THROW-BACKS
“There’s throw-backs in folks jist like in horses,” said the proprietor
of Moosehead House, seating himself close to the kitchen stove and
waving his guest to a rocking chair. “An’ that girl, Joe Hinch, is a
throw-back—an’ a long throw—clear beyond my memory, anyhow. She’s got
more than looks—more of some other things than she has of looks—an’
you know what she looks like! That’s sayin’ somethin’ would crack a
stiff jaw, hey? Well, it’s the truth! She’s got brains, an’ she’s got
speerit—and she’s got honesty! The Lord only knows where she got that.
That’s where the long throw comes in. She’s an orphant. But she’s got
the worst two old grandpas you could find if you hunted a week. I’ll bet
a dollar there ain’t a worse pair of grandpas in the whole province, or
maybe not in the whole country, when it comes to sheer downright
cussedness an’ crookedness. Ain’t that right, Liza?”
“I guess so,” replied Miss Hassock, but Vane saw and felt that she had
given no consideration to her brother’s question.
“Sure it’s right!” continued Jard, with relish. “Old Dave Hinch an’ old
Luke Dangler! There’s a pair of hellyuns you wouldn’t have the heart to
wish onto your worst enemy for grandpas. Dave’s mean an’ crooked an’ a
coward. Luke’s mean an’ crooked an crazy—but he ain’t afeared of
anything nor anybody. Now with horses an’ horned cattle the top-crosses
is the things to look at an’ consider in their pedigrees; an’ so it
should be with humans, and usually is—but there’s throw-backs in both,
now an’ then. There must surely be some fine strains in Joe’s pedigree,
but an all-fired long ways back. The Danglers have speerit an’ looks,
right enough, but I’m referrin’ to honesty. Why, the biggest bit of
thievery ever done in this province—the slickest an’ coolest an’
sassiest ever pulled off without benefit of lawyers—was done by her
great-grandpa, old Luke’s own pa, one hundred years ago. That fetches me
right around to what I was tellin’ you in the stable about how this
strain of blood got into this country. Now that’s queer—talkin’ of
throw-backs—for the Willy Horse was one jist as certain as Joe Hinch is
one. He throwed clear back to that English mare, he did. He was the dead
spit, the livin’ image, of the English mare Luke Dangler’s pa stole an’
hid in the year eighteen hundred an’ twenty-three. His name was
Mark—Mark Dangler—but they tell how the Injuns named him
Devil-kill-a-man-quick, an’ he was most generally called Devil Dangler
for short by whites an’ Injuns. That was Luke’s own pa. He was a handy
man with a knife. He could throw a knife that quick that——”
“Jard!” exclaimed Miss Hassock. “If that old Dangler ever threw knives
half as fast as you wag your tongue he’d of killed off all the settlers
on the river in half a day. That story will keep, Jard—though I don’t
say this gentleman won’t be interested in it.”
“You are right, I’m interested in it,” replied Vane. “In fact, what I
really came here for”—and here Jard looked up expectantly—“was in the
hope of finding a good young horse of the Eclipse strain of blood.
Willoughby Girl, that stolen mare—whose story I’ve known for a very
long time—was a grandfather of the great Eclipse. She was a bay with
white legs. Eclipse was also a bay with white legs. But her dam,
Getaway, was a strawberry roan. So the color of your filly looks
good—but bay is the true Eclipse color. The mare, Willoughby Girl, was
ten years old when she was brought to this country.
“An Englishman named Willoughby was her owner. When he came out to this
province with the intention of buying land and settling here, he brought
Willoughby Girl with him, for she was the greatest mare in the world, in
his opinion. The loss of her sickened him of the country. He spent
thousands of pounds in searching for her. It was his belief that she had
been run across the border, so it was in the states that he did all his
searching.”
Jard was staring in open-eyed amazement at all this knowledge—so much
clearer even than his own—but Vane seemed to take it as a matter of
course and went right on.
“I have always been interested in this story of Willoughby Girl, and
then I came across the records of Strawberry Lightning and the Willy
Horse. Later on I saw both of them at different tracks—you see I am
keen on horses, anyway—and heard a vague story about a stolen English
mare that was their ancestor. As you say, the Willy Horse was a direct
throw-back. I discovered they both came originally from this neck of the
woods, and I came to investigate.
“I planned to keep it quiet about what I wanted, because I am not a rich
man, but I am determined to own a horse of that strain. I know I needn’t
worry about you and Miss Hassock, for I see that you are both sportsmen.
But I must ask you to keep my mission to this part of the country under
your hats. I want a horse, but I can’t pay any fancy price for one.”
Vane even fetched a leather portfolio from his room and showed
Willoughby Girl’s pedigree to his host and hostess, whose interest was
only too manifest.
Jard Hassock gloated over it, breathing heavily through his nose.
“If I could see Luke Dangler’s records—if Luke was halfway human—I
could hitch my own little filly onto this here pedigree,” he whispered
at last. “Onto this here royal pedigree! Can you beat it!”
[Illustration]