play himself.

XIX

Langdon was a consummate trainer, a student of horse character. He knew that while biniodide of mercury would blister and put right a bowed tendon, or the firing iron take the life out of a splint, that a much finer knowledge than this was requisite to get fullhearted work out of a thoroughbred. Brain must be pitted against brain; so he studied his horses; and when Diablo came into his hands, possessed of a mind disease, he worked over him with considerable intelligent patience.

This study of horse character was the very thing that had caused him to go wrong over Lauzanne. He had not gone quite far enough; had not waited for time to demonstrate clearly the horse's temperament, but had recourse to a cocaine stimulant. But with him Lauzanne's case had been exceptional.

At first there was little encouragement over Diablo, but almost by accident Langdon discovered that the Black's bad temper was always fanned into a blaze by the sight of the boy Shandy.

Then came a glint of hope. Diablo took a fancy to Westley, the jockey, who was experimentally put on his back in the working gallop. After that Shandy was kept out of the way; Westley took Diablo under his care, and the big horse began to show a surprising improvement.

Crane had been quite honest in his statement that he thought Diablo a bad horse. His having been entered by Porter in the "Brooklyn" suggested the possiability that his former owner must have seen some merit in the horse. At any rate, he advised Langdon to give Diablo a patient trial.

He really had very little idea that the horse would start in the Handicap--it seemed improbable. Langdon was also convinced that Porter had discovered something great in Diablo; that Crane knew this, and had paid a stiff price for the horse, and to his own ends was keeping it dark.

As the winter turned into April he intimated to Crane that it was time for them to decide the placing of the horses, and suggested that they try them out. Crane had already decided to race The Dutchman this year in his own name and not in Langdon's. If The Dutchman came up to expectation they could give him a slow preparation up to Derby time; they could find out whether Diablo was worth keeping for--well, for Morris Park or Gravesend, or they could hurry him on a little, and start him at Aqueduct.

Crane agreed with this reasoning, and it was decided to give the two horses a home trial.