"I've got him in another barn; that stuff's as catchin' as measles."

"If The Dutchman were to get a touch of it, Porter would land the Derby with Lucretia, I fancy."

"Or if they got it in their stable we'd be on Easy Street."

"I suppose so. But Dixon's pretty sharp; he'll look out if he hears it's about. However, we've got to watch our own horse and let them do the same."

XXVII

That evening Langdon and Jakey Faust were closeted together in a room of the former's cottage. An A1 piece of villainy was on, and they were conversing in low tones.

"It's a cinch for The Dutchman if it wasn't for that d.a.m.n mare Lucretia," Langdon observed, in an injured tone, as though somehow the mare's excellence was an unwarranted interference with his rights.

"What about the jock?" asked Faust.

"No good--can't be done. He's mooney on the gal."

"Huh!" commented the Cherub. "Did you talk it over with the Boss? He's not a bad guy gettin' next a good thing."

"He gave me the straight tip to give Redpath the go-by."

"What's his little game? Is he going to hedge on the mare?"

"No; he'll stand his bet flat-footed. Say, he's the slickest! If he didn't give me the straight office that the mare might get sick, then I'm a Dutchman."

"We're both Dutchmen." The Cherub laughed immoderately at his stupid joke. "See, we're both standin' for The Dutchman, ain't we?"

Langdon frowned at the other's levity. "You'll laugh out the other side your mouth if Lucretia puts up a race in the Derby like she did in the Handicap."

"But ain't she goin' to get sick? We could whip-saw them both ways then, that's if we knew it first. I could lay against her an' back your horse."

"I wish the old man wasn't so devilish deep; he makes me tired sometimes; gives it to me straight in one breath that he's got reasons for wantin' to win the race, an' then he pulls that preacher mug of his down a peg an' says, solemn like: 'But don't interfere with their jockey.' Then he talks about The Dutchman or Lucretia gettin' the influenza, an' that Andy Dixon is pretty fly about watchin' the mare.

Now what do you make of all that, Jake?"

"Well, you area mug. It don't need no makin' up. That book's all rounded to. He wants the mare stopped, an' don't want no muddlin' about with the jockey, see? Wasn't there a row over stoppin' Lucretia last year? Wasn't the boy set down for the meetin'? You ought to know; you had to pay through the nose for shuttin' his mouth. But what made the old man talk about the mare gettin' sick?"

Langdon searched his memory; just how was that subject started? "d.a.m.n it! yes, of course; I told him about the two-year-old havin' the influenza."

"Well, d.i.c.k, my boy, you've guessed it, though you weren't trying. Crane would like to see the Porter mare coughin'."

"But you can't take a strange horse into their stable, an' him sick,"

objected the Trainer.

"Right you are, d.i.c.k. But you could take the sickness there, if you had a boy with the sabe."

"I was thinkin' of that," said Langdon, reflectively; "I was wonderin'

if that's what the Boss meant."

"Sure thing--that's his way; he never wants to stand in for none of the blame, but he likes to feel sure that he's goin' to win."

"It looks a bit like it, d.a.m.n me if it don't; an' I believe he was givin' me a pointer about the proper boy for the job, too. He said Shandy would get at a horse quick enough if he was paid for it."

"There you are; what more do you want? Would you have Crane get out on the housetop an' shout to you to go an' cruel Porter's mare? He's slick, he is, an' if it can be done you've got a great chance."

"I'm a poor man," whined Langdon, "an' I can't take no chances on loosin' ten thousand, if it can be helped."

"It's got to be done right away, 'cause it'll take a couple of days to get the mare coughin'."

"I told Shandy to come here," said the Trainer; "he ought to be turnin'

up soon. When you hear him knock, just slip into that other room, an'

leave the door open a little so that you can hear what takes place. G.o.d knows what that young imp wouldn't swear if a fellow had no witnesses.

I think he's comin' here to-night to ask me to pay him to do some dirty job, an' I won't do it, see?" and he winked at Faust. "He's a bad boy,"

said the Bookmaker, in a tone of mock condemnation.

"There he is now," declared Langdon. "I hear a step on the gravel.

Quick, slip into the room; he'll be peepin' through the windows; he's like a fox."

There was a knock at the door. When Langdon opened it Shandy shuffled into the room with a peculiar little rocking-horse sort of gait, just like the trot of a skunk. His whole appearance somehow suggested this despised animal.

"Have you heard anything from the Porter stable?" Langdon asked, when the boy had taken a seat.

"The little mare's well," the boy answered, laconically.

"That's bad luck for us, Shandy. We'll be poorer by the matter of a few thousand if they win the Derby."

"Who's we?" questioned Shandy, with saucy directness.

"The whole stable. A man has played The Dutchman to win a hundred thousand, an' he's goin' to give the boys, one or two of them, five hundred if it comes off."

The small imp's weak, red-lidded eyes took on a hungry, famished look.

"What're you givin' us is that straight goods?" he demanded, doubtingly.

Langdon didn't answer the question direct; he said: "My man's afraid somebody'll get at The Dutchman. There's a lot of horse sickness about, an' if anyone was to take some of the poison from a sick horse's nose and put it in The Dutchman's nostrils at night, why he'd never start in the Derby, I reckon."

A look of deep cunning crept into the boy's thin freckled face; his eyes contracted and blinked nervously.

"What th' 'ell's the difference? If the Porter mare starts Redpath thinks he's got a lead-pipe cinch."

"You'd lose your five hundred; that's the difference," retorted Langdon.

"An' if she doesn't start, an' our horse wins, I get five hundred? Is that dead to rights?"

"If The Dutchan wins you get the money," replied the Trainer, circ.u.mspectly. "You mustn't come to me, Shandy, with no game about takin' the horse sickness from, our two-year-old an' fixin' Porter's mare, 'cause I can't stand for that, see?"