Thoroughbreds Part 46

He took a despairing look through the thicket of human beings that made a living forest all about, in a last endeavor to discover Alan Porter.

Not three paces away a uniquely familiar figure was threading in and out the changing maze-it was Mike Gaynor.

Mortimer broke from his friend, and with quick steps reached the trainer's side.

"I want to find Alan Porter," he said, in answer to Gaynor's surprised salutation.

"He was in the paddock a bit ago," answered Mike; "he moight be there still."

Almost involuntarily Mortimer, as he talked, had edged back toward his friend of disconsolate raggedness.

"I wanted to go in there--I'd like to go now to find him, but they won't let me through the gate."

"No more they will," answered Mike, with untruthful readiness, for all at once it occurred to him that if Mortimer got to the paddock he might run up against Allis and recognize her.

"De gent could buy a badge and get in," volunteered Old Bill.

The lid of Mike's right eye drooped like the slide of a lantern, as he answered: "He couldn't get wan now--it's too late; just wait ye here, sir, and if the b'y's there wit' the nags, I'll sind him out."

Old Bill made no comment upon Mike's diplomatic misstatement anent the badge, for he had observed the wink, and held true to the masonry which exists between race-course regulars.

"Yes, please send him out then, Mr. Gaynor; it's important."

"I'm in a hurry meself," said Mike; "I just come out fer a minute; see here," and he nodded his head sideways to Mortimer. The latter walked by his side for a few steps.

"Who's that guy?" asked the Trainer.

"I don't know; he calls himself Old Bill."

"Well, ye best look out--he looks purty tough. What's he playin' ye fer?"

"He advised me to bet money on Lauzanne."

"The divil he did! What th' yellow moon does he know about the Chestnut; did ye back him?"

"Not yet."

"Are ye goin' to?"

"I don't know. Do you think Lauzanne might come in first?"

A slight smile relaxed the habitually drawn muscles of Mike's grim visage; it was moons since he had heard anybody talk of a horse "coming in first;" he was indeed a green bettor, this, young man of the counting house. What was he doing there betting at all, Mike wondered. It must be because of his interest in the girl, his reason answered.

"I tink he'll win if he does his best for her."

"Does his best for who?"

Mike got to cover; his ungoverned tongue was always playing him tricks.

"Miss Allis is managin' the horses," he explained, very deliberately, "an' there's a new b'y up on Lauzanne's back, d'ye onderstand; an' if the Chestnut doesn't sulk, does his best fer the young misthress that'll be watchin' him here in the stand wit' tears in her eyes, he moight win--d'ye onderstand?"

Yes, Mortimer understood; it seemed quite clear, for Mike had been to some pains to cover up the slip he had made.

"Now I must go," he continued; "an' ye needn't come in the paddock--if the b'y is there, I'll sind him out."

When Alan's seeker returned to Old Bill, he said, "Mr. Gaynor thinks your choice might come in first."

"Why was Irish steerin' you clear of de paddock?" asked the other.

"I suppose it was to save me the expense of buying a ticket for it."

The other man said nothing further, but the remembrance of Mike's wink convinced him that this was not the sole reason.

They waited for young Porter's appearance, but he did not come. "The geezer yer waitin' fer is not in dere or he'd a-showed up," said Old Bill; "an' if yer goin' to take de tip, we'd better skip to de ring an'

see what's doin'."

Mortimer had once visited the stock exchange in New York. He could not help but think how like unto it was the betting ring with its horde of pus.h.i.+ng, struggling humans, as he wormed his way in, following close on Old Bill's heels. There was a sort of mechanical aptness in his leader's way of displacing men in his path. Mortimer realized that but for his guide he never would have penetrated beyond the outer sh.e.l.l of the buzzing hive. Even then he hoped that he might, by the direction of chance, see Alan Porter. The issue at stake, and the prospect of its solution through his unwonted betting endeavor, was dispelling his inherent antipathy to gambling; he was becoming like one drunken with the glamour of a new delight; his continued desire to discover young Porter was more a rendering of t.i.thes to his former G.o.d of chast.i.ty which he was about to shatter.

Two days before betting on horse races was a crime of indecent enormity; now it seemed absolutely excusable, justified, almost something to be eagerly approved of. Their ingress, though strenuous, was devoid of rapidity; so, beyond much bracing of muscles, there was little to take cognizance of except his own mental transformation. Once he had known a minister, a very good man indeed, who had been forced into a fight. The clergyman had acted his unwilling part with such muscular enthusiasm that his brutish opponent had been reduced to the lethargic condition of inanimate pulp. Mortimer compared his present exploit with that of his friend, the clergyman; he felt that he was very much in the same boat.

He was eager to have the bet made and get out into the less congested air; his companions of the betting ring were not men to tarry among in the way of moral recreation.

The mob agitated itself in waves; sometimes he and Old Bill were carried almost across the building by the wash of the living tide as it set in that direction; then an undertow would sweep them back again close to their starting point. The individual members of the throng were certainly possessed of innumerable elbows, and large jointed knees, and boots that were forever raking at his heels or his corns. They seemed taller, too, than men in the open; strive as he might he could see nothing--nothing but heads that topped him in every direction. Once the proud possessor of a dreadful cigar of unrivaled odor became sandwiched between him and his fellow-pilgrim; he was down wind from the weed and its worker, and the result was all but asphyxiation.

At last they reached some sort of a harbor; it was evidently an inlet for which his pilot had been sailing. A much composed man in a tweed suit, across which screamed lines of gaudy color, sat on a camp stool, with a weary, tolerant look on his browned face; in his hand was a card on which was penciled the names of the Derby runners with their commercial standing in the betting mart.

Old Bill craned his neck over the shoulder of the sitting man, scanned the book, and turning to Mortimer said, "Larcen's nine to one now; dey're cuttin' him--wish I'd took tens; let's go down de line."

They pushed out into the sea again, and were buffeted of the human waves; from time to time Old Bill anch.o.r.ed for a few seconds in the tiny harbor which surrounded each bookmaker; but it was as though they were all in league--the same odds on every list.

"It's same as a 'sociation book," he grunted; "de cut holds in every blasted one of 'em. Here's Jakey Faust," he added, suddenly; "let's try him."

"What price's Laxcen?" he asked of the fat bookmaker.

"What race is he in?" questioned the penciler.

"Din race; what you givin' me!"

"Don't know the horse."

Mortimer interposed. "The gentleman means Lauzanne," he explained.

Faust glared in the speaker's face. "Why th' 'll don't he talk English then; I'm no Chinaman, or a mind reader, to guess what he wants.

Lauzanne is nine to one; how much dye want?"

"Lay me ten?" asked Old Bill of the bookmaker.

"To how much?"

"A hun'red; an' me frien' wants a hun'red on, too."