The moon had acted as a stimulant to my thoughts, and the contented
munching sound as the "string" of horses consumed their hay was not
sedative enough to calm my utter wide-awake-ness.
"Why have you put bars across the door of that stall?" I asked Blister
Jones, trying to rouse him from his placid mood. He pulled a straw
from the bale upon which we sat, before replying.
"The Big Train's in there," he said quietly.
"No; is that a fact?" I cried, as I jumped to my feet and walked to the
door across which were the heavy wooden bars that had attracted my
attention. Peering through these I could see nothing, nor was there
any sound toward which I might have strained my eyes.
"I guess he's not at home," I said. "I can't see him."
"Stick around that door 'n' you'll see him all right!" Blister assured
me. Scarcely had he finished when the straw rustled and a huge head
shot forward into the planes of moonlight that slanted between the bars
into the black mystery of the stall.
Never had I seen anything so malevolent as this head. Its eyes were
green flame, holding the hate of hell in their depths. The mouth was
open, and the great white teeth closed with a snap on one of the bars
and shook it in its socket.
So this was the noted man-killer, nicknamed because of his size and his
astonishing ability to carry weight--The Big Train! His fame had been
borne by leaded column beyond the racing, and to the more general
public; for on several occasions he had succeeded in furnishing the
yellow newspapers with gory copy.
He had begun his career as a man-killer in his three-year-old form. An
unscrupulous owner had directed the jockey to carry an electric battery
during an important race. Under the current The Big Train had run like
a wild thing, and despite a staggering load placed on him by the
handicapper, had won by many lengths.
After the race the stallion had reached back, and getting the jockey's
leg between his teeth, had torn him from the saddle. Then before a
screaming, horror-stricken grand-stand he had stamped the boy into a
red waste.
This was his first and last public atrocity. He had killed men since,
but always when they were alone with him. No one had seen him at his
murders. He would have been destroyed when his racing days were over,
but he possessed the ability to transmit a large measure of his stamina
and speed to his offspring, and was greatly in demand as a sire.
I stood before The Big Train's stall, fascinated by his wicked attempts
to get at me until Blister's attention was attracted by the thud of the
stallion's hoofs against the lower door.
"Come on back here 'n' set down 'n' let that hoss get his rest,' he
ordered. I obeyed.
"Why on earth did you take him?" I asked, when once more seated on the
bale of straw.
"Well, ole Prindle says he'd give fifty bucks a week to the guy who'll
handle him 'n' I needs the money . . . fur certain reasons."
"Fur certain reasons" was added diffidently, I thought. This was an
altogether new quality in Blister. And I remembered the pretty,
spoiled-looking, young girl I had seen with him quite often of late.
She was rosy, pouty, slim, enticing and thoroughly aware of how
desirable she appeared. Blister had told me she was his landlady's
daughter, and I knew she lived but a block from the race track. I
thought of the head I had seen, and felt certain that fifty _thousand_
a week would not tempt me into an intimate relationship with its owner.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am you've taken him--it's a fearful
risk," I said.
"Get out!" said Blister. "He won't even muss my hair. I never go in
to him alone 'n' he don't like company fur his little stunts. He's a
regular family hoss in a crowd."
Two stable-boys now climbed the track fence and came toward us rather
hastily.
"Been on a vacation?" was Blister's greeting to them.
"Playin' seven-up 'n' tried to finish the game," one of them explained
as they started with buckets for the pump.
"That's good. It don't matter whether these hosses get watered, just
so you swipes enjoy yourselves," Blister commented.
I watched languidly while the buckets were filled and brought to the
horses, until this process reached the barred stall. Then I became
interested. One of the boys approached the stall with a bucket in one
hand and a pitchfork held near the pronged end in the other. He swung
open the lower door and whacked the fork handle back and forth inside,
yelling harsh commands in the meantime. He succeeded in getting the
bucket where the horse could drink, but the pitchfork was seized and
twisted and the boy had difficulty in wrenching it away. It was all he
could do to regain possession of it.
"Little pink toes is feelin' like his ole sweet self again," said
Blister. "I been worried about him--he's seemed so pie-faced here
lately."
"Don't worry none about him," said the boy who had watered The Big
Train. "Mama's lamb ain't forgot his cute ways." Then he addressed
the other boy. "Say, Chic, you snored somethin' fierce last night!
Why don't you sleep in here with Bright Eyes, so's not to disturb me?"
"Would, only I might thrash around in my sleep 'n' hurt him," promptly
replied the other boy.
Two figures had come from the street, through the gate and strolled
down the line of stalls. One of them was feminine, and in white, and
as they drew nearer, "Good evening, Mister Jones," floated to us in an
assured though girlish voice.
It was the landlady's daughter, attended by a cavalier in the person of
a stolid young man of German extraction, as I thought at first glance,
and this was confirmed by Blister's, "Let me make you acquainted with
Miss Malloy," and "Shake hands with Mister Shultz."
Then began the by no means unskilful playing of one lover against the
other. She sat, a queen--the bale of straw a throne--and dispensed
royal favors impartially; a dimple melting to a smile, a frown changed
by feminine magic into a delicious pout.
In the moonlight she was exceedingly lovely. She seemed
unapproachable, elusive, mysterious, and yet her art touched the
material. She contrived to bring out how successful Mister Shultz was
in the bakery business, and in the next breath told nonchalantly of the
vast sums acquired by a race-horse trainer.
She appealed to Blister to corroborate this.
"Isn't that so, Mister Jones? Didn't you tell me you get fifty dollars
a week for training one horse?"
Blister was not above impressing his rival, it seemed. He nodded to
this deceptive question. And since he had nine horses in his "string,"
the worthy German's eyes bulged.
At last I rose to go and our little circle broke up. The girl, with a
coquettish good night to me, moved away from us and stood with her back
to the stalls, her face lifted to the moon.
"Good night, ole Four Eyes!" said Blister, and gave my hand a friendly
pressure, just as a rattling sound attracted my eyes to the barred
stall.
The lower door was swinging open. A powerful neck had tossed the bars
from their sockets. This was the rattle I had heard, as Death came out
of that stall, huge and terrible, to rear above the unconscious white
figure in the moonlight.
My look of horror swung Blister about. I saw him dive headlong, and
the white figure was knocked to safety as the man-killer's forefeet
struck Blister down.
The rest was a dream . . . I found myself beating with futile fists the
giant body that rose and fell as it stamped upon that other body
beneath. I knew, but dimly, that the night was pierced by shriek on
shriek. And still I felt the rise and fall of the beast. How long it
lasted I do not know. . . . . . .
A helmeted figure swept me aside, I saw a gleam in the moonlight--a
flash, and felt that a shot was fired, although I can not remember
hearing it. The Big Train ceased to rise and fall. He swayed,
staggered and crumpled to the ground.
"An ambulance--quick!" I said to the heaven-sent policeman; and saw him
start for the gate on a lumbering trot. Then I stooped to the figure,
lying with its head in what the moonlight had changed to a pool of ink.
Suddenly I felt a woman's soft form beneath my hands. It was in white
and it covered that other dreadful figure with its own . . . and moaned.
"This won't do," I said to the girl. "Let me see how badly he's hurt."
She took Blister's head in her arms.
"Go 'way from here! He's dead," she said. "He saved me . . . he's
mine! Go 'way from here!"
A crowd was forming. I sent a stableboy for a blanket, put it under
Blister's head, despite the girl's protests, and pulled her roughly to
her feet.
"Go over to that bale and sit down!" I ordered, giving her a shake; and
to my surprise she obeyed. "Sit with her!" I said to the German, and I
heard her repeat, "Go 'way from here!" as he approached. . . .
The ambulance clanged through the gate. The young surgeon put his ear
to Blister's heart, picked the limp body up unaided and placed it in
the somber-looking vehicle.
"Beat it, Max!" he said to the driver.
"What hospital?" I called after him.
"Saint Luke's!" he shouted, as they gathered speed.
"You had better take her home now," I suggested to Mr. Shultz. "I am
going to the hospital."
"So am I," said the girl. "Tell mother," she directed at the German,
as she started for the gate.
"You'd better not go," I remonstrated. "I'll let you know everything
as soon as I hear."
She paid not the slightest attention. When we reached the street she
stopped on the wrong corner waiting for a car that would have taken her
away from, instead of toward, the hospital.
"You can't go down-town like this!" I said, making a last effort.
"Look at your dress!" and I pointed to the front of her gown--a bright
crimson under the electric light.
She looked down at herself and shuddered.
"I'll go if it's the last thing I do," she said. "You can save your
breath."
The car was all but empty. The girl sat staring, dry-eyed, straight
before her. A dirty old woman, seeing the set face and blood-stained
dress, leaned eagerly across the aisle.
"Has the young lady been hurt?" she wheezed.
"None of your business," said Miss Malloy. And the old woman subsided
at this shaft of plain truth.
Our ride was half completed when my companion began to speak, in a
broken monotone. She addressed no one in particular. If was as though
conscience spoke through unconscious lips.
"And I've been foolin' with him just like all the rest--I thought it
was smart! I never knew, for sure, till back there, and now _he'll_
never know . . . he'll not hear me when I tell it to him." Suddenly
the monotone grew shrill. "_He'll never hear nothing of what Eve found
out_!"
"Quiet! Quiet!" I said, and took her hand. "He's only hurt. The
doctors will bring him around all right."
"No," she said. "I've been foolin' with him. I've been wicked and
mean, and it's been sent to punish me."
A house surgeon and the engulfing odor of iodoform met us at the door
of the emergency ward, whither we were led by a nurse.
"We can't tell anything before tomorrow," answered the surgeon to my
question. "The pulse is fairly strong, and that means hope."
"I must see him," the girl stated.
"Sorry," said the surgeon, shaking his head. "No visitors allowed in
this ward at night."
Two eyes, big and dark and beseeching, were raised to his. They shone
from the white face and plead with him.
"Oh, doctor . . . _please_!" was all she said, but the eyes won her
battle.
The nurse joined forces with the eyes. She looked past the surgeon.
"Very few in here to-night, Doctor Brandt," she urged.
"I wonder what would become of hospital rules if we left it to you
nurses!" he protested, as he stepped aside and gently drew the girl
within.
Down the dim aisle between the snowy beds we went, until the surgeon
stopped at one, beside which sat a nurse, her fingers on the wrist of
the bandaged occupant.
One bloodless hand picked feebly at the covering. The girl took this
in both her own and pressed it to her cheek. Then stooping even lower,
she cooed to the head on the pillow.
"The Big Train's pulled in . . ." muttered a far voice from between the
bandages.
"Railroad man--isn't he?" inquired the surgeon of me.
"No. A horseman," I replied.
"He talks about trains. Was it a railroad accident?"
"He was injured by a horse called The Big Train," I explained.
"Oh--that one," he said, enlightened.
"Why don't they shoot him?"
"They did," I said.
"Good!" exclaimed the surgeon. "That is fine!"
After taking the girl to her home, I sent telegrams to "Mr. Van," as I
had heard Blister call him--one to Morrisville, New Jersey, and one to
the Union Club, New York. Judge and Mrs. Dillon were abroad.
When I had telephoned to the hospital the next morning, I went to the
office and found a message on my desk. It read:
"Have everything possible done. Send all bills to me. He must come
here to convalesce."