Shandy's escapade with Diablo had brought a new trouble to Mike Gaynor.
The boy had been discharged with a severe reprimand from Mr. Porter, and
a punctuation mark of disapproval from the Trainer's horn-like hand.
He had departed from Ringwood inwardly swearing revenge upon everybody
connected with that place; against Diablo he was particularly virulent.
Mike tried to secure a boy in the Brookfield neighborhood to ride Diablo
in his work, but Shandy's evil tongue wagged so blatantly about the
horse's bad temper that no lad could be found to take on in the stables.
Ned Carter might have ridden Diablo at work, but the big Black was
indeed a horse of many ideas. He had taken a notion to gallop kindly
while accompanied by Lucretia and Lauzanne; worked alone he sulked
and was as awkward as a broncho of the plains. Also he disliked
Carter--seemed to associate his personality with that of Shandy's.
Mike's discontent over the hitch spread to John Porter. It was too bad;
the horses had been doing so well. For three days Diablo had no gallop.
On the fourth Porter determined to ride the horse himself; he would not
be beaten out by an ungrateful whelp like Shandy. In his day he had been
a famous gentleman jock, and still light enough to ride work.
“I don't like the idea, sor; it's not good enough,” remonstrated Mike.
But his master was obdurate. If Allis rode Lauzanne, why shouldn't he
ride Diablo?
Gaynor would have ridden the horse himself rather than have his master
do so, but he had a bad leg. Once upon a time it had been crushed
against the rail. Somebody must ride Diablo; the horse, naturally
highstrung, was becoming wild with nervousness through being knocked out
of his work.
For three days after his discharge Shandy sat brooding with the low
cunning of a forest animal over his fancied ill-treatment. More than
once he had received money from Langdon for touting off to him Porter's
stable matters; now in his unreasoning bitterness he contrasted Langdon
and Porter.
“Dick's white, he is, an' I'll go git a job from him. I gits half eat
by that crazy skate, an' fired without a cent fer it. God drat 'em!”
he muttered; “I'll get even, or know why. They'll put Ned up on Diablo,
will they? The sneak! He split on me fer beltin' the Black, I know, damn
him! They ain't got another boy an' they won't git one. I'll fix that
stiff, Carter, too; then they won't have no boy.”
He drank beer, and as it irritated his ferret mind a devilish plot came
into his being and took possession of him--a plot easy of execution
because of his familiarity with the Ringwood stables.
That night he slipped through the dark, like a hyena pup, to Ringwood.
That the stable was locked mattered not. More than once, out of
laziness, Shandy had shirked going to Mike's quarters for the keys and
had found ingress by a small window, a foot square, through which the
soiled straw bedding was thrown into the yard. Standing on the dung
heap, Shandy worked open the board slide that closed this window, and
wormed his weasel-form through the small opening. He passed down the
passage between the stalls and entered a saddle room at the farther end.
“The bloomin' thing used to be on the fourth peg,” he muttered, drawing
his small figure up on tiptoe and feeling along the wall for something.
“Blow me!” and he chuckled fiendishly as his fingers encountered the
cold steel of a bit, “I'd know that snaffle in hell, if I got a feel of
it.”
There was a patent device of a twist and a loose ring in the center of
the bit he clutched, which Porter had devised for Diablo's hard mouth.
Shandy gave the bridle a swing, and it clattered to the floor from its
peg. Diablo snorted and pawed the planks of his stall nervously.
“All right, my buck,” hissed Shandy, “you wait till to-morror; you'll
git the run of yer life, I'm thinkin', damn their eyes!” and he went
off into a perfect torrent of imprecation against everybody at Ringwood,
hushing his voice to a snarling whisper. Then he shut the door of the
saddle room, sat down on the floor and pulled from his pocket a knife
and stub of candle. He lighted the latter and held it flame down till
a few drops of wax formed a tiny lake; into this he stuck the candle
upright, shielding its flame with his coat. He opened the knife and
laying it down, inspected minutely the bridle which lay across his leg.
“It's Diablo's right enough,” he said; “I couldn't be mistook on the
bit, nor them strong lines.”
He picked up the knife, and holding the leather rein across the palm of
his left hand started to saw it gently with the blade. Almost instantly
he left off. “Of all the bloomin' ijits! God drat me fer a goat! He'd
feel that cut the first slip through his fingers the leather took.”
He gathered in the rein until he had it six inches from the bit. There
he cut, stopping many times, and doubling the leather close to the light
to see how deep he had penetrated.
“There, Mr. Bloody Ned!” he exclaimed at last, as inspection showed that
only the outer hard shell of the leather remained intact. “That'll just
hold till the Black takes one of his cranky spells, an' you give him
a stiff pull. God help you then!” Even this was a blasphemous cry of
exultation; not a plea for divine assistance for the man he plotted
against.
His next move proved that his cunning was of an exceptional order. From
his coat pocket he brought forth a pill box. In this receptacle Shandy
dipped a forefinger, and rubbed into the fresh cut of the leather a
trifle of blackened axle grease which he had taken from a wagon wheel
before starting out. Then he wiped the rein with his coat tail and
looked at it admiringly.
“The bloke won't see that, blast him!”
He hung the bridle up in its place, put out the candle, dropped it in
his pocket and made his way from the stable.
As he passed Diablo's stall the big Black snorted again, and plunged in
affright.
“You'll get enough of that to-morror,” sneered the boy. “I hope you and
Ned both break your damn necks. Fer two cents I'd drop somethin' in your
feed-box that'd settle you right now; but it's the skunk as split on me
I want to get even with.”
Shandy trudged back to where he nested in Brookfield and soon slept with
calm restfulness, as though no evil had ever homed in his heart. In the
first gray of the early morning he rose and went out to the race course.