The day of the race when John Porter went into the betting ring he was confronted with even money about his mare. If he had read on the ring blackboard a notice that she was dead, he would not have been more astonished. He fought his way back to the open of the paddock without making a bet.
“Even money!” ejaculated Dixon when his owner told him of the ring situation, “why, they're crazy. Who's doin' it?”
“Not the public,” declared Porter, “for I was there just after the first betting. It must be your friend Boston Bill that has forestalled us; nobody else knew of the mare's trial.”
“Not on your life, Mr. Porter; Boston plays fair. D'ye think he could live at this game if he threw down his friends?”
“But nobody else even knew that we'd got a good boy for the mare.”
“It don't make no difference,” curtly answered Dixon; “it's a million dollars to a penny whistle that Boston hasn't a dollar on yet. Our agreement was that he'd send in his commission when they were at the post, an' his word's like your own, sir, as solid as a judge's decision. It's some one else. There's somebody behind that damned Langdon--he's not clever enough for all this. D'you know that The Dutchman's runnin' in Langdon's name to-day?”
“But what's that got to do with Lucretia's price?”
“It means that we're goin' to be allowed to win. The other day they laid against her, an' she got beat; to-day they're holdin' her out, so I suppose she'll win, but somebody else gets the benefit.”
“Gad! that Langdon must be a crook,” muttered Porter. “I'm going to speak to my friend Crane about him again. No honest man should have horses in his stable.”
“That they shouldn't,” asserted Dixon. “But we've got our own troubles to-day. From what I see of this thing, I'd rather back the mare at even money than I would if she was ten to one. If I'm any judge we're being buncoed good and plenty.”
“I think you're right Dixon. I'll go back and have a good bet down on her at evens.”
But in five minutes Lucretia's owner was back in the paddock with the cheerful intelligence that the mare was now three to five.
“I wouldn't back 'Salvator' among a lot of cart horses at that price,” commented Dixon; “leave it alone, an' we'll go for the Stake. We're up against it good and hard; somebody seems to know more about our own horse than we do ourselves.”