DORGAN
In due course a small, clean-shaven man who walked with a slight limp
surveyed the big chestnut with a shrewd, bright eye. This was Rennie's
friend, the ex-jockey.
"Like his looks, Pete?" Rennie queried.
Pete, whose surname was Dorgan, nodded. "I like 'em some ways," he
admitted. "He's got power to burn, and that'll give him speed--some. In
five miles he'd be runnin' strong, but he might not be fast enough at a
mile. 'Course, I don't know nothin' about what he'll be up ag'inst. What
time has this race been run in, other years?" When Angus told him he
grunted. "Good as that? Must be some real horses here. You're sure he
ain't stolen? I wouldn't want to be mixed up in a deal like that, even
if I am out of the game."
"He ain't stolen. This old Injun is as straight as you are."
"Well, I've been called crooked before now," Dorgan grinned. "But if you
say so, Dave, I guess this old boy is all right. You can tell him I'll
put the horse in the best shape I can, and maybe I'll ride him. If I
don't, I'll get a boy. But I ain't goin' to live with a bunch of Injuns
while I'm doin' it, and the horse has to be taken out of here." He eyed
Paul Sam's primitive stable arrangements with disgust. "He's ruinin' his
feet."
Paul Sam made no objection, and the big chestnut which Dorgan christened
"Chief," was brought to the Mackay ranch. There he was installed in a
disused building which lay behind the other stables and some distance
from them.
"The way I get it," said Dorgan, "we better keep this horse under cover
as long as we can. From what you say, there ain't been no class to the
hay-hounds the Siwashes has started other years, and so an Injun entry
is a joke entry. Nobody knows this horse, and seein' him the way he is
now, not many'd pipe what he really is unless they was wised up. But you
let some of these wise local birds lamp him after I've had him a couple
of weeks, and they might smell something. Then I may's well keep dark
myself. Not that I'm ashamed of myself more'n I ought to be, but
somebody might remember me, though I ain't ridden for years. So I'll be
an extra hand you've hired, see? Me and Chief will take our work-outs on
the quiet as long as we can."
So Dorgan gave the horse his exercise on a little prairie a mile back of
the ranch. As he had predicted, a couple of weeks made a vast difference
in his appearance. Groomed till his chestnut coat was gleaming, dappled
satin, his feet trimmed and cleaned and polished and shod by Dorgan
himself, fed bright, clean grain and savory mashes and bedded to the
knees nightly in sweet straw, Chief tasted for the first time the joys
of the equine aristocracy to which he belonged.
But somehow the rumor that the Indians had a mysterious horse and rider
got going, and one day Dorgan, who had been to town, came to Angus.
"Say," he said, "do you know a hard-faced bird, near as big as you are
but older and heavier, that looks like a bad actor and likes the juice?
He seems to be the king-pin of a bunch of young rye-hounds that think
they're sports."
"Do you mean Blake French?"
"That's the outfit that owns this Flambeau horse, ain't it?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"Nothin' much. He'd have bought me a lot of friendship sealers if I'd
let him. Then there was a feller, name of Garland, that thinks he's a
warm member, and claimed he'd seen me ridin' long ago when he was a kid.
He might of, at that. They sorter fished around to find out what I was
doin' here. But they know, all right. If I was crooked I b'lieve I could
do business with them two."
"I've never heard that they would do anything crooked. Of course they
might try to find out all they could."
"If I'd taken all the crooked money I've been offered," said Dorgan,
"and got away with it, I wouldn't need to be worryin' about apples and
chickens now. I know when a feller's feelin' me out, same as I know when
a couple of young burglars is holdin' a pocket open for me to ride
into."
"But they don't know if Paul Sam's horse can run or not."
"That's their trouble. But if they can fix somebody, they don't need to
care."
A couple of days after this, Angus, coming around Chief's quarters from
the rear, overheard Dorgan earnestly assuring Kathleen French that Chief
was quarantined for threatened influenza; and further that he was a
saddle horse, pure and simple, with no more speed than a cow. With a
glance at Angus which was intended to convey grave warning, he beat a
retreat.
"Who is the remarkable liar?" Kathleen asked.
"Is he that? His name is Pete Dorgan."
"If you have a deadline on the place you ought to put up a sign," she
told him. "How did I know I was butting in?"
"How do you know it now?"
"Because I have average intelligence. I didn't know there was a horse
here at all. I was looking for Jean, and when I saw a perfectly
splendid, strange animal, naturally I stopped to look at him. I also saw
a little, flat pigskin saddle, and I saw that the horse was wearing
plates. Then this Dorgan appeared and lied straight ahead without the
least provocation, looking me in the face without the quiver of an
eyelash. I didn't ask him a single question, I give you my word.
"There's no special reason why you shouldn't. The horse isn't mine. But
the fact is, his owner and Dorgan aren't saying anything about him."
"Angus! he isn't--but no, of course he isn't!"
"Isn't what?"
"A ringer. I'm sorry. I know you wouldn't go into anything like that if
you knew it."
Angus laughed. "He's no ringer. He belongs to Paul Sam." He told her as
much as he thought necessary of the animal's history.
"Thanks for the confidence," she nodded. "I'll say nothing about it. If
you had treated me as Dorgan did, I should have felt hurt."
"He didn't know you. He thinks this horse will give you a race."
"What, beat Flambeau!" she cried. "Nonsense!"
"Well, he seems to be a pretty good horse."
"Then I'll bet you an even hundred now!" she challenged.
"No, no. I don't want to bet with you."
"Oh, you needn't have any scruples. The boys take my money--when they
can get it."
"But I don't think I'll bet at all."
"Then what on earth are you doing with the horse?" she asked in frank
astonishment.
"He is just stabled here."
"But I don't see why you won't bet if you think the horse has a good
chance."
"Because I can't afford to lose."
"But that makes it all the more exciting."
"It makes it all the more foolish," Angus told her grimly. "It is all
very well for you; you people can afford to play with money."
"How do you know we can?"
"Well, I've always heard so."
"And therefore it must be so." She switched the grass, looking down.
"Well, whether it is or not, we're born gamblers--the whole family.
Perhaps we can't help it. But sometimes--sometimes I wish it were
different. I wish the boys would work as you work; and--and that I were
a home girl with a nice big brother."
"You have enough big brothers," Angus told her. "I think myself it would
do them no harm to work, but it is none of my business. I did not mean
to seem curious about your affairs. Anyway, some day you will be
marrying and leaving them."
"Perhaps," she admitted. "The chief end of--woman! Oh, I suppose
so--some day. Well?"
"That's all. You will likely marry somebody with plenty of money, and
then you will go away."
"Do you mean that I shall marry for money?"
"No, but if your husband has it, it will be no drawback. Lots of these
young fellows who go to your ranch are well fixed--or will be when
somebody dies."
"How nicely you arrange my future. Which one of them am I to marry,
please?"
"Whichever one you love best."
"What on earth do you know about love, Angus Mackay?"
"Nothing at all. But that is why people get married, isn't it?"
"I think I have heard so," she said dryly. "Will that be why you will
marry--some day?"
"Why else?"
"Oh, Scotch! A question with a question! Would you marry for any other
reason?"
"I would not marry a girl because she had money," said Angus, "because
the money would not be worth the nuisance of her if I didn't love her."
Kathleen laughed at this frank statement, and went to find Jean. Angus'
reflections as to Kathleen were broken by the reappearance of Dorgan.
"What did I tell you?" said the little man. "I guess my dope was poor,
huh!"
"Your dope on what?"
"On what? On them fellers I was talkin' to yesterday. Now here's
French's sister comes on the scout. When I seen her she was sure gettin'
an eyeful of Chief."
"She was looking for my sister. She told me how it happened."
"I'll gamble she did," Dorgan returned skeptically, "and I s'pose you
fell for it, like young fellers do. When a crook can't get the real dope
any other way, he plants a woman. That skirt----"
"Go easy," Angus warned him. "That young lady is a friend of mine."
"She ain't a friend of mine, and I got my own idea of what she was here
for. If you don't like it I'll keep it to myself."
"You're barking up the wrong tree," Angus laughed. "She's as straight as
they make them. She says you're a remarkable liar, if you want to know."
Dorgan grinned. "I said she was wise. Maybe my work was a little raw,
but she took me by surprise, and I was just doin' the best I could
off-hand."
"You can't keep the horse cached forever."
"That's all right. There's no use tellin' what you know most times. This
Flambeau from what I hear will carry a whole bunch of money for them
Frenches. They're givin' as good as five to three against the field.
That means they got the field sized up, or fixed. But they ain't got a
line on Chief, nor they ain't got me fixed, so their calculations has
been clean upset. Somebody's been watchin' me exercise, the last day or
two, but whoever it is ain't had a chance to clock nothin', because they
don't know the distances, and anyway I didn't let him out. They ain't
wise to him, but they're wise to me. They dope it out I wouldn't be
wastin' time on a horse that hadn't a chance. See what I'm gettin' at? A
pill or the needle would put Chief out of the money."
"Nobody around here would do that," Angus told him.
"They wouldn't hey?" said Dorgan with sarcasm. "Let me tell you that
right in the bushes is the place they put over stuff they couldn't get
by with nowheres else. The things I've seen pulled at these little,
local races would chill your blood. There's a bunch of murderers follows
'em up that'd hamstring a horse or sandbag an owner for a ten-case
note."
"But--" Angus began.
"But--nothing," Dorgan interrupted with contempt. "Don't you s'pose I've
been in the game long enough to know it? There'll be a bunch of tinhorns
and a wreckin' crew of crooked racin' men with a couple of outlaw
horses, all workin' together to skin the suckers. All them Frenches have
to do is to say it's worth fifty to fix any horse. You can maybe tell me
things about raisin' alfalfa, but not about racin'. When a woman gets
into the game, it's serious. After this I'm goin' to sleep right here."