very few pleasures, and the excitement and delight of tearing through
the air on the back of a great animal, was something he thought must
amount to more than anything else in the world. His mother did not
approve of his spending his time at the stables, but she found it very
hard to refuse him, and he seemed to have a happy faculty of picking
up only what was good, and letting what was evil pass by him and leave
him unhurt. The good that he picked up was his love for animals, his
thoughtfulness for them, and the forbearance and gentleness it taught
him to use, with even the higher class of animals who walk on two legs.
He was fond of all the horses, because they were horses; but the one
he liked best was Heroine, a big black mare that ran like an express
train. He and Heroine were the two greatest friends in the stable. The
horse loved him as a horse does love its master sometimes, and though
Charley was not her owner, he was in reality her master, for Heroine
would have left her stall and carried Charley off to the ends of the
continent if he had asked her to run away.
When a man named Oscar Behren bought Heroine, Charley thought he would
never be contented again. He cried about it all along the country road
from the stables to his home, and cried about it again that night in
bed. He knew Heroine would feel just as badly about it as he did, if
she could know they were to be separated. Heroine went off to run
in the races for which her new master had entered her, and Charley
heard of her only through the newspapers. She won often, and became a
great favorite, and Charley was afraid she would forget the master of
her earlier days before she became so famous. And when he found that
Heroine was entered to run at the Monmouth Park race track, he became
as excited over the prospect of seeing his old friend again, as though
he were going to meet his promised bride, or a long-lost brother who
had accumulated several millions in South America.
He was at the station to meet the Behren horses, and Heroine knew him
at once and he knew Heroine, although she was all blanketed up and had
grown so much more beautiful to look at, that it seemed like a second
and improved edition of the horse he had known. Heroine won several
races at Long Branch, and though her owner was an unpopular one, and
one of whom many queer stories were told, still Heroine was always
ridden to win, and win she generally did.
The race for the July Stakes was the big race of the meeting, and
Heroine was the favorite. Behren was known to be backing her with
thousands of dollars, and it was almost impossible to get anything but
even money on her. The day before the race McCallen, the jockey who was
to ride her, was taken ill, and Behren was in great anxiety and greatly
disturbed as to where he could get a good substitute. Several people
told him it made no difference, for the mare was as sure as sure could
be, no matter who rode her. Then some one told him of Charley, who had
taken out a license when the racing season began, and who had ridden a
few unimportant mounts.
Behren looked for Charley and told him he would want him to ride for
the July Stakes, and Charley went home to tell his mother about it, in
a state of wild delight. To ride the favorite, and that favorite in
such a great race, was as much to him as to own and steer the winning
yacht in the transatlantic match for the cup.
He told Heroine all about it, and Heroine seemed very well pleased. But
while he was standing hidden in Heroine’s box stall, he heard something
outside that made him wonder. It was Behren’s voice, and he said in a
low tone:--
“Oh, McCallen’s well enough, but I didn’t want him for this race. He
knows too much. The lad I’ve got now, this country boy, wouldn’t know
if the mare had the blind staggers.”
Charley thought over this a great deal, and all that he had learned on
the tracks and around the stables came to assist him in judging what it
was that Behren meant; and that afternoon he found out.
The race track with the great green enclosures and the grand stand as
high as a hill, were as empty as a college campus in vacation time,
but for a few of the stable boys and some of the owners, and a colored
waiter or two. It was interesting to think what it would be like a
few hours later when the trains had arrived from New York with eleven
cars each and the passengers hanging from the steps, and the carriages
stretched all the way from Long Branch. Then there would not be a
vacant seat on the grand stand or a blade of grass untrampled.
Charley was not nervous when he thought of this, but he was very much
excited. Howland S. Maitland, who owned a stable of horses and a great
many other expensive things, and who was one of those gentlemen who
make the racing of horses possible, and Curtis, the secretary of the
meeting, came walking towards Charley looking in at the different
horses in the stalls.
“Heroine,” said Mr. Maitland, as he read the name over the door. “Can
we have a look at her?” he said.
Charley got up and took off his hat.
“I am sorry, Mr. Maitland,” he said, “but my orders from Mr. Behren
are not to allow any one inside. I am sure if Mr. Behren were here he
would be very glad to show you the horse; but you see, I’m responsible,
sir, and--”
“Oh, that’s all right!” said Mr. Maitland pleasantly, as he moved on.
“There’s Mr. Behren now,” Charley called after him, as Behren turned
the corner. “I’ll run and ask him.”
“No, no, thank you,” said Mr. Maitland hurriedly, and Charley heard
him add to Mr. Curtis, “I don’t want to know the man.” It hurt Charley
to find that the owner of Heroine and the man for whom he was to ride
was held in such bad repute that a gentleman like Mr. Maitland would
not know him, and he tried to console himself by thinking that it was
better he rode Heroine than some less conscientious jockey whom Behren
might order to play tricks with the horse and the public. Mr. Behren
came up with a friend, a red-faced man with a white derby hat. He
pointed at Charley with his cane. “My new jockey,” he said. “How’s the
mare?” he asked.
“Very fit, sir,” Charley answered.
“Had her feed yet?”
“No,” Charley said.
The feed was in a trough which the stable boy had lifted outside into
the sun. They were mixing it under Charley’s supervision, for as a
rider he did not stoop to such menial work as carrying the water and
feed; but he always overlooked the others when they did it. Behren
scooped up a handful and examined it carefully.
“It’s not as fresh as it ought to be for the price they ask,” he said
to the friend with him. Then he threw the handful of feed back into the
trough and ran his hand through it again, rubbing it between his thumb
and fingers and tasting it critically. Then they passed on up the row.
Charley sat down again on an overturned bucket and looked at the feed
trough, then he said to the stable boys, “You fellows can go now and
get something to eat if you want to.” They did not wait to be urged.
Charley carried the trough inside the stable and took up a handful of
the feed and looked and sniffed at it. It was fresh from his own barn;
he had brought it over himself in a cart that morning. Then he tasted
it with the end of his tongue and his face changed. He glanced around
him quickly to see if any one had noticed, and then, with the feed
still clenched in his hand, ran out and looked anxiously up and down
the length of the stable. Mr. Maitland and Curtis were returning from
the other end of the road.
“Can I speak to you a moment, sir?” said Charley anxiously; “will you
come in here just a minute? It’s most important, sir. I have something
to show you.”
The two men looked at the boy curiously, and halted in front of the
door. Charley added nothing further to what he had said, but spread a
newspaper over the floor of the stable and turned the feed trough over
on it. Then he stood up over the pile and said, “Would you both please
taste that?”
There was something in his manner which made questions unnecessary.
The two gentlemen did as he asked. Then Mr. Curtis looked into Mr.
Maitland’s face, which was full of doubt and perplexity, with one of
angry suspicion.
“Cooked,” he said.
“It does taste strangely,” commented the horse owner gravely.
“Look at it; you can see if you look close enough,” urged Curtis
excitedly. “Do you see that green powder on my finger? Do you know
what that is? An ounce of that would turn a horse’s stomach as dry as a
lime-kiln. Where did you get this feed?” he demanded of Charley.
“Out of our barn,” said the boy. “And no one has touched it except
myself, the stable boys, and the owner.”
“Who are the stable boys?” demanded Mr. Curtis.
“Who’s the owner?” asked Charley.
“Do you know what you are saying?” warned Mr. Maitland sharply. “You
had better be careful.”
“Careful!” said Charley indignantly. “I will be careful enough.”
He went over to Heroine, and threw his arm up over her neck. He was
terribly excited and trembling all over. The mare turned her head
towards him and rubbed her nose against his face.
“That’s all right,” said Charley. “Don’t you be afraid. I’ll take care
of _you_.”
The two men were whispering together.
“I don’t know anything about you,” said Mr. Maitland to Charley. “I
don’t know what your idea was in dragging me into this. I’m sure I
wish I was out of it. But this I do know, if Heroine isn’t herself
to-day, and doesn’t run as she has run before, and I say it though my
own horses are in against her, I’ll have you and your owner before the
Racing Board, and you’ll lose your license and be ruled off every track
in the country.”
“One of us will,” said Charley stubbornly. “All I want you to do, Mr.
Maitland, is to put some of that stuff in your pocket. If anything is
wrong they will believe what you say, when they wouldn’t listen to me.
That’s why I called you in. I haven’t charged any one with anything. I
only asked you and Mr. Curtis to taste the feed that this horse was to
have eaten. That’s all. And I’m not afraid of the Racing Board, either,
if the men on it are honest.”
Mr. Curtis took some letters out of his pocket and filled the envelopes
with the feed, and then put them back in his pocket, and Charley
gathered up the feed in a bucket and emptied it out of the window at
the back of the stable.
“I think Behren should be told of this,” said Mr. Maitland.
Charley laughed; he was still excited and angry. “You had better find
out which way Mr. Behren is betting, first,” he said,--“if you can.”
“Don’t mind the boy. Come away,” said Mr. Curtis. “We must look into
this.”
The Fourth of July holiday makers had begun to arrive; and there
were thousands of them, and they had a great deal of money, and they
wanted to bet it all on Heroine. Everybody wanted to bet on Heroine;
and the men in the betting ring obliged them. But there were three
men from Boston who were betting on the field against the favorite.
They distributed their bets in small sums of money among a great many
different book-makers; even the oldest of the racing men did not know
them. But Mr. Behren seemed to know them. He met one of them openly, in
front of the grand stand, and the stranger from Boston asked politely
if he could trouble him for a light. Mr. Behren handed him his cigar,
and while the man puffed at it he said:--
“We’ve got $50,000 of it up. It’s too much to risk on that powder.
Something might go wrong; you mightn’t have mixed it properly, or there
mayn’t be enough. I’ve known it miss before this. Minerva she won once
with an ounce of it inside her. You’d better fix that jockey.”
Mr. Behren’s face was troubled, and he puffed quickly at his cigar
as the man walked away. Then he turned and moved slowly towards the
stables. A gentleman with a field-glass across his shoulder stopped him
and asked, “How’s Heroine?” and Mr. Behren answered, “Never better;
I’ve $10,000 on her,” and passed on with a confident smile. Charley
saw Mr. Behren coming, and bit his lip and tried to make his face look
less conscious. He was not used to deception. He felt much more like
plunging a pitchfork into Mr. Behren’s legs; but he restrained that
impulse, and chewed gravely on a straw. Mr. Behren looked carefully
around the stable, and wiped the perspiration from his fat red face.
The day was warm, and he was excited.
“Well, my boy,” he said in a friendly, familiar tone as he seated
himself, “it’s almost time. I hope you are not rattled.” Charley said,
“No,” he felt confident enough.
“It would be a big surprise if she went back on us, wouldn’t it?”
suggested the owner gloomily.
“It would, indeed,” said Charley.
“Still,” said Mr. Behren, “such things have been. Racin’ is full of
surprises, and horses are full of tricks. I’ve known a horse, now, get
pocketed behind two or three others and never show to the front at all.
Though she was the best of the field, too. And I’ve known horses go
wild and jump over the rail and run away with the jock, and, sometimes,
they fall. And sometimes I’ve had a jockey pull a horse on me and make
me drop every cent I had up. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” he
asked. He looked up at Charley with a smile that might mean anything.
Charley looked at the floor and shrugged his shoulders.
“I ride to orders, I do,” he said. “I guess the owner knows his own
business best. When I ride for a man and take his money I believe he
should have his say. Some jockeys ride to win. I ride according to
orders.” He did not look up after this, and he felt thankful that
Heroine could not understand the language of human beings. Mr. Behren’s
face rippled with smiles. This was a jockey after his own heart. “If
Heroine should lose,” he said,--“I say, if she should, for no one
knows what might happen,--I’d have to abuse you fearful right before
all the people. I’d swear at you and say you lost me all my money,
and that you should never ride for me again. And they might suspend
you for a month or two, which would be very hard on you,” he added
reflectively. “But then,” he said more cheerfully, “if you had a little
money to live on while you were suspended it wouldn’t be so hard, would
it?” He took a large roll of bank bills from his pocket and counted
them, smoothing them out on his fat knee and smiling up at the boy.
“It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” he repeated. Then he counted aloud,
“Eight hundred, nine hundred, one thousand.” He rose and placed the
bills under a loose plank of the floor, and stamped it down on them. “I
guess we understand each other, eh?” he said.
“I guess we do,” said Charley.
“I’ll have to swear at you, you know,” said Behren, smiling.
“I can stand that,” Charley answered.
* * * * *
As the horses paraded past for the July Stakes, the people rushed
forward down the inclined enclosure and crushed against the rail and
cheered whichever horse they best fancied.
[Illustration: He took a large roll of bank bills from his pocket and
counted them.]
“Say, you,” called one of the crowd to Charley, “you want to win, you
do. I’ve got $5 on that horse you’re a-riding.” Charley ran his eyes
over the crowd that were applauding and cheering him and Heroine, and
calculated coolly that if every one had only $5 on Heroine there would
be at least $100,000 on the horse in all.
The man from Boston stepped up beside Mr. Behren as he sat on his
dog-cart alone.
“The mare looks very fit,” he said anxiously. “Her eyes are like
diamonds. I don’t believe that stuff affected her at all.”
“It’s all right,” whispered Behren calmly. “I’ve fixed the boy.” The
man dropped back off the wheel of the cart with a sigh of relief, and
disappeared in the crowd. Mr. Maitland and Mr. Curtis sat together
on the top of the former’s coach. Mr. Curtis had his hand over the
packages of feed in his pockets. “If the mare don’t win,” he said,
“there will be the worst scandal this track has ever known.” The
perspiration was rolling down his face. “It will be the death of honest
racing.”
“I cannot understand it,” said Mr. Maitland. “The boy seemed honest,
too.”
The horses got off together. There were eleven of them. Heroine was
amongst the last, but no one minded that because the race was a long
one. And within three-quarters of a mile of home Heroine began to shake
off the others and came up slowly through the crowd, and her thousands
of admirers yelled. And then Maitland’s Good Morning and Reilly swerved
in front of her, or else Heroine fell behind them, it was hard to tell
which, and Lady Betty closed in on her from the right. Her jockey
seemed to be trying his best to get her out of the triangular pocket
into which she had run. The great crowd simultaneously gave an anxious
questioning gasp. Then two more horses pushed to the front, closing the
favorite in and shutting her off altogether.
“The horse is pocketed,” cried Mr. Curtis, “and not one man out of a
thousand would know that it was done on purpose.”
“Wait!” said Mr. Maitland.
“Bless that boy!” murmured Behren, trying his best to look anxious.
“She can never pull out of that.” They were within half a mile of
home. The crowd was panic-stricken and jumping up and down. “Heroine!”
they cried, as wildly as though they were calling for help, or the
police--“Heroine!”
Charley heard them above the noise of the pounding hoofs, and smiled in
spite of the mud and dirt that the great horses in front flung in his
face and eyes.
“Heroine,” he said, “I think we’ve scared that crowd about long
enough. Now, punish Behren.” He sank his spurs into the horse’s sides
and jerked her head towards a little opening between Lady Betty and
Chubb. Heroine sprang at it like a tiger and came neck to neck with
the leader. And then, as she saw the wide track empty before her, and
no longer felt the hard backward pull on her mouth, she tossed her
head with a snort, and flew down the stretch like an express, with her
jockey whispering fiercely in her ear.
Heroine won with a grand rush, by three lengths, but Charley’s face was
filled with anxiety as he tossed up his arm in front of the judges’
stand. He was covered with mud and perspiration, and panting with
exertion and excitement. He distinguished Mr. Curtis’ face in the
middle of the wild crowd around him, that patted his legs and hugged
and kissed Heroine’s head, and danced up and down in the ecstasy of
delight.
“Mr. Curtis,” he cried, raising his voice above the tumult of the
crowd, and forgetting, or not caring, that they could hear, “send some
one to the stable, quick. There’s a thousand dollars there Behren
offered me to pull the horse. It’s under a plank near the back door.
Get it before he does. That’s evidence the Racing Board can’t--”
But before he could finish, or before Mr. Curtis could push his way
towards him, a dozen stable boys and betting men had sprung away with
a yell towards the stable, and the mob dashed after them. It gathered
in volume as a landslide does when it goes down hill; and the people
in the grand stand and on the coaches stood up and asked what was the
matter; and some cried “Stop thief!” and others cried “Fight!” and
others said that a bookmaker had given big odds against Heroine, and
was “doing a welsh.” The mob swept around the corner of the long line
of stables like a charge of cavalry, and dashed at Heroine’s lodgings.
The door was open, and on his knees at the other end was Behren,
digging at the planks with his finger-nails. He had seen that the boy
had intentionally deceived him; and his first thought, even before that
of his great losses, was to get possession of the thousand dollars
that might be used against him. He turned his fat face, now white with
terror, over his shoulder, as the crowd rushed into the stable, and
tried to rise from his knees; but before he could get up, the first man
struck him between the eyes, and others fell on him, pummelling him and
kicking him and beating him down. If they had lost their money, instead
of having won, they could not have handled him more brutally. Two
policemen and a couple of men with pitchforks drove them back; and one
of the officers lifted up the plank, and counted the thousand dollars
before the crowd.
Either Mr. Maitland felt badly at having doubted Charley, or else he
admired his riding; for he bought Heroine when Behren was ruled off the
race tracks and had to sell his horses, and Charley became his head
jockey. And just as soon as Heroine began to lose, Mr. Maitland refused
to have her suffer such a degradation, and said she should stop while
she could still win. And then he presented her to Charley, who had won
so much and so often with her; and Charley gave up his license and went
back to the farm to take care of his mother, and Heroine played all day
in the clover fields.
BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
The Wolf Hunters
A STORY OF THE BUFFALO PLAINS
_Edited and arranged from the Manuscript Diary of_ ROBERT M. PECK
Illustrated. $1.35 net; postage extra
The true adventures and thrilling experiences of three young cavalrymen
who spent the winter of 1861-62 in hunting wolves on the Western Plains.
Blackfeet Indian Stories
_With frontispiece and cover by_ N. C. WYETH
$1.00 net; postage extra
Twenty-five or more real Blackfeet Indian folk-lore stories are here
related as simply and as graphically as the Indians themselves told
them.
BY NOAH BROOKS
First Across the Continent
A CONCISE STORY OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
Illustrated. $1.50 net
“For any one who has an interest in adventure and in the hardihood of
the pioneer this is a great story.”--_Boston Herald._
The Boy Emigrants
Illustrated. $1.25 net
“It is one of the best boys’ stories we have ever read.”--_The
Christian Work._
The Boy Settlers
A STORY OF EARLY TIMES IN KANSAS
Illustrated. $1.25 net
“The boys have great sport killing buffaloes and some trouble about
Indian uprisings.”--_The Independent._
_ADVENTURE AND EXPLORATION_
Trails of the Pathfinders
By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
Accounts taken from the journals of Henry, Lewis and Clark, Pike,
Frémont, and others.
The Boy’s Catlin
My Life Among the Indians
Edited with Biographical Introduction by
MARY GAY HUMPHREYS
“As interesting a story of Indians as was ever written and has the
merit of being true.”--_New York Sun._
The Boy’s Drake
By EDWIN M. BACON
“Much of the story is told in the words of old records, and interesting
old maps and pictures make it still more valuable.”--_The Bookman._
The Boy’s Hakluyt
By EDWIN M. BACON
The voyages of Hawkins, Drake, Gilbert, and others, retold from
Hakluyt’s chronicles.
Beyond the Old Frontier
Adventures of Indian Fighters, Hunters, and Fur Traders
By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
A series of personal narratives of hunting, Indian fighting, and
exploration in the early pioneer days.
Missionary Explorers Among the American Indians
By MARY GAY HUMPHREYS
The stories of the first and greatest of American missionaries to the
American Indians, told largely in their own words.
True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World
By MAJOR-GENERAL A. W. GREELY, U. S. A.
The true stories of the most heroic adventures on the Arctic
expeditions from the earliest explorers to our own day.
The Boy’s Story of Zebulon M. Pike
Explorer of the Great Southwest
Edited by MARY GAY HUMPHREYS
“A brilliant story of adventure and achievement.”--_Washington Star._
_Each Illustrated. 12mo. $1.50 net_
African Adventure Stories
By J. ALDEN LORING
FIELD NATURALIST TO THE ROOSEVELT AFRICAN EXPEDITION
_With a foreword by_ THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Illustrated. 8vo. $1.50 net; postage extra
Twenty-two narratives of the adventures and experiences of the author
and other famous hunters in Africa. Mr. Loring was a member of the
Roosevelt expedition, and Mr. Roosevelt says in the foreword: “What he
describes as fact may unhesitatingly be accepted as such.” It is a most
exciting series of dangerous and unusual adventures.
The Adventures of James Capen Adams
Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California
By THEODORE H. HITTELL
Illustrated. $1.50 net
The narrative is given just as it first appeared in the simple, direct
language in which “Grizzly” Adams told it to Mr. Hittell--a style that
bears all the marks of absolute truth.
By WILLIAM H. WRIGHT
The Grizzly Bear
Illustrated. $1.50 net
“The very spirit of the grizzly is in subtle fashion brought near us.
The book will long hold a high place in the literature of sport.”--_New
York Tribune._
The Black Bear
Illustrated. $1.00 net
“Finely illustrated, informing, and entertaining.”--_Philadelphia
Inquirer._
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.