I HE SPORT OF
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ARTHUR SOMERS





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THE SPORT OF KINGS











THE SPORT of KINGS
By
ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE
Author of
LOOT, PLUNDER, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
ARTHUR I. KELLER
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS


CoPYRIGHT 1917
ARTHUR SoMERs RocRE
Pases of
*Autowo" & ©ee
Boog MANufactuftić
*@@@..". Bis ve


TO BUDDY
Whe Helped Me Write This Book





CHAPTER
II
III
IV
VI
VII
VIII
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
CONTENTS
Barred . . . . . . . . . . .
Miss Leland . . . . . . . . .
Vivandiere . . . . . . . . .
I Stay Behind . . . . . . . .
“Wasn't It Worth It?” Asks Jerry
Miss Leland Goes Riding . . .
“It Is Wrong to Beat Men” . . .
Dane Makes the Running . . .
A Dog Track . . . . . .
I Ask Myself Many Questions . .
I Kiss a Star . . . . . . . .
I Call on Colonel Buckmaster . .
I Decide to Stay . . . . . .
The Buck is Passed; I Piek It Up
“Reverend Doctor Yancey” . . .
Bread upon the Waters , , , .
Doctor Yancey Does Not Appear ,
I Mark Time . . . . . . .
*
e
A Sleigh-Ride–And the Judges' Stand
Colonel Buckmaster Finds His Limit
Partners . . . . . . . . . .
The Sport of Kings . . . . .
PAGE
17
29
43
52
80
90
105
118
131
150
164
175
187
197
£11
283
248
261
280
296
811





THE SPORT OF KINGS





THE SPORT OF KINGS
CHAPTER I
BARRED
WAS on the carpet—before the stew-
ards of the Jockey Club. Around a
huge mahogany table they sat, frowning
heavily at me. No one had offered me a
chair, so I stood there, feeling like a school-
boy summoned, for various misdemeanors,
before the faculty of the school. In fact,
the present situation reminded me of one of
those all too numerous occasions back in mil-
itary school in Covington and I grinned.
Soren, at the head of the table, Scowled
angrily at me.
“This is very far from a laughing matter,
Mr. Kernan,” he said.
The others nodded, coughed, cleared their
throats, grunted what I took to be assent. I
1


2 THE SPORT OF KINGS
quit grinning; it was not a laughing matter.
Soren tapped the edge of the table with the
newspaper that he held.
“Mr. Kernan,” he said, “it is now three
days since you made the charge—to a news-
paper—that Starter O'Toole is too friendly
toward the Classon entries. Day before yes-
terday you were requested—in writing—to
prove your charges or retract them as pub-
licly as you made them. I have seen no
withdrawal in the papers, and you have for-
warded no proof of your allegations to the
stewards. Am I right in presuming that
you have brought proof with you?”
The battle was on; no thought of grinning
was within me now.
“The facts speak for themselves, sir,” I
replied. “In every race during this present
meeting at Beaumont in which there has
been an entry from the Classon stable
Starter O'Toole has given the Classon horse
far and away the best of it. He has al-
lowed the Classon jocks to crowd, push and
hinder the other starters. There has been
neither warning nor penalty inflicted on the


THE SPORT OF KINGS 8
Classon entries. Starter O'Toole's conduct
in showing such open favoritism to the
Classon stable is the talk of the meeting,
Sir.”
“Yet there has been no complaint made to
us, sir,” said Soren.
I smiled a trifle. “Mr. Francis Classon is
one of the stewards, sir,” I retorted. And I
looked squarely at Classon, sitting next to
Soren, with a sneer on his lips. He pre-
tended not to see my glance and looked idly
out the window.
“What do you mean, Mr. Kernan?” asked
Soren.
“I mean that most owners, and most
trainers,” said I, “are careful not to make
charges that involve one of the stewards.
But under the rose—there's been talk
enough.”
“Can you bring before us any other
trainer or owner who will speak as you do?”
inquired Soren.
“I don’t care to get other people into
trouble,” I replied. “I can fight my own
battles.”


4 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“That is evasion, Mr. Kernan,” said
Soren sternly. “Have you any evidence to
Substantiate your charges?”
“I have the evidence of my own eyes,
sir,” I said hotly. “All through the past
two weeks I’ve thought that O’Toole has
been acting queerly; I’ve noticed that Mr.
Classon’s horses get all the best of it in
every race. But I thought it racing luck.
A pretty long streak of luck, but—well, I
put it down to that. But three days ago
I saw Starter O'Toole enter the house of Mr.
Classon’s trainer, Marshall Connors, in
Flatbush. I was out automobiling, and, not
certain that it was really O’Toole, or that it
had been Connors’ house that he entered, I
stopped the car and got out. I waited at
the corner for an hour. At the end of that
time O’Toole came out of the house. It was
in the middle of the block, sir, and while I’d
once taken Connors from the track to his
house in a car, I could not be certain that
this was the house. So I waited until after
O'Toole had disappeared. Then I rang the
bell of the house and Connors came to the
door. I asked him what O’Toole had been


THE SPORT OF KINGS 5
doing there. He denied that O’Toole had
been there.
“Gentlemen, my eyes do not deceive me;
I don’t suffer from delusions. O'Toole had
been in Connors’ house. That visit might
be innocent, but if so—why did Connors
deny the visit? There's only one answer,
sir. Connors is the trainer of the Classon
stable; the Beaumont starter has been fa-
voring the Classon horses. He pays a secret
visit to Connors. Why? Isn’t the answer
easy?”
“Why didn’t you make immediately a
full report to the stewards?” demanded
Soren.
“I admit, sir, that that is what I should
have done,” I answered. “But I was hot
under the collar. My own horses had been
done out of two races by Classon entries,
solely because the winners got the best of
the start. Because the race starter at
Beaumont had an understanding—guilty
understanding—with the Classon trainer!
And I—well, at dinner in my hotel that
night a reporter from The Bugle spoke to me,
asking me for track news, and—well, I made


6 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the statement that the Classon stable was
getting all the best of it from O’Toole.”
“You didn’t tell the reporter what you
have told us, though,” said Soren.
“As soon as I began talking to Williams
of The Bugle I realized that I was letting
my temper get away with me,” said I. “So
I stopped after I’d merely stated my belief
in the favoritism shown.”
For the first time Classon spoke. “Mere-
ly,” he said, glancing around at his fellow
stewards. Then he resumed his gazing out
the window. But his word had its effect.
Soren flushed angrily and glared at me.
“Did you ask Williams not to print what
you had said in anger?”
At that I flushed. “No, sir,” I answered.
“Why not?” *
“It is not my habit to retract anything
that is true,” I told him.
“But you had nothing on which to base a
belief that your charges were true,” ex-
claimed Soren. “Connors had denied
O'Toole's visit; you had made a mistake.
As to the other—the success of the Classon
entries—that is the fortune of racing, Mr.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 7
Kernan. I thought you were too good a
sportsman to play the cry-baby because an-
other horse got away better than your
own.”
“If the other horse got away first on its
own merits, or the merits of its jock, I’d not
whine,” I snapped. “But when there's
collusion between the starter and the
trainer—”
Soren cut me short angrily. “Mr. Ker-
nan, we stewards are amply able to look
out for the honesty of this track. We need
no jealous trainers to show us our duty.
You have scandalized Beaumont by your un-
founded charges; it is either your duty to
prove them or your duty to apologize for
having made them.”
“I’ve tried to prove them,” I said. “I’ve
told you about O'Toole visiting Connors, and
the latter’s denial of it.”
Classon again withdrew his gaze from the
window and looked at Soren.
“Kernan’s a bit hipped because his horses
haven’t been in the money,” he said sneer-
ingly, “but, just the same, let's not.make a
Star chamber out of this. Naturally, I was


8 THE SPORT OF KINGS
as much surprised as any one else to learn
that my stable was being shown favors. I’d
rather thought I had the better horses and
possibly the better jockeys and trainer. But
I brought Connors over here with me to-
day; I didn’t suppose he'd be needed, but—
O'Toole's here, too, isn’t he?”
Soren nodded. “Bring them in,” said
Classon. Soren pressed a bell. A moment
later Starter O'Toole and Trainer Connors
were in the room. Soren looked from one
to the other of them. Then he spoke to
O'Toole.
“Mr. O'Toole,” he said, from the head of
the table, “did you ever pay a visit to Mr.
Connors’ house?”
O'Toole's eyes opened wonderingly. He
shook his head. “Why, sir, I barely know
Connors.”
“Connors, did O’Toole ever call at your
house?” asked Soren. |
“No, sir,” said Conners innocently.
“Of course, you’ve both read Mr. Ker-
nan’s charges in The Bugle? Well, to-day
he's gone further than that. He claims that
you two have met in your house, Connors.”


10 THE SPORT OF KINGS
say, a personal interest in the matter, I
would hate to seem vindictive. Let me sug-
gest that Mr. Kerman make a personal apol-
ogy to me, for having dragged my name—
my stable's name—into a nasty scandal, and
that he further comply with our written re-
quest to him and make a public retraction of
his charges.”
“Very fair,” exclaimed old Soren. He
turned to the others. “That all right, gen-
tlemen?”
The other stewards nodded assent. The
old financier looked at me.
“Mr. Kernan,” he began, “this is a very
sad occasion. I knew your father, sir. No
more honorable gentleman or fairer sports-
man ever came out of Kentucky. It has
been my great pleasure to defeat him and
to be defeated by him. He was a gentle-
man; he loved horses; he loved their repu-
tation; he was never one to throw mire. Yet
neither was he one to let scandal grow un-
checked. He would have been first to ex-
pose dishonesty—but he would have had
proof of his charges. He would not have
made them unfounded. Only the coward,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 11
sir, makes charges not susceptible to proof.
And you are not a coward; you are simply
a hot-headed young man, proud of the stable
he trains and unwilling to accept defeat.
But, Mr. Kernan, a gentleman does not try
to excuse his defeat by charging dishonesty
to his opponent, unless he is certain! And
you—I am very sorry for this. I am glad
that Mr. Classon is so generous; it saves us
from a most unpleasant duty. Instead of
barring you from the turf we give you the
opportunity to square yourself. Mr. Ker-
nan, we are waiting to hear your apology
to Mr. ClassOn.”
I bit my lip; I felt my nails digging into
my palms. For I had not been mistaken; I
had seen O’Toole go into Connors’ house and
seen him come out of there. I stared at
Classon, who sat, slightly smiling, awaiting
my humiliation. For it is humiliation to
apologize through fear. I had been a fool.
I should not have let the reporter know my
feelings; I should not have said anything un-
less I had irrefutable proof. And yet, I was
not ashamed of my foolishness. It is not
the Kernan way to keep silent about crook-


12 THE SPORT OF KINGS
edness because of what may happen because
of failure of proof. It is not the Kernan
habit to keep silent about dishonesty
through fear of the consequences. We Ker-
nans may lack tact, but we are neither moral
nor physical cowards, I hope. And as I
stared at Classon’s smiling countenance I
noticed that his lips were thick and sensual,
that his eyes set a bit too close together. I
wondered if the stories that his brokerage
house was but little better than a tremen-
dous bucket-shop could be true. And an
idea came to me. If O’Toole were bribed,
surely Connors, Classon’s trainer, didn’t
have money enough to do it. Of course, the
two might connive to beat the betting ring,
but still—bets can often be traced. And it
is racing death to a starter to be even sus-
pected of betting. No, O’Toole must be get-
ting money from Connors. But who gave
Connors the money?
“Mr. Classon,” I said, “may I ask you a
question?”
“You may,” he said.
“You keep books of your stable, of course?
Account books?”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 13
“Certainly.”
“And a separate checking-account for all
stable expenses?”
“Of course,” he said coldly.
“And another separate account for your
business?”
“Several of them,” he answered.
“And a personal account—for your own
expenses?”
“Ye-s, but why—”
“Then, Mr. Classon, will you submit all
your check-books to your fellow stewards?”
He glared at me, and his face grew crim-
son. “What the devil do you mean? What
are you driving at?”
“I’d like to examine those check-books,” I
Said. “It would be interesting to note if Mr.
Connors has received any large checks re-
cently which are plainly in excess of his sal-
ary or stable expenses. Sufficient, I might
say, to make a starter forget his duty to the
racing association.”
It was a long shot—and it didn’t win!
Classon jumped to his feet.
“By God, sir, do you dare insinuate—”
“I’m not insinuating anything, sir,” I said.


14 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“My future, my honor are on trial here. I
ask you to produce those check-books!”
“Yes, you are on trial, Kernan,” he cried.
“Not I—and—gentlemen, of course it is ab-
Surd that I should furnish what he asks!
There are business secrets that—”
“Of course, Classon,” said Soren. “We
understand! This man Kernan is insane
with jealous anger. We have given him his
chance, and I now propose that in view of
this further insinuation against the integ-
rity of one of our fellow stewards, Mr. Ker-
nan be barred from the turf l”
The others murmured angrily; I felt their
Outraged glares upon me.
“In a court of law,” I said, “my demands
would be listened to.”
“And this is a court of gentlemen,” cried
old Soren. “Gentlemen, shall we put it to a
Vote?”
But Classon interfered. He smiled pa-
tiently, as one who has been foully wronged
yet does not desire vengeance. “Gentlemen,
gentlemen,” he said, “don’t let any insult
to me govern you. Let us forget that; let
*


16 THE SPORT OF KINGS
The court from which there was no ap-
peal, the stewards of the Jockey Club, had
barred from the turf a Kernan of Kernan’s
Farm!
I almost had to feel my way out of the
Wall Street office of Soren, where the meet-
ing of the stewards had been held, so blinded
was I with unshed tears. I could feel the
curious eyes of the great financier's clerks
upon me as I passed from his outer bank-
ing-rooms. On the threshold of the street
door I paused. It was not too late; I could
go back, retract my charges, apologize and
still remain in the career which I loved and
to which I had been born. I half-started
back; then I paused; and went forth into
the rush of Wall Street. Even greater than
the Kernan love for horses is the Kernan
pride. I would not retract that which I
knew to be true.


CHAPTER II
MISS LELAND
OSSIP in the racing world travels
about as quickly as anywhere else.
I’d been ruled off the turf at half past ten.
At half past twelve the telephone in my
room at my hotel rang and the clerk told
me that Mr. Benton was calling. -
“Send him up,” I said. And then I
braced myself against a storm of re-
proaches. But I needn’t have bothered, for
old Sam Benton was the whitest man that
ever breathed, and the last to reproach a
man for doing what his conscience com-
manded.
He sat down, in a chair whose measure
was all too small for his overflowing bulk,
puffing from excitement as well as his swift
entrance.
“Well, Sale, I hear you went and gone and
did it!”
“Who told you?” I asked.
17


18 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Jerry Kenney called me up from the
stable fifteen minutes ago. I was just get-
ting out of bed—poker last night—and I
left the house with Mrs. Benton telling me
I’d die of dyspepsia if I went without my
breakfast. But I hollered back to her that
I was taking a cure—wasn’t eating break-
fast any more. I came down here as fast as
the car would take me and for once the
traffic cops were looking the other way.
Now give it to me straight.”
He paused, all out of breath. As briefly
as possible I told him the occurrences at the
meeting of the stewards and their outcome.
Old Sam heard me through in silence. In-
deed, after I had finished he made no com-
ment until he had carefully and slowly
selected a cigar from his case, lighted it and
had smoked half an inch of its length. Then:
“Of course, you know the old rule: never
start anything you can’t finish. Why didn’t
you back down?”
“You don’t mean that, Mr. Benton,” I said
shortly.
“No, darned if I do! You did just right,
Sale, only—why in blazes did you ever talk


THE SPORT OF KINGS 19
to Williams in the first place?” he groaned.
“You didn’t have to, you know.”
“If I hadn't I’d have gone before the
stewards, anyway,” I retorted, “and the out-
come would have been the same.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “I’d have
reasoned that out of you! But you always
were a headstrong youth, Sale. However-
ruled off, eh? Sale, what you going to do?
I don’t suppose you’ve thought of that; any
more than you did of my string when you
started all this.”
“Look here, Mr. Benton,” I said hotly,
“how could you expect me to think of your
string? My duty as your trainer only con-
sists in looking after your horses; not in
keeping my eyes closed to crookedness.”
“Don’t go off at half-cock, Sale,” he said.
“You know I don’t blame you, only—ain't it
just like every Kernan that ever came out
of Kentucky to forget his future, his hopes,
his plans—everything for the sake of what
he considers his duty!”
“What is his duty,” I corrected him. “And
I hope that what you say is true. I’m
mighty sorry, Mr. Benton; training your


20 THE SPORT OF KINGS
stable has been most as much pleasure as
though it were my own, but—there are lim-
its to everything. I’d do it all over again.
I can get reinstated now by an apology. I'll
see Classon in Hades first.”
He puffed at his cigar. I bent over a
suit-case I’d been packing when he was an-
nounced and began tossing things into it.
Benton pointed at it.
“Where bound, Sale?”
“Juarez,” I answered shortly. “The
stewards’ power doesn’t run that far. At
least, the enforcement of their rules is
mighty lax there. I may not be able to train
under my own name, but under the rose—
I'll find plenty to do there.”
“Not at the ten thousand a year I’ve been
paying you,” he said.
I made no reply, and after a moment he
went on: “But a man’s self-respect is worth
thousands, Sale. Yes, you’ll land, but—Sale,
what good will it do to land at Juarez? A
Mexican track without much standing. Of
course, there's your living, but—I have
plenty, Sale.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 21
“I know that, but I don’t want to borrow,”
I told him.
“But even if you do go to Juarez—no
hurry; it isn’t quite October yet, and they
won’t open there for a couple of months.”
“But I can be drawing salary before the
racing starts,” I reminded him.
“Yes, but—you say you won’t apologize.
So, if you want to be reinstated—you do, of
course?”
“Naturally.”
“Then you'll have to prove your charges.
How you going to do that way down in
Juarez?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t
crossed that bridge yet,” I answered. “The
only thing I’ve decided on is that I want
to get away from this place as quick as the
Lord will let me. Out of New York; away
from the neighborhood of the tracks they've
barred me from. Good God, Benton, can’t
you understand how I feel? Barred from
the tracks, from the game my folks helped
make great? Barred from—I want to get
away—now.”


£22 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Islammed the suit-case shut savagely and
locked it. “About that other—making my
charges stick: murder will out! I know
Classon, Connors and O’Toole have been rig-
ging things up. That's four people alto-
gether that know it. And one of the other
three will make a break some day—”
“And you won’t be here to take advantage
bf it,” he said.
“Some one else will,” I said. “And mean-
While—I’ve got to live, Mr. Benton. I’ve
had a good salary, but—well, when a Ker-
man-trained horse loses a race Sale Kernan
is apt to be light in pocket.”
“I’ve said that I—” he began.
“And I’ve said that I won’t borrow—when
I see no way to pay back,” I interrupted.
“Thank you again, but—there's a liner for
New Orleans sails at four. I shall be aboard
her.”
The old man sighed; he was my good
friend; had been a friend of my father be-
fore me; and many a time I’d rejoiced with
him when a Benton entry went under the
wire a length in the lead.
“I know there's no way of stopping you


THE SPORT OF KINGS 23
when your mind's made up, Sale,” he said.
“But—if you won’t accept a loan, still you
can’t help me spending my own money, can
you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The Kernan judgment has always been
good on everything except the stock-market,”
he said. “On horses and men—almost in-
fallible. If you say that Classon is a crook,
in spite of his being a steward and all that
sort of thing, why—Sale, I’m inclined to be-
lieve you. So much inclined that when I
leave here I’m going to a private detective
agency. I’ll risk a few thousand of my own
to help a boy I like, and”— and here his
mouth hardened—“to drive a crook from the
track. Write to me, Sale, and—if you should
change your mind about—a loan, you know,
a wire'll always get an answer from me.
Good-by, my boy.”
And the dear old fellow wrung my hand
and left. And his departure meant the
Severing of the last tie that bound me to
New York. Disgraced—for being ruled off
the turf means nothing less than disgrace—
(deprived of my means of livelihood—for


24 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the track and the stud were all I knew, and
nowhere in the country, save possibly in
Florida or at some outlaw track on the
coast can a ruled-off man get employment,
and to these places I would not go,-I was
blue and miserable. And yet, as I’d told old
Sam, I'd have done it all over again. So
there was nothing to weep about; we Ker-
nans do not cry over spilt milk. I ate lunch-
eon in my room and then ordered a taxi.
I went aboard the boat two hours before
sailing-time and locked myself in my cabin.
Not until the Christina's engines had been
throbbing twenty minutes and she was well
below Liberty did I leave my cabin and go
upon deck. And there, as I stood by the
rail, taking my last look at New York, I
felt a hand touch my arm. I turned, to
stare amazedly into the apologetic eyes of
Jerry Kenny, my chief subordinate in the
Benton stable.
“Well, what the devil are you doing here?”
I gasped.
“On my way to Juarez, via New Orleans,”
said Jerry with a grin.
“Now look here, Jerry,” said I angrily,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 25
“I’m darn glad to see you and all that, but
–why in blazes have you left New York?
Sam Benton might have put you in charge
of the stable and—”
“And since whin did the Kenneys thry to
step into the shoes of the Kernans?” de-
manded Jerry. “Shame on ye for sayin’ it,
Misther Sale. Sure, ye’er father'd nivir have
talked that way to me. Didn’t he, whin ye
was a bit of a lad, make me promise that
I'd kape ye out of mischief? Is it lettin' ye
go to Mexico, with rev'lootionists all around
and ye wid ye'er hot blood likin’ to join thim,
I’d be afther doin’?”
“Jerry,” I said shamefacedly, “of course I
appreciate your feelings and your kindness
and all that, but—you’d have had a good
thing with old Sam Benton. You shouldn’t
have given it up.”
“I worked for the Kernans before ever I
worked for the Bentons,” said Jerry.
“Please God, I'll not forget the Kernans for
the Bentons—nor for the Kenneys, either.
What's a job whin Major Jack's son is—bad
Scran to thim, Misther Sale, but we'll come
back yet, wid bells on, and give the crooks


26 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the proofs they're afther wantin’. Menevvy
Mike is back there and he'll kape his eyes
open and he'll watch Connors and the rist
of them. Nivir fret, Misther Sale, thim that
laves can come back.”
I tried to smile. “I hope so,” I said. “Any-
Way, you can go back. I'm not going to mix
you up in my misfortunes. You'll get off
this boat at Charleston, and—”
“And Charleston is two days off,” mur-
mured Jerry. “We'll talk some more before
we get there. Meanwhile, I’m not so young
as I was, but I’m Irish, Misther Sale. Be
afther tellin' me; is it true what they say
about thim Mexican girls bein’ So grand to
look at? And will we see many of thim in
Juarez? Are anny of thim as good-lookin',
say, as the young lady beyant there?”
I followed the direction of his eyes and
saw the girl he meant. She had just stepped
from an outside cabin and stood looking
back toward the sky-line of Manhattan. The
wind whipped her skirts closely about her,
and revealed a form that might have posed
for the young Diana. Brown curls were
tossed by the wind against a cheek of
/


THE SPORT OF KINGS 27
damask on which strawberries had been
crushed. Oh, she was a thoroughbred, from
her dainty arched feet to her small proud
head. I looked quickly away, hard though
it was to do so, lest she catch me rudely
staring.
“No,” I said slowly, “I don’t think you’ll
find any like her in Mexico—or anywhere
else.”
But Jerry said nothing—to me. A few
yards away I heard him say:
“Be careful, Miss Leland, now! Sure, it's
getting choppy out here and ye must mind
ye'er step.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kenny; I'll be careful.”
“Mind ye do, ma'am,” said Jerry.
I turned and looked at them. I saw her
teeth flash in a smile that dazzled my faith-
ful Jerry. He bowed almost to the deck and
She passed by. He rejoined me.
“Do you know her?” I gasped.
“Wud I adthress a lady I didn't know?”
he retorted.
“You old rascal, you’d do anything,” I
grinned. “But—who is she?”
“A lady,” said Jerry, “be the name of Miss


28 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Leland. She has a winter place in Florida.
Likewise she has a horse. She's takin’ her
down to Grantham; she's goin’ to race her
at the winter meetin’ there. I saw thim
loadin’ the mare aboard, and I gave the
rough side of me tongue to the ignoraymus
in charge beca’se of his mishandlin' the
animal. The lady heard me and thanked me
and—’tis ple'sint for a gay young buck like
mesilf to have the acquaintance of a young
and char-rming lady on a dull vy'ge.”
“I like your impudence, you ancient mari-
ner,” I said. “A plater, I suppose?”
“She don’t look it, did ye think, Misther
Kernan?” he chuckled.
“I don’t mean the lady, you old rascal,”
I said. “And you knew it. The mare.”
“There might be some that'd call Vivan-
diere a plater, sor, but not the likes of me.”
“Vivandiere?” I gasped. “Vivandiere!”
“That same,” said Jerry, “Wud ye like to
go down below and have a look at the
darlint?”
“If only to condole with her, I would,” I
answered. “If only to meet a sister in mis-
fortune. Lead the way, Jerry.”


CHAPTER III
VIVANDIERE
9 WEEN-DECKS the mare was stabled;
she was fretting at the motion of the
Christina, and between fear and the natural
devilish temper that had ruined her as a
piece of racing flesh, she was in a wicked
mood. At a respectful distance from her
hind feet was a burly deck-hand, evidently,
from the bucket of oats he carried, told off
to look after the mare's wants during the
Voyage. Jerry grinned at me as we stood
there, watching the man's timid approach to
the make-shift stall, and his fearful back-
ing away when the mare, over her shoulder,
glimpsed him with wicked eyes, and showed
her great powerful teeth.
The deck-hand turned and saw us; he
flushed angrily at Jerry's grin. He turned
back toward the stall and lifted the bucket
of oats. In his anger he raised the heavy
iron-bound bucket above his head.
29


30 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Take it this way, you she-devil,” he
snarled. And he hurled it, oats and all,
straight at the head of the mare. It struck
above her, on the stall's wall, and aside from
a temporary blindness caused by the cloud of
oats, did her no damage. But her ears went
back, and she squealed shrilly, lashing out
with her hind feet. I could feel my hands
clench, and I saw Jerry’s teeth gleam.
“Steady, Jerry,” I warned him. “He
hasn’t hurt her yet, and this isn’t dry land.
We can report him to the ship's officers—”
But I didn’t finish the Sentence. The
deck-hand, turning, read the contempt on
our faces; he did not read the wrath or I
doubt if his next action would have hap-
pened. For he picked up a heavy board,
that should have been used to bar the rear
of the mare's stall, and swung it against
her quarters.
“That'll teach ye,” he cried, “ye black—”
He leaped back, away from her striking
hoofs and danced in again. Old Jerry,
grizzled and bent with the weight of sixty
years, rushed at him. But I was quicker
and elbowed my brave Jerry aside. I caught


THE SPORT OF KINGS 31
him from behind; my right arm went around
him and my forearm tightened against his
throat, while my knee found the small of
his back. His wooden bar fell to the deck
as we twisted around.
At the foot of the companionway that led
to the ’tween-decks stood Miss Leland. Her
face was white and her eyes blazed; her
small hands were knotted painfully and I
saw her knuckles shine whitely through a
coat of tan. She was a picture of honest
rage, and in my surprise at her presence I
loosened my grip of the deck-hand. He
broke from me, wheeled and faced me, fists
raised and doubled.
But the presence of the girl cooled my
blood. I had no mind to figure in a rough-
and-tumble brawl before her. She might
applaud the act and dislike the actor. I
spoke quietly to the deck-hand.
“Better go,” I said, “or I'll report you to
your officers. Close that mouth of yours
and go.”
He saw the girl now and profanity ceased
to issue from him. Beyond a glare and a
muttered snarl that my being a passenger
*


32 THE SPORT OF KINGS
was all that saved me, he said no more and
slouched aft. I saw the girl put her hand
to her throat and saw the color come back
to her cheeks. She put out a hand and
steadied herself against the railing of the
gangway. I had no mind to watch her while
she gained control of herself, alluring pic-
ture though she was. I felt a sudden embar-
rassment before her; a sudden rush of feel-
ing that the proximity of no other woman
had ever caused to whelm me. For in that
moment when the deck-hand had been in my
grip it seemed that she had bared her very
Soul to me. A soul that flamed to wrath at
brutality and cowardice. A soul that was
as frankly honest as the eyes through which
it looked. I felt that I would like to get
away, to meet her again when she had en-
tirely recovered herself. But the only way
to get to the upper deck that I, in my lack
of acquaintance with ships, knew of, was
the companionway at which she stood. And
to pass her meant that I must receive her
embarrassed thanks now. And I was more
embarrassed than she?
The mare whinnied and I looked at her.


I felt a sudden embarrassment before her





THE SPORT OF KINGS 33
Noble beast that she was, the viciousness
had left her great brown eyes, as though
she understood and was grateful for her
rescue. And I, to postpone the meeting with
the girl, walked into Vivandiere's stall!
“Misther Sale, careful,” Jerry cried.
“Come out, come out—” Then the girl's
cry died away in a gasp of amazement. For
Vivandiere whinnied softly as my hand
Stroked her velvet neck; the great teeth that
had been bared beyond the gums as she
Squealed her hatred of the deck-hand were
hidden beneath soft lips now; soft lips that
nuzzled, first my hand, and then my face. I
stroked her nose; I held her face to my
cheek.
“Ruled off, both of us, eh, girl?” I whis-
pered to her.
She rubbed my collar with her soft nose.
I heard Miss Leland’s voice behind me.
“How did you dare? How did—why, no one
has ever entered her stall that way before.”
She had regained command of herself now
and her lips were parted with pleased sur-
prise as she stared at us, mare and man.
“And if some one had,” I answered, “no


34 THE SPORT OF KINGS
need for her to be barred from the track as
an outlaw. I know her family; and there
was never a wicked strain in any of her an-
cestors—or her brothers or sisters. She was
mishandled when a colt in the Cranston
stable; she was given a bad ride her first
appearance; high-spirited horse that she is,
she could not stand the whip. Her trainer
should have known it; her jock should have
known it; it was the whip that made her
almost kill three riders; that made her at-
tack other horses in races and caused her
to be barred. I know a horse when I see
One; and—and it’s a peculiar fact that no
horse has ever bitten or kicked a Kernan of
Kernan’s Farm.”
That was true; I don’t claim to understand
it, unless it is that horses love those who
love them, and can tell such people at first
glance. And of course we Kermans have
always loved animals of all kinds, especially
horses. Even as a toddling child, I’ve been
able to enter the stalls of bad actors with-
out harm, when stablemen dared not ap-
proach them. As I say, I don’t really under-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 35
stand it, but it's a fact. As part proof, there
was Vivandiere, ruled off the track because
of her wicked disposition, because She was
a menace to life and limb of other horses
and other jocks beside her own, nuzzling me
gently, while now and then she whinnied
with happiness. The girl's eyes seemed to
grow moist.
“Poor Vivandiere, poor darling,” she said.
“To think that—could I go in there with
you?”
“As safely as you could enter a church,”
I said. “All this mare's ever needed was
the right sort of kindness; unafraid kind-
ness. Give her that and she'll make the
best of them take her dust.”
The girl entered the stall. The mare's -
eyes widened a bit; I patted her and they
ceased to dilate. The girl stroked her nose
and the mare nuzzled her.
“I—I think it’s wonderful,” said she.
“When I bought her every one was angry.
They said I was crazy, but—when they
paraded her in the ring at Dorlan's, at the
sale of the Cranston stable, why—I couldn’t


36 THE SPORT OF KINGS
help it. And—and—now I know! I'll see
that she has the kindness and—you know
her family, you say?”
“I know the Waters root and branch,” I
answered. “I had Waterman in the last
Brooklyn, and Mermaid in the Suburban.
Know them?”
“You had them? Aren’t they of the Ben-
ton string?”
“I trained for Benton,” I answered
shortly.
“His trainer? Then you are—why, you’re
Sale Kernan—of Kernan’s Farm!”
Evidently she hadn’t quite heard of my
own slightly vainglorious statement to the
same effect. She looked at me with frank
interest. “I’ve often heard of you,” she
said. “My father knew yours.”
I Smiled; I was always meeting people
who had known, or had friends who had
known, my dear old dad. Sometimes it an-
noyed me, for it is a strange but true thing,
that people with an acquaintance with your
parents feel privileged to assume the rôle
of adviser. Needless to state, this was not
one of those occasions.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 37
“Tom Leland? That your father?” I
asked.
“Was,” she said gently. Then I remem-
bered her father's death a year or so be-
fore. For a moment, as she stroked the
mare, a pretty picture, her eyes were down-
cast. Then they lifted.
“But aren’t you with the Benton string
now? And aren’t there a few important
races yet?”
“I’m not with the Benton stable any
more,” I answered. “I’m on my way to
Juarez.” -
“Juarez? Surely you’re not going to train
there?”
“I hope to,” I said curtly.
She was frankly amazed; good reason, too.
Men do not leave a stable like the Benton
One, to go to Mexico, unless for some re-
markable cause. I looked her fairly in the
eyes.
“I was ruled off the turf this morning,
Miss Leland,” I said quietly. “I’m on the
way to look for work.”
She was a horsewoman and the daugh-
ter of a horseman. To her what I said meant


38 THE SPORT OF KINGS
almost as much as though to some other girl
I’d stated that I’d just received a jail sen-
tence. Yet, beyond a slight raising of her
eyebrows, she gave no sign of being shocked.
She was a lady and a good sportsman.
“And I'm certain that you’ll find it, Mr.
Kernan,” she said. Then she held out her
hand. “I want to thank you for saving
Vivandiere from that brute.” -
“Not at all,” I said. “It was only what I
was glad to do.”
“Yet it was well done,” she said. “And—
and I’m not really so vicious as I must have
looked. only." and her eyes darkened, “I
hate to think of trusting the mare to any
Other of those incompetents.”
“Sure, an’ I’m here, wid nawthin’ to do
but watch the waves,” piped up Jerry. I
think we’d both forgotten him, for I know
I started and she crimsoned slightly. “Sure
it’d be kapin’ me hand in to look afther the
darlint,” said Jerry.
“Would—would you?” asked the girl.
“I’m me own boss, barrin' Misther Sale
here, what's ordered me to lave the ship at
Charleston. But, thank God, there's a drop


THE SPORT OF KINGS 39
of Irish in him, and the Irish, God be with
thim always, have been known to change
their minds. So, if ye'll let me—”
“Oh, it would be too much trouble.”
“A pleasure,” said Jerry. “May I,
ma'am?”
She looked questioningly at me. “I think
Jerry’d enjoy it,” I said.
She beamed upon him. “Oh, I’ll be so
grateful, Mr. Kenny.”
And I noticed, with pleasure, that she said
nothing about paying him for his services.
It was a touch that would please Jerry, stout
gentleman that he was.
“A pleasure,” he said again, with a little
bob of his head. Then he looked at us quiz-
zically; I think he was a little offended at
being left out of our conversation so long.
“May I inthrodooce me friend, Misther
Kernan, ma'am?”
We both laughed at his little dig. A
steward passed over the deck above us and
we heard the rattle of his supper drum. Her
hands flew to her hair.
“Already?” she cried. “Why—I must fix
my hair. I—”


40 THE SPORT OF KINGS
A smile at us both and she was gone.
Jerry looked at me. He frowned.
“And ye hadda go an’ be a hero just whin
I’d made me mind up to shine up to the lady!
And I suppose, afther I’ve bribed a steward
to place us nixt to her table, that ye’ll go
and grab the nearest seat! Well! well! ”Tis
a hard world for the Irish. But it ain’t so
long to Juarez, where thim Mexican
senyoras—”
“Jerry, you old reprobate, go on up to
your cabin and wash for supper.”
And with a last pat of Vivandiere I ran
him up the steps ahead of me.
For a man but this day barred from the
turf, and on his way to seek a doubtful for-
tune in a foreign land, I was most unduly
elated. But elation vanished at the supper
table. For, while the steward had earned
Jerry’s bribe, Miss Leland was not alone.
With her was a Mrs. Clarke, who was evi-
dently the girl’s chaperon, and at the girl’s
introduction of me, “Mr. Kernan, the famous
trainer,” the lady’s eyebrows elevated.
“Er—a horse trainer?”
“Yes,” said the girl.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 41
Mrs. Clarke's face hardened; her manner
stiffened. “Ah, indeed! How extremely in-
teresting.”
Whereupon she gave me her shoulder the
rest of the meal, and as she was between
Miss Leland and myself—well, it was Small
consolation, as I strolled the deck after
supper, to assure myself that Mrs. Clarke
was not a horsewoman, and therefore did not
know that training horses is as noble a pro-
fession as man may adopt. (To my way of
thinking, anyway!)
Small consolation, indeed, the lady's igno-
rance of such vital matters! For she’d cut
short any efforts on my part to speak to her
charge. Further, on the way from the din-
ing-room she'd cut me, and herded Miss
Leland before her, away from the contam-
inating presence of a man who worked in a
stable, as she probably thought of me. Yet
second thought, which is always wisest, came
to me as I Smoked the after-supper hour
away in the company of Jerry. Why should
I think about the petty Mrs. Clarke? Why
should I worry that the little friendship
which had begun between the girl and my-


CHAPTER IV
I STAY BEHIND
E choppy sea against which Jerry
had warned Miss Leland grew worse
during the night. We were in the midst of
a delayed equinoctial, the line gale, supposed
to be more violent, postponed, than when it
happens on Nature's schedule.
Next day was gloomy; most of the deck
was roped off, and neither Miss Leland nor
her chaperon appeared on deck or in the
saloon, although I learned, by tipping a
steward, that it was the elderly lady who
was sick, and that the younger unselfishly
stayed with her chaperon all the time.
The sight of Charleston next day at noon
helped a little. I forgot my troubles for
a while at the picture shows to which Jerry
dragged me—four in number. I bought the
New York papers—a day old—there, and it
was some slight gratification to note that the
43


44 THE SPORT OF KINGS
racing gossip contained merely the state-
ment that I had severed my connection with
the Benton stable. Nothing was said about
my having been ruled off the turf. The
newspaper men were my friends.
It was supper-time when we returned to
the Christina and as Mrs. Clarke had had
six hours of motionless rest to aid her re-
covery, I rather expected to see Miss Leland,
at least, at table. But I was disappointed
and so, as we steamed out of Charleston,
on the run to Tampa, into weather that
seemed sterner than the previous lap of our
journey, I gave up hope of seeing her again,
a surrender that somehow seemed to be the
final added straw to my misery.
Only the sight of Vivandiere, that noble,
albeit misunderstood and maltreated piece of
horse-flesh, brightened my despondency.
Jerry saw Miss Leland the next morning.
The storm had not abated, but she sent word
to him by a steward that she wished to see
him. She wished to ask about Vivandiere
and Jerry conversed with her through the
partly opened door of Mrs. Clarke's cabin.
And he told me that, barring a slight pallor
-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 45
due to her confinement in the stateroom,
Miss Leland was quite well.
“It’s that blamed old cat of a chaperon,”
said Jerry. “All the time the young lady
was talkin’ to me, Mrs. Clarke was wailin’
and moanin’ and prayin’ Hiven, and abusin’
the young lady, sayin’ she had no hear-rt at
all, to be afther thinkin’ of an animal whin
she lay there dyin'. Dyin', is it? A cat has
nine lives, Misther Sale, and Mrs. Clarke do
be afther ownin’ the luck of a cat as well as
its nature!”
Jerry had noticed the chaperon's disdain
of me and resented it. Little escaped the
sharp eyes of Jerry Kenney.
But when he had reassured Miss Leland
as to Vivandiere, he had said no more than
truth. How the mare would have acted
had it not been for Jerry and me I do
not know. Certainly, the deck-hands feared
to go near her, for she had not forgotten the
blow across her quarters, and when one of
them came near she squealed and lashed out
with her feet and acted like the equine devil
she knew how to be. But with Jerry and
myself—she didn’t even show fear of the


46 THE SPORT OF KINGS
storm when we were near. She had taken
as great a fancy to Jerry as to me, and
nuzzled our cheeks and nosed into our closed
hands for sugar, like any colt.
And the next day not even Jerry and
I got out on deck. We divided our time
between the smoke-room and Vivandiere in
the ’tween-decks. That night the captain
did not appear in the saloon for his supper.
He had not been there at dinner, either.
Jerry and I were the only passengers whom
the storm had not driven to bunks. I asked
the purser where the captain was.
“Bridge,” he answered. “He’s been there
since breakfast, and I think he'll be there
to-morrow morning when you get up.”
I whistled softly. “Anything Wrong,
Purser?”
Of course he wouldn’t answer such a ques-
tion. But I noticed that the day's run had
not been posted in the “social hall” that
noon. It made me think.
Jerry went to Miss Leland's cabin to make
his evening report about Vivandiere after
supper, and he was beaming when he joined
me in the smoke-room.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 47
“She's a trump,” he announced. “Ca'm
as this Gulf of Mexico isn't! But that old
harriden wid her—God forbid I should ever
marry and have a wife like her. All the time
I was there she was screechin’ and screamin’
and wishin’ she was dead and fearin’ she
would be, till I asked her, over Miss Leland's
shoulder, if she was such a great sinner that
she feared death so? Do you blame me?
Whin ye think of that brave colleen stayin'
wid her and hearin nawthin' but her cries
all day—do you blame me?”
“A gentleman,” said I gravely, “never,
under any circumstances, rejoices in a lady's
suffering, or in any rudeness shown her.
However, in this particular case—name your
drink, Jerry.”
And we drank together—the last drink we
were to have aboard the Christina. For
next morning, about five, there came a
pounding on my cabin door. I leaped out of
bed and unlocked the door. A steward,
white, with twitching lips, stood there. And
he spoke to me the words, that, once heard,
are never forgotten.
“Captain's orders, sir. Passengers will


48 THE SPORT OF KINGS
go to the saloon deck and stand by to leave
the ship.”
I have often dressed quickly; at school in
Covington I held the record for being able
to sleep later than any one else and yet get
my marks for chapel attendance. Yet never
did I dress so quickly as that morning when
the Christina grounded on a sandy shoal off
the Gulf Coast of Florida.
However, Jerry, his wizened old face alive
with excitement, was in my room before I
had clothed myself. Never a trace of fear
showed in his eyes. In fact, I shall always
believe that to Jerry the wreck of the Chris-
tina was somewhat in the nature of a lark.
“Miss Leland's room is this way, Sor,”
he told me.
That was like Jerry. It was the natural
and only thing—for him to think of a lady
at a time like this. I hope that it was equally
natural for him to assume that I felt as
he did. Anyway, we made our way to the
girl’s cabin. She and her chaperon were
all dressed, and were just ready to make
their way to the deck. The imminent dan-
ger had silenced the wailings of Mrs. Clarke,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 49
Jerry took her arm; I offered mine to Miss
Leland. Afterward I thought how she had
seemed to expect my coming.
We started down the corridor. The mew-
ing of an imprisoned cat halted the girl. She
made me stop and open the cabin door
whence came the sound. Miss Leland entered
and picked up a kitten, and we continued
our way to the deck. And even as we lurched
along the corridor, thrown from side to side
as great waves crashed against the ship, I
noticed that the kitten, held to Miss Leland's
bosom, ceased its cries of fear.
We were the last to emerge from the
companionway to the saloon deck. Stewards,
counting noses, cried out at our arrival that
all were accounted for.
“Aft, starboard,” said one to me. I led
Miss Leland aft. Already boats were being
launched. There was none of the panic that
stories of wrecks had led me to expect.
Silent, unprotesting, although pale and
shrinking, men and women were being
counted off into the boats. For the first time
I noticed the sea. -
Dawn was just breaking. From the star-


50 THE SPORT OF KINGS
board side one could see, a mile away, the
Florida coast, low-lying, girt to the very
edge of the sandy beach with palmetto and
scrub-pine. On that beach huge rollers
smashed with viciousness that made their
high-cast spray at times almost hide the
trees. And between us and that desolate-
seeming shore lay a mile of satanic Sea,
heaving, tossing, reaching—
A boat was lowered. Miss Leland's body
pressed against mine. I heard her breathe
sibilantly; her body grew rigid, then was
limp. The boat was clear.
Ours was the last boat. I was the last
passenger to get into it, although Jerry lin-
gered by my side until a boatswain cursed
him. The boatswain followed me. I saw
the captain, pale, his lips bleeding where he
had bitten them, cast one anguished look
about his doomed vessel. I felt for him; for
as I was barred from the track, so now was
he barred from the sea. Skippers who lose
vessels are not employed again— He got in
and snapped an order.
“Let fall!”
I was seated by Miss Leland. I heard a


THE SPORT OF KINGS 51
shriek from somewhere inside the ship. I
heard the girl sigh; I looked at her; her lips
were moving, and I knew that she was—
well, praying, perhaps. She had heard the
shriek, the almost human cry of a horse.
And the horse was Vivandiere!
And the next thing that I knew I was
standing on the deck of the Christina, peer-
ing down at the life-boat. As she was
lowered away I had sprung to the rail. I
saw Miss Leland's face, white as though
conscience-stricken, as though she realized
that her sigh, her whispered prayer, had
sent me back aboard the Christina. Then
the boat fell farther away; it dipped in the
trough of a wave. If its occupants looked
for me they did not see me again; for I was
racing down a perilously slanted companion-
way toward the ’tween-decks where Vivan-
diere was penned!


CHAPTER V
“WASN'T IT WORTH IT?” ASKS JERRY
AM not trying to make a hero of myself;
I am not trying to attribute to myself any
high motives for my deed. For did I not
love Vivandiere then; later—now—well, I
think that I’d do in cold blood what I did be-
cause of a girl’s sigh that morning on the
Christina. I hope so, anyway. But why I
risked my life then, for a horse that was
nothing to me, because of a girl I barely
knew and would probably never know any
better—I think that my unhappiness had
much to do with it. To do something that
would gain me favor in some one's eyes—I
really can’t explain it. I only know that the
Kernans have always acted upon impulse
and rarely counted the cost beforehand.
And needless to state, I did none of this self-
analyzing as I rushed toward the make-shift
stall, where Vivandiere, teeth bared, her
52


THE SPORT OF KINGS 53
throat emitting that almost human shriek
of terror, strained at her halter.
She knew me; the scream became a
whimpering whinny; her velvet eyes rolled;
and her teeth were no longer bared. It was
as though, reaching across the gulf that
separates man from his animal servants, she
spoke to me and called me friend, and told
me that she knew I had come to play a
friend’s part.
Well, I had. But a glance around made
me almost despair of playing the part
through to the finish. For Vivandiere could
never climb the stairs I’d descended! I
stroked her and spoke to her soothingly.
“Don’t worry, old girl,” I said to her. “If
you don’t go clear I won’t.”
And I believe I meant it; and that she
understood me. For when I left her she did
not scream, although still tied in her stall.
For, of course, I did not dare release her
yet. Panic might come to her at being
penned in the ’tween-decks. She might go
mad and dash herself to pieces on the Chris-
tina’s iron plates. Before I untied her I
must find a way of escape, if the raging sea


54 THE SPORT OF KINGS
might be termed that. Still, that raging sea
was better than the Christina.
A jet of water spurted through the Chris-
tina's side and soaked me. I saw that the
steel sliding doors that closed the port gang-
way were slightly ajar, shaken open by the
tremendous waves that pounded her. An
ax lay on the floor, and also a bar of steel,
dropped, maybe, by some one fleeing from the
engine-room. It would be easy to pry those
doors wide apart, and in my excitement I
had started to do so when I realized that
this was the port side, the side that faced
the rush of the storm. I ceased my just-
begun labors. To spring into the sea from
that side meant to be lifted by the first wave
and dashed to death against the Christina's
iron sides. I crossed the slanting deck.
Directly opposite was another gangway.
I tried to figure how far below the saloon
deck the waves had seemed to be. I placed
my ear to the ship's side. But I could not
learn whether or not the starboard side of
the Christina's slanting ’tween-decks was
below sea-level. The roar of the wind, the
groaning of the stricken ship, the pounding


THE SPORT OF KINGS 55
of the waves were too much for my unsailor-
like ear to tell. But I knew that the deck
could not be much below the surface of the
water. A few feet at utmost. And—there
was nothing else to do. I remember that as I
walked—ran, rather—back to Vivandiere's
stall I thanked God that the mare was not
down in the hold. For then rescue would
have been absolutely impossible. As it
WalS-
I untied her, whispering—I really cried
aloud, but the roar of the storm made my
words a whisper, for the iron plates echoed
and reverberated much more terrifyingly
than on the saloon deck—speaking soothing-
ly to her. She suffered me to lead her to
the port side and there, to a post, I tied her
Once more. Then I picked up my ax and
crashed it into a wooden bolt that pinned
the door shut, and which had been wedged
by the lurching ship so that I could not slide
it back. Then I picked up my iron lever
and threw my weight against the jammed
doors. They gave—
Terrifying the waters had been when
viewed from the vantage of the saloon deck,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 57
I led her to the edge of the deck; she
drew back and that scream of terror that
had made me leap from the life-boat to the
rail burst from her throat. She would have
turned, but I clung to her, shouting into her
ear; I felt the Sweat burst through her skin
and she shivered. But the scream ceased;
she turned her eyes to me. And I knew I
had her!
Rope was coiled by the bulwark. Tough
cordage that would not yield to my jack-
knife. I cut it with my ax. I made a run-
ning noose at One end and lifted the mare's
forefoot and slipped it through the noose.
I drew the noose way up—tight. I passed
the rope across her shoulders and tied it
around the other foreleg, right where it
joined her body. A heavy strand of rope
thus went across her back. Again I spoke
to her, soothing her, stroking her. My arm
about her neck, my mouth at her ear, I
petted her—
A giant wave hurled itself against the port
side. I heard the Christina’s plates groan.
A shudder ran her whole length; her deck
seemed like the heavily breathing lungs of a


58 THE SPORT OF KINGS
sleeping man. I felt the deck take on a
deeper slant; the waves were now practically
level with her starboard side. I swung
astride the mare. I felt her muscles bunch
and a quiver ran through her body. I leaned
forward, stroking her nose; I ran the end
of my belt through the rope that circled the
mare and buckled it securely about me.
Another wave crashed against the port side.
The deck slanted still more. Vivandiere was
almost on her haunches. I looked through
the open gangway. No man that lived could
ever make the shore, were he twenty times
a Captain Webb | Even a horse—but she
was my only chance! As another wave
struck the port side, I drove my heels into
the mare. She hesitated only a second. I
saw a wave reach its fulness and sweep
away from the Christina's open gangway.
The mare's body stiffened; we were in the
sea!
I can not remember, in detail, much that
happened thereafter. I know that we went
under; that Vivandiere rose high on a crest;
that she turned her course—when we came
above we were facing down the coast,








THE SPORT OF KINGS 59
parallel with the stranded Christina-
toward the line of distant surf. From then
on is but a tangled memory of striving to
keep my seat on her back; of being tossed
and pounded and overwhelmed in tons of
water; of being swept from her back; of los-
ing my grip on her halter; of clutching at
her mane with both hands; of feeling my
belt cut into the flesh above my hips; of be-
ing glad for its knife-like pain because it
meant the leather held; of striving to regain
her back; of failing; of feeling her forefoot,
as it rushed back through the water, cutting
and laming my leg; of a twisting, always-
reaching wave lifting us high, then passing
from under us while we seemed to fall into
a trough into which we sank; of being swept
beneath the mare; of realizing that my belt
had slipped from the middle of the rope that
crossed her back; of cursing myself because
I had not foreseen such slipping and knotted
it in place; of strangling, gasping—
My eyes opened within six inches of a fine-
shell beach; coquina, I later learned. I saw
little shell-fish uptilting themselves on end,
burrowing into the shell-sand, disappearing.


60 THE SPORT OF KINGS
I could feel that I was sprawled across some-
thing, that my feet and hands dropped on
the beach, while my hips were elevated, and
whatever I rested on pressed most uncom-
fortably into the pit of my stomach. From
a distance, it seemed, I heard voices.
“Glory be, he’s wigglin’ his ar-rms!
There’s a poonch in thim yet.”
It was Jerry, and I tried to get up. But
my head fell forward again; now I could
See feet within a few inches of my eyes. I
was afraid that they would step on my
hands. I tried to reach out and push them
away. Then black nausea, agony, dimness,
and weakness of body overwhelmed me. I
lost consciousness again.
When I awoke the nausea was gone; the
dimness had left my brain; I was feeble, but
I could think. I was staring up into a
heaven in which the sun shone with grateful
warmth. I stretched myself, only vaguely
wondering, as yet, what had happened and
how I came to be here. My hand touched
Soft warm flesh. I turned my head and saw
a lace sleeve, bedraggled but dry; higher
still and saw brown curls—her curls, I have


THE SPORT OF KINGS 61
learned, do not straighten at the touch of
water—and above their clinging tendrils I
saw the face of Miss Leland, streaked with
what I at first thought to be salt water. A
glance at her eyes told me that the brine
came from there. For her eyes were filled
with dewy tears. She was seated beside me,
and at first did not notice that I lifted my
head. But the pressure of my palm against
her arm as I forced myself painfully up-
right made her turn and look at me. Her
lips trembled, and I felt mightily em-
barrassed. I wanted to say something to
fend off the tears; and I asked the very ques-
tion that precipitated them.
“HOW’s the mare? She Safe?”
I was sitting bolt upright now, a little
dizzy, but as my complaining stomach told
me, half-starved. And a half-starved man is
a well man—provided food isn’t too far off.
And as I avoided her tear-wet eyes I saw a
great fire blazing on the beach, and around
it were gathered crew and passengers. Also
I saw many people whose dress told me that
they were neither passengers nor hands.
They were Floridians and already we were


THE SPORT OF KINGS 63
and four times on Sunday! Drink! No one
can grieve wid hot coffee inside him. 'Tis
again nature! Drink!”
Into our outthrust hands he shoved cups
of steaming coffee. Though it almost
scalded, I drank mine down without remov-
ing the rim of the cup from my lips. Miss
Leland did almost as well. We looked at
each other. She put forth her hand. And
now she spoke without tremor of voice, but
with a frankness that was boyish and sin-
Cere.
“Mr. Kernan,” she said, “you are a very
gallant gentleman, and from the bottom of
my heart I thank you.”
My fingers closed over her hand; her grip
was firm, alive, electric. It warmed me as
much as the coffee had done.
“There,” said the irrepressible Jerry.
“Wasn’t it worth it?”
I felt myself blush, and I looked angrily
at Jerry. Miss Leland withdrew her hand
Swiftly. Jerry forestalled my rebuke.
“Sure, I meant nawthin’,” he said.
“Nawthin’ only—ain’t the thanks of a lady
worth hell itself? Should a lady weep be-


64 THE SPORT OF KINGS
cause a gintleman risks his life for her
pleasure? Sure, it's for his own pleasure he
risks it. And why should the lady weep that
he has pleased himsilf? I'll be gittin’ more
coffee.”
And he went hastily off toward the great
fire, over which, as I could now see through
the throng about it, was a great pot.
“Your friend, Mr. Kenney, is a very fine
gentleman, Mr. Kernan,” said the girl.
“The only thing bothering Jerry,” said I,
“is that he didn’t rescue the mare. Jerry
would die for a woman and ask nothing but
the privilege of so doing.”
She looked curiously at me. “It—it seems
that Jerry’s friend would do as much.”
But I did not care for this; she was at a
disadvantage; I had saved her horse—or the
horse had saved me—and her gratitude, wel-
come as it was, irked me. It embarrassed
me. For I feared that there were yet un-
shed tears that might be called into action.
“Where are we anyway?” I asked. I
stared out to sea; there, disintegrating,
lifted and dropped, smashed and pounded by
the waves that, though lesser, still were tre-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 65
mendous, was the Christina. A few hours
more and little would be left of the coastwise
liner. I looked inland. There I saw the
roofs of houses, lifting themselves above the
shrubbery, and seeming to be crowded by
the scrub-pine and palmetto.
“Near Boca Grande,” she answered.
“Telegrams have been sent to Tampa, and
from Arcadia a special train has already
started for us. We’ll be in Tampa to-night.
That is, the majority of the passengers and
the crew will be. But my winter home is
at Stephanie, and Mr. Kenney said—he
thought—”
Incautiously, as she spoke, I had risen to
my feet. As I put my weight on them a
Savage pain shot through my calf; I sat
hastily down. Miss Leland looked at me
with concern.
“Are you faint?”
I pulled up my trousers leg and she cried
Out at sight of a cut, which, owing doubtless
to the action of the salt water, had not bled
enough to be noticed by those who had
pumped me free of water. It was really
more of a bruise than a cut, but I, with


66 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Some experience in dealing with stable-boys
injured by the hoofs of horses, needed but a
glance to know that I had sustained more
than a flesh wound; that, while the bone was
not broken, the bone had been bruised—
badly. Vivandiere had slashed me with her
hoof while we fought the seas.
“Does it hurt?” she asked anxiously.
“A bit,” I said, “but it isn’t that so much
as—”
The ubiquitous Jerry was with us again
with more coffee. He almost dropped the
cups as he saw my leg.
“Now what—” he began.
“It means that it'll be some time before
I’ll be able to do more than hobble, Jerry,”
I said gloomily. “It means that I’ll be in
bed—or in a chair, for three or four weeks,
and—Jerry, why did you attach yourself to
a luckless wretch like myself?” I tried to
Smile. “I’ll not be able to go to work at
Juarez, and—”
“Don’t worry about it, Misther Sale,” said
Jerry. “Sure, I’ve hired both of us to Miss
Leland here.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 67
I stared from him to the girl. “What's
the joke?” I inquired.
“No joke,” she said. “You are a trainer;
if you could—if you would—I’ve only one
horse, but—”
“That one's Vivandiere,” Snorted Jerry.
“Of course he will! His father med me
promise to look after him. He needs
lookin’ afther now, while he's hur-rted, and
—he'll take the job.”
She looked a question at me. My heart
bounded. To be near her; to see her every
day; to continue an acquaintance with her
which was already prejudiced on her part to
more than acquaintance, to gratitude that
would mean friendship if I were worthy;
to-
Usually, when I have contracted to train
a stable there is a discussion of terms; I
have been a rather high-priced trainer. But
InOW-
“Certainly, I will, if Miss Leland really
wants me,” I said. “I—I’d dearly love to
be near—Vivandiere.”
She blushed; perhaps it was at the rather
daring pause before I mentioned the mare's


68 THE SPORT OF KINGS
name. Then she frowned slightly and I re-
membered that I was barred from the turf,
was to be her employee, and that for me
to assume any familiarity at all would be
to presume upon the service I had rendered
her, and to do that would be to argue myself
less of a gentleman than, modestly, I tried
to be. I felt thousands of miles away from
her; the closeness that her tears had en-
gendered had vanished. But not because
of that slight frown which disappeared from
her forehead almost before it came, but be-
cause of my own feelings. I had done her a
service that she might think gave me a
slight claim upon her. I would show her
that I didn’t think it did. Noblesse oblige is
not my family motto, but I think every one
tries to live up to it. I know I determined
then and there to try to. And yet I remained
where I would be tempted to forget that
motto. Queer, but very human, I think.
“Here's the captain,” said Jerry. “Poor
man. And a brave one, too. Sure, ’twas
him that rushed into the surf and grabbed
the mare's head while I—” He stopped,
blushing.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 69
“So it was you saved me, eh?” I said.
“Mr. Kenney risked his life getting you
ashore with Vivandiere,” said Miss Leland.
I smiled at Jerry. Words weren’t needed
between us two.
Then the captain came to us.
He wasn’t half so downcast as I expected
him to be. Later on I learned that several
of the passengers, grateful at their escape
from what had seemed to their frightened
eyes certain death, had already got up a
paper praising Captain Sanderson for his
coolness and courage; and, as not a life had
been lost, and the loss of the Christina had
been due to engine trouble and not to her
navigation, the captain had little fear of
demotion by the owners of the company he
Served. He Smiled at me.
“How's the drowned man?”
“Pretty well, Captain,” I answered. “I
want to thank you.”
He waved my thanks aside. “Able to
traVel?”
“Mr. Kernan and his friend are not going
to Tampa,” said Miss Leland. “I’ve en-
gaged them to look after my race stable.


70 THE SPORT OF KINGS
We'll go as far as Burnham with you, but
we'll change there for Stephanie.”
The captain looked a bit surprised but said
nothing. What he might have said will
never be known by me for at that minute
Mrs. Clarke, not making a very brave show,
what with having lost a few puffs and hav-
ing her clothes somewhat spoiled by salt
water, joined us. In fact, she'd joined us
as Miss Leland was finishing her speech to
Captain Sanderson, and I’d thought that
there was a bit of defiance in the girl’s voice
and manner. It was needed, for Mrs. Clarke
gasped.
“What on earth are you saying, Roberta?
You’ve engaged this man to—”
“To look after my horses, Luella,” said
Miss Leland crisply. “I’ve engaged him.”
Her round chin thrust forward a trifle and
evidently she was prepared to do battle with
her chaperon. But Mrs. Clarke seemed to
know that she must be worsted in any en-
counter. She merely Sniffed disdainfully,
and avoided speaking her opinion.
“They tell us the train will be here in half
an hour, Captain.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 71
“Or less,” said the captain. “So—you
ladies will please get ready.”
Miss Leland laughed merrily. She shook
out the wrinkled skirt which clung to her
slim figure. “There isn’t much preparation
needed, Captain.”
“Yes,” he assented, “it’s the first time I
ever knew ladies to be willing to go on a
journey without delaying for packing.”
And with a somewhat rueful Smile he
walked off.
“Poor man!” said Miss Leland.
“Poor us!” Snapped Mrs. Clarke. “Think
of it! Not a single dress—not even an extra
pair of shoes, not—”
“Our lives are saved; let us thank God
for that much, Luella,” said the girl quietly.
Mrs. Clarke flushed at the rebuke and be-
came stiffly silent. But I could feel her
disapproving eyes upon me and I repented
of the bargain so hastily and incompletely
entered into.
“Miss Leland,” I said quietly, “through a
mistaken sense of obligation you’ve engaged
me. I—I want to release you from the bar-
gain. Your friend, Mrs. Clarke—”


72 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“I run my own stable,” she answered
quietly. “And what you say reminds me
that we haven’t arranged any terms.”
“You’d expected to pick some one up down
in Florida?” I said.
She nodded.
“Whatever you’d intended to pay any one
else,” I said.
She looked musingly out at the storm-
tossed ocean. “No, that wouldn’t do,” she
said. “You’re Sale Kernan.”
“But out of employment,” I said hastily.
I didn’t know how rich she was and I’ll con-
fess that my repentance of the bargain
ceased as swiftly as it had risen. I didn’t
want too much. It was enough to be near
her. She went on as though she had not
heard me. -
“I think that two hundred dollars a month
and a percentage of Vivandiere's—of the
stable's winnings would be fair. Fifty per
cent.,” she added.
“The stable? But I thought Vivandiere
was your only horse.”
“The only horse that amounts to anything,
and even she— Before father—” She


THE SPORT OF KINGS 73
paused a moment and bit her lip. “Father
used to say that he hoped the day would
never come when the Leland colors were not
represented on the turf. Since he—went
away—I’ve done the best I could.”
“I’m going to get some more coffee,
Roberta,” said Mrs. Clarke icily.
“Sure, I’ll be afther gettin’ it for ye,
ma'am,” said Jerry.
She squelched him with a glance and
walked disdainfully away. That is, as dis-
dainfully as may a woman who depends
greatly on clothing for her effect on others,
and whose clothing happens to appear as
though it were purchased at some second-
hand store and donned without cleansing or
pressing. Miss Leland smiled faintly;
sympathetically, pityingly, almost. She sat
down on the beach and rested her chin on
her palm.
“But racing was somewhat of a business
with father,” she said. “He made money
out of his stable, and by buying and selling.
I soon found that I’d lose all I had if I did
that. So–I sold most of the string. I kept
two or three and I’ve been racing them at


74 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the smaller meetings. And last winter I
raced at Grantham down here. We have
wintered here since my mother died—eight
years ago. They’ve not earned their keep,
but—it's what father would have liked—to
know that his colors were to be seen on the
track, and so—I’ve done it. And Vivan-
diere—of course, I shouldn’t have bought
her, but she sold for such a ridiculous price,
because of her temper, thirty-five hundred
dollars—that, well, I had sort of a half-
formed idea that she might begin her racing
career all over down here. She's only a three-
year-old, and—now that I’ve seen what you
can do with her—”
It was a queer place for confidences, on
the sands near Boca Grande, with the waves
pounding to pieces, a mile off-shore, the ship
that had grounded in the late night; with a
huge open fire but a few rods away; with
Scantily clothed passengers and crew more
or less apathetically awaiting the arrival of
the train from Arcadia; with the natives
Staring curiously at all of us, walking by,
pausing, discussing us frankly, and wander-
ing on to other groups. I think the girl


THE SPORT OF KINGS 75
realized it. Her voice became suddenly
crisp.
“You think Vivandiere can win purses?”
“She can clean up at Grantham right now,
—I mean in January,” I said. “After that
she'll be able, if I know her, to show the best
of them up north what a race-mare really
iS.”
“Then—two hundred a month for you and
fifty per cent. of the purses she wins—down
here and up north.”
“That's kind of you,” I said, “but of
course, up north—” I shook my head.
“Grantham is an outlaw track. It’s not
governed by the racing authorities. I can
train for you down here, but up north—”
“It is several months till next spring,” she
said. “It is not impossible that your sus-
pension may be lifted by then. At least I
was so informed.”
“Who informed you?” I asked amazedly.
“Your friend, Mr. Kenney, is a most
interesting gentleman,” she smiled.
“Optimistic,” I said, frowning at Jerry.
“I’m afraid that—well, as you say, next
spring is months away. In the meantime-


76 THE SPORT OF KINGS
we'll see what Vivandiere can do this winter.
At least, Miss Leland, I’ll have her in a mood
that will enable some one else to look after
her, if that some one uses ordinary gentle-
ness and patience.”
Far off a whistle blew. A hundred heads
turned toward the railroad track. There
was a bustle on the beach. “I’ll see you on
the train,” said Miss Leland. “I’m afraid
Mrs. Clarke will be sorely offended if I don’t
join her now.”
She was right, I guess. The chaperon
was walking up and down a hundred yards
away from us, and though I could not tell
her expression, from the glances she sent
our way I imagine that she did not approve.
Miss Leland left us. I turned to Jerry.
“Give me your arm, you garrulous old man,”
said I.
He helped me to my feet. Then he sur-
prised me. “Honest, Misther Sale, I nivir
told her that you might be reinstated nixt
Spring.”
“Then Who did?” I asked.
“Did ye know,” he said, with a grin, “that
the young lady sint a tiligram from Charles-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 77
ton? And that she got an answer before the
boat sailed?”
“No,” said I, “what of it?”
“I just been thinkin’ she might have
found that out, thin. I nivir thought of it
at the time, but—supposin’ she'd wired
some one that knows the ropes up north—
she might have got such an answer. It's all
guessin’ and—”
“But why should she have wired New
York about me? Jerry, you old liar, did
you see the address on her telegram?”
“The steward that sint it happened to
show it to me,” he answered sheepishly.
“”Twas addressed to ould Sam Benton, sor.
I didn’t be afther tellin' ye, for I didn’t think
it fair ye shud know the lady's int’rest in
ye until—”
“You simple-minded, doddering old idiot,”
I snapped. “Why, any one would think that
—that—”
“I mind,” said Jerry, grinning, as he put
his tough old arm around my waist, “that
ye'er father talked just the same whin I tould
him, these thirty-five years gone, that ye'er
mother that-was-to-be, God rist her Sweet


78 THE SPORT OF KINGS
soul, would be afther bein’ plased to answer
a certain question. Ye'er father asked her,
and he nivir called me a liar, neither!”
“But Miss Leland said you told her,” I said
dazedly.
“She said I was a most intherestin’gintle-
man,” corrected Jerry. “More power in her
bright eyes and intelligent ears!”
“But why should she have evaded—”
“”Tis not Jerry Kenney that'll be afther
gossipin’ about a lady, Sor,” said Jerry.
“Sure, I'll be no Cupid for ye, Sor.”
“Jerry, you may go to hell,” said I.
He grinned. We started toward the train
that had drawn up a hundred yards from
the beach. I remember hearing Jerry ex-
plain to me that the houses we saw were
but the shanties of laborers employed in
finishing the construction of the railroad
from Arcadia to the tip of the long penin-
sula that ended a few miles South of Boca
Grande; I remember, vaguely, a man with
firm fingers touching my hurt leg; remember
hearing him say that I’d have to keep quiet
for a fortnight and would be lame for a
month; remember him insisting that I drink


THE SPORT OF KINGS 79
something; remember, hazily, being lifted
into an automobile after our train stopped;
cool sheets, blankness. A mile in the Florida
Surf takes something out of a man.
When I awoke it was day, and Jerry was
placing a breakfast tray on a table in the
center of a prettily furnished room.


CHAPTER VI
MISS LELAND GOES RIDING
HE man on the train was probably a
good doctor, but he didn’t know his
patient. A horseman is a pretty hard propo-
sition—physically, of course, I mean. In a
week I was able to get around with the aid
of a cane and then I insisted on moving from
Miss Leland’s house to a little cottage down
by the half-mile exercise track that her
father had built half a dozen years before.
For it was awkward living at the mansion.
Miss Leland treated me as a welcome guest,
but her chaperon—I was dust beneath her
feet. She didn’t approve of me at all; didn’t
approve of Miss Leland's hiring me in the
first place, and was most open in her dis-
approval of my living under the same roof
with her and her charge. I think Mrs.
Clarke thought a trainer was a servant. As
for myself—during those seven days in
80


THE SPORT OF KINGS 81
which I was confined to bed or couch I
mulled the situation over pretty thoroughly.
What if Miss Leland had wired Sam Benton
from New York about me? She might even
then have been considering offering me a
place as her trainer and wanted to make
Sure of my character. Any interest deeper
than that—well, I was a presumptuous fool;
that's all! And if I didn’t want my fingers
burned I’d better get out of reach of the
fire!
She came in to see me several times a
day while I was confined to my room and
was as kind as could be. But Mrs. Clarke
was always with her and that woman’s atti-
tude was quite the opposite to Miss Leland’s.
Mrs. Clarke had a way of making one feel
out of place. She made me feel, more by
her manner than by anything she said, that
I was taking advantage of a young girl's
kindness in even thinking of remaining as
a guest while I was an employee. That alone
wouldn’t have made me leave and start
housekeeping in the cottage with Jerry, but
there was the hopelessness of it all. This
girl was rich; I was—“poor” puts it mildly.


82 THE SPORT OF KINGS
So, though she protested, I made the excuse
that when I trained horses I wanted to live,
almost, with them and—I went down to the
cottage. -
Of course, I saw Miss Leland every day—
Several times a day—but I wasn’t under the
same roof with her, and I could master—I
thought—my rising feelings better. And
living down there, with an old mammy to
look after Jerry and myself, close to the
exercise track and stables, apart from the
Social life of my employer—well, I’d taken
the place to be near her. And now I tried to
keep myself away from her.
Why, realizing as I did the utter hope-
lessness of my love—it had come to that—
for her, I didn’t take my departure and go
to Juarez as I’d first intended, is something
that can be understood only by those who,
like myself, have loved a person unattainable.
I was sane enough to realize that I couldn’t
live in the same house with her without tell-
ing her sooner or later, my feelings. I
wasn’t sane enough to realize that seeing her
merely in a business way but added fuel to


THE SPORT OF KINGS 83
my hopeless flame. At times I think I'm
very human.
But there was, after all, something besides
Miss Leland to keep me at Stephanie. That
was the mare. Unhurt by her salty passage
from the Christina to the Florida beach, the
mare took to training, under my supervision,
like a duck to water. I’d been out and
around, with my cane, but two days when I
knew that I’d not spoken idly when I told
Miss Leland that next year Vivandiere would
show them up north what a race-mare really
was!
All she needed was the right kind of
handling. And Jerry and I, and the colored
stable-boys, gave her that. I gave the
negroes the strictest orders about her. I
promised a beating that hadn’t been equaled
since Simon Legree went out of business to
the person that mistreated the mare. In-
side of a week Vivandiere knew that not
only Jerry and I would treat her well,
but that others would, and no longer did she
show her teeth or lash out with her hind
feet when some one approached her stall.


84 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Sometimes, seeing how gentle she had be-
come, I wished I had hold of Peter Cranston.
It made me wish that, in place of paying so
much attention to breeding racers, some at-
tention were given to breeding owners.
Simply because his father had left him a few
millions Peter Cranston had gone in for rac-
ing, just as he'd gone in for playing billiards
or bought Steel Common for a rise. He
hadn’t realized that an owner should be bred
to his owning, just the same as his horses.
Otherwise—well, an experienced owner
would never have let Vivandiere be ruined
for racing in the first place. He’d have
known that his trainers were careless, incom-
petent, that his stable-hands were worthless
brutes. And then, after silently cursing Peter
Cranston for an incompetent fool, I’d re-
joice in his incompetence—for I had Vivan-
diere!
And as October passed away, and the
action of the mare improved; as her endur-
ance grew greater; as, once in a while, I’d
let her sprint a furlong—I used to wonder
how big a tap the Grantham bookies would
stand. I used to wonder what sort of odds


THE SPORT OF KINGS 85
they'd give on her. As for Jerry, he vowed
that he was going down on her, line, hook
and sinker, when she made her first start.
And Miss Leland shared our enthusiasm-
not, of course, about betting—but for the
beautiful mare. Only Mrs. Clarke threw
cold water on our enthusiasm. She would
sniff as I descanted on the mare's points and
as Miss Leland agreed with me. But I grew
not to mind her, though I wondered at her
evident enmity. For her dislike really
amounted to that. And at times I pitied the
woman, as I’d hear her complain of the dul-
ness of Stephanie.
For Stephanie was dull; a little Florida
town, about forty miles from the coast, its
only industry was the shipping of turpentine.
In January a resort hotel would open about
five miles from the town, and about three
miles from Miss Leland’s big place, but Mrs.
Clarke was evidently used to plenty of
society, and January was a long way off.
Horseback riding, fishing in the river, and
that sort of thing, did not appeal to Mrs.
Clarke. I used to wonder why the lady had
consented to chaperon Miss Leland down


86 THE SPORT OF KINGS
here, in a place so remote from the gaiety
she loved. But it was none of my business
and my pity was tempered by my resentment
toward her.
So it was that, one afternoon, as she came
down to the track where Tom Leland had
trained his youngsters during the winter, I
bowed very coldly to her, wondering if her
flushed face had anything to do with her con-
temptuous feeling toward me.
I’d just been sending Miss Leland’s horses
around the track, saving Vivandiere for my
employer's arrival. And, as she was not
with her chaperon, and as it was getting
dark, I told Jerry not to wait, but to send
the mare around. Of course, most of our
training was done in the early morning, but
each afternoon I let the horses go through
a sprint or a long jog just to please their
OWner".
“Isn’t Miss Leland down here?” asked
Mrs. Clarke.
I shook my head. “I haven’t seen her to-
day, Mrs. Clarke. Why,” I went on with
sudden alarm, “isn’t she at the house?”
“Would I be down here asking for her if


THE SPORT OF KINGS 87
she were?” she snapped. “No, she hasn’t
been home since luncheon. She said she was
going into Stephanie for some things and
that she'd be right back. But I thought that
possibly she had stopped to talk with you—
about her horses.” And there was the least
bit of a sneer in her voice, which I ignored.
“She’s probably visiting some one in the
town,” said I.
“Who?” asked Mrs. Clarke.
“Isn’t there some one? Some lady that—”
“In this desolate—hole?” She sneered
openly now. “Of course not! She-she's
probably lost.”
“That's absurd,” I said. “A blind man
couldn’t stray from the road between here
and Stephanie. She’ll probably be here
soon.” t
“And you’ll stand here, doing nothing,”
she snapped, “while, for all we know, she's
been thrown from her horse and—”
“Did she ride?” I asked quickly.
“Aren’t you the head stableman?” she
asked. “Surely you should know if your
mistress rode or not.”
Even in her alarm, and I could see that


88 THE SPORT OF KINGS
she was alarmed, she could not forbear her
fling at me, though never before this had
she been quite so outspoken. I felt myself
flush, but it was no time to get angry with
a fool woman.
“Jerry,” I asked, “what horse did she
take?”
Jerry Snapped his fingers at the boy who
was cantering by on Vivandiere. He stopped
the mare.
“What horse did Miss Leland ride to-day?”
“Jimmy,” he answered, naming a good-
natured saddle-horse that didn’t have life in
him to do more than jog along. I turned to
Mrs. Clarke with a smile.
“Jimmy never threw any one in his life,”
I said. “She’s all right; you’ll find—”
From the church tower in Stephanie came
the tolling of a bell. Mechanically I took out
my watch, to compare it with the time. My
watch said quarter past four, and I pursed
my lips as the bell sounded for the fourth
time. Evidently I was fast. Then it struck
again; again; I looked at Jerry. Blankly he
returned my stare. The boy on Vivandiere
spoke as the bell tolled for the tenth time.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 89
“Somepin’ wrong at de turpentine camp,
boss, Ah reckon.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“Some dem fool niggehs must bu'sted
loose,” he said. “Dat’s de warnin’ bell dey
always rings when de pris'nehs breaks
away.”
Mrs. Clarke shrieked. “I knew it; I knew
it! Those convicts have broken loose and
she's somewhere—”
“For God’s sake, madam,” I said savagely,
“don’t talk! Jerry, climb aboard one of
those horses and—come—with—me!”
I grunted the last words, for I was swing-
ing the exercise boy out of Vivandiere's
saddle as I spoke and taking his place upon
her back. Jerry was quick of wit and equally
quick of action. As I pounded down the
path that led from the track to the live-oak-
bordered avenue that led to Stephanie I
glanced over my shoulder. Jerry was already
mounting one of the horses. Mrs. Clarke
was hiding her face in her hands. The
negro stable-hands were running aimlessly
around, yelling to one another. Then I
turned into the road and let her go!


CHAPTER VII
“IT IS WRONG TO BEAT MEN”
HE Spanish moss, that hung from the
branches of the arching trees overhead,
brushed my face as the mare spurned the
shell road beneath her dainty hoofs, but I
hardly felt it. I knew that the wind rushed
against my face, that Vivandiere was eating
up the ground as no Florida road had ever
been eaten by the hoofs of horse before. I
knew it, but Subconsciously; consciously I
only knew that my wild ride was but part
of a fearful nightmare, a nightmare in which
Roberta Leland was at the mercy of some
of the black beasts of the penal turpentine
camp. A blur ahead of me resolved into a
group of horsemen. The nightmare through
which I rode slowly dissolved and I threw
Vivandiere back on her haunches as I
stopped before them.
“Have you seen him?” asked one of the
90


THE SPORT OF KINGS 91
riders. I saw that they were all armed with
rifles, or with revolvers stuck in their belts.
I shook my head, “Miss Leland,” I gasped.
“She hasn’t returned from town. I’m
afraid—”
They closed about me. “Sure?” asked one.
“I saw her ridin' out o' Stephanie 'bout two
houehs gone. Ridin’ to'rds her place, too.”
I didn’t need the grave expressions on the
faces of the posse—for it was that—to prove
to me that I hadn't overestimated her possi-
ble danger. I saw the sudden gleam of the
man-hunt, the man-hunt whose object is
death, not capture, leap into their eyes, and
show in the Sudden tightening of their
mouths.
“Then she started home,” I said, “and—”
“Could she have passed—on the road—
without bein’ seen?” asked the apparent
leader, on whose flannel shirt was pinned a
silver badge.
“I’ve been by the track,” I said. “I—or
Some one else would have surely noticed
her.”
“Then somewheah between town and her
place she turned off,” said the leader. “And


92 THE SPORT OF KINGS
we are only a mile outa town now, and there
ain’t any road, or any path in the jungle a
hawss could get through, so—it's beyond
heah somewheah. Yo'—yo’ passed the spot,
Seh, on yo’ way down heah. Yo’ say it's two
houehs sinct yo saw her, Wilkins,” he said
to the man who had first spoken. “Are you
Suah?”
“It wasn’t no longeh ago,” said the man.
“And Higgins bu'sted away from the tur-
pentine camp about three houehs ago,” said
the sheriff musingly. “That's way over
yandeh.”
He jerked his thumb in the direction of
the impassable jungle that lay on our left
as we faced toward Miss Leland’s planta-
tion. “They took the time at the camp to
infawm us, and—in an hour, breakin’
through the swamps, he'd 'a made this road.
'Pears like to me—”
“It appears to me,” I raged, “that we’re
wasting time. Let's start along the road,
and—”
“If it’s two hours since he come up with
her, a few minutes gettin’ things straight
ain’t wasted,” said the sheriff. “He’s got


THE SPORT OF KINGS 93
her hawss. That's certain; he wouldn’t at-
tempt to ride through the jungle; he'd take
a path. The only path between heah and
Miss Leland’s place—and she ain’t
passed that, yo’ say,–is about ha’f a mile
beyond heah. If he's ridin', that's the way
he went! Come on,” he suddenly ordered.
With a clatter of hoofs we shot back in
the direction whence I had come. And
within a hundred yards Jerry, with the old
jockey's seat that he’d not forgotten in all
the years that had elapsed since he grew
too heavy to ride on the track, had wheeled
his horse about and was galloping along at
my side.
It took only a couple of minutes for us
to reach the path, but in that time the
sheriff said something which measurably
allayed my fear. Buck Higgins, the escaped
negro, was not known as a vicious black.
Some minor offense, petty larceny or the like,
had caused him to be sentenced to jail for
six months. From the jail he had been
farmed out, as was then the Florida habit,
to work on a turpentine farm until the ex-
piration of his sentence. And Higgins had


94 THE SPORT OF KINGS
become more or less of a trusty. Hence, to-
day, he had been sent out of the camp limits
on an errand, and not until his return, which
should have been in twenty minutes, was
delayed three quarters of an hour, did the
guards think anything wrong. And not for
another hour did they send a messenger to
alarm Stephanie. It had taken the
messenger an hour to make the trip, and
now three hours had gone. But Higgins was
merely a shiftless negro, a Small thief.
There was nothing in his record to indicate
that Miss Leland, aside from being robbed
of her horse, would be in danger at his
hands. So the sheriff said.
But—if Higgins had merely taken her
horse, why hadn’t she returned to her place
ere this? It was this unanswerable question
that made the sheriff, for all his soothing
words, twirl the cylinder of his revolver, to
see that it worked well, and made the rest
of the posse refrain from any speech save
occasional oaths. As for myself—I remem-
ber that I prayed a little, when I was not
cursing!


THE SPORT OF KINGS 95
Two minutes pass swiftly atop a fleet horse,
but it seemed as many hours before we drew
up at the path that I now remembered
skirted the edge of Miss Leland’s estate, and
ended, some miles beyond, at a creek that
flowed into the gulf some forty miles away.
I would have dashed into its jungle-girted
length at once, but the sheriff was a cooler
head. He singled out a dozen of his score
of men.
“You men dismount and beat the jungle,”
he ordered. “The rest of us will go down
this path.”
The men pointed out dismounted without
a word.
“You don’t think your man's in there, do
you?” I asked, angry at any delay, yet not
daring to go ahead by myself for fear that,
in my ignorance of the ways of fugitives
and of the country, I would go hopelessly
astray. -
“Not Higgins,” said the sheriff meaningly.
And my blood chilled, then grew hot with
the fiercest, wildest rage that had ever
possessed me in my life.


96 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Now,” said the sheriff. “Straight down
this path; there's hoof-marks in it; fresh
ones. Come along!”
He swung his horse forward, but in the
first ten yards Vivandiere was by, and at
breakneck speed I went down the winding,
grass-grown path that led to—I knew not
what; I dared not think of what! I only
knew that the sheriff had said this way.
I was breathing heavily as Vivandiere
turned a corner and stopped short, almost
on the banks of the creek. There, leaning
against the base of a live-oak, watching the
lazy flow of the creek, while Jimmy, her
horse, nibbled at the tough grass, sat Miss
Leland. She looked up and waved her hand
welcomingly, in friendly camaraderie. Then
her hand stiffened and remained poised as
she noted Vivandiere's heaving sides and my
white face. -
“Why—what's wrong?” she asked. “They
don’t—no one knows that—”
I swung from the saddle, and as I stood
on the ground my knees almost gave be-
neath me; not from my almost-healed injury,
either, but from reaction of my nerves.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 97
“You’re safe,” I managed to gasp.
“Why, yes,” she said. “Did you know
that—”
The pounding of near hoofs cut short her
question; her cryptic question. Jerry was
leading the sheriff by a neck and was on the
ground before the girl while the officer was
still reining in his mount. Despite his Irish
blood I have not often seen Jerry give way to
emotion. I saw him now. For he went to
the girl and lifted her hand and kissed it."
“God bless ye, alannah, I thought ye
Was—”
He couldn’t finish, choking; the girl’s eyes
were very tender as they rested a moment
On his bent and grizzled head. Then she
looked up at the sheriff.
“What's the matter, Mr. Boynton?” she
asked.
He had dismounted now, and he scratched
his head.
“A niggeh bu'sted away from the turpen-
tine camp, Miss Leland, ma'am,” he said,
“and you been gone so long from yo' house
—and him havin’ come thisaway, we fig-
gered, we thought—”


98 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“You thought I’d seen him?” she asked.
“We thought he might have come upon
yo’ on the road and wanted yo' hawss, and—
we was quite fussed about yo', Miss Leland,
ma'am.”
Now other mounted men came down the
path and drew rein, with shouts of relief at
sight of the girl. She flushed and included
us all in the thanks, prettily and gratefully
couched, to which she gave voice.
“But I was only off for a quiet ride,” she
added. “And it was so pleasant down here
by the creek—”
“Then you didn’t see the niggeh at all?”
asked Boynton.
“Why, you aren’t even sure he came this
way, are you?” she countered.
Boynton grinned at me. “It was this
gentleman got us worked up,” he said.
“And Mrs. Clarke got me worked up,” I
said. “Good lord! We’d better be getting
back to the house, Miss Leland! I'm afraid
Mrs. Clarke—”
I shook my head and gave her my hand.
She leaped into the saddle; I mounted Vi-
vandiere.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 99
“Luella will be having a scare,” said Miss
Leland self-reproachfully.
We made quite a cavalcade along the path
and by the time we reached the main road,
riders sent ahead had called the men on foot
from their hunt of the jungle.
“Were they looking for me there?” asked
Miss Leland, with a slight shudder.
“Well, ma'am, they was just lookin’,”
said Sheriff Boynton.
She whitened; and when we left the posse,
now convinced that the fleeing negro had
not crossed the shell-road that led to
Stephanie, but y'as still hidden somewhere
in the jungle on the turpentine camp side,
the girl once more thanked the men who
would have rescued her, in a voice that
trembled and with lips that were pale. Then
we cantered along the road toward her
plantation.
“I’ll be afther goin’ ahead, ma'am,” said
Jerry, “to sort of break the good news to
Mrs. Clarke, so she’ll be havin’ no excuse
for faintin’ whin ye get there.”
And he clapped his horse with his horny
hand and went ahead of us. For half a mile


100 THE SPORT OF KINGS
we rode in silence. I was looking straight
ahead, unable to meet her eyes; for two
reasons. One was that I feared that she
would read in my eyes the love that must
have been in them from the moment fear
left them at sight of her by the live-oak tree
on the bank of the creek. The other was:
well, if I looked at her I’d have to ask her
what she had meant by her broken utter-
ance when I came upon her. I knew that I
couldn’t help but ask her, and I had no mind
to force her confidence. So I looked straight
ahead. And she seemed to guess my
thoughts.
“I suppose,” she said, “that it is a crim-
inal offense to help an escaping convict.”
“People have gone to jail for such things,”
I said grimly. Now that I knew from her
own lips what I had suspected, I was in no
mood to make light of the matter. She had
been in mighty danger.
“But no one knows,” she said.
“I do,” I said. “I suspected it from the
moment I saw you. Why?”
“He was all torn,” she said, “and bleeding
from the bushes he'd worked through. And


THE SPORT OF KINGS 101
he ran out to me as I came down the road,
and fell on his knees and asked me for the
love of God to help him get away. He
showed me raw wounds on his shoulders;
wounds where the whip had fallen | They—
they beat men in those turpentine camps!”
I nodded. I’d heard of the abuses to
which prisoners were subjected in the Flor-
ida pine woods; abuses that have since been
rectified but that were then as bad as Uncle
Tom’s Cabin ever pictured slavery.
“He told me what he was imprisoned for,”
went on the girl. “Stealing; stealing ten
dollars! And they sent him to the camps—
for six months! He said that he’d been a
trusty, but even then, despite his good con-
duct they beat him, and the first chance he
got—he took! Poor, wretched, frightened
black man! He said they’d half-kill him if
they caught him. He said he knew me; he'd
seen me last winter; he knew I had a big
place, and wanted me to give him a job and
he’d hide out in the stables. He said the
servants would never give him away, and
later on, when the search ceased, he'd get
away. But I was afraid he would be found


102 THE SPORT OF KINGS
if I did that, so—I gave him what money I /
had, and guided him down to the creek,
where there was an old, flat-bottomed skiff.
With that he could throw off pursuit, and
make his way to the coast. There'll not be
much of a chase anyway. If they don’t find
him in a day or so they’ll not bother with
him. And they won’t find him. And I’m
glad! Glad! They beat him!”
That was enough for her; enough to
justify her, in her own mind, for violating
the law. It was wrong to beat men, black
or white. Therefore, to save one from a
beating, she'd risk imprisonment. Maybe
it was wicked of her, maybe it was I’d like
to have some one tell me so!
“You did just right, Miss Leland,” I said,
“and I’d have done the same thing! And
we’ll forget all about it right now. Only,
next time, if there should happen to be a
next, as soon as you’ve shipped your fugi-
tive off, come back to the house, and don’t
Stay by the creek.”
For some strange reason she colored deep-
ly. “I—I was just thinking, thinking all by
myself,” she said.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 103
“That's often the way people think,” I
Said dryly. “And another thing; it may be
all right to help negroes escape, but—don't
leave the main road hereafter!”
She looked at me and understood. From
inside her shirt-waist she drew a small re-
volver. “I had my hand on the gun—all the
time,” she said.
Then, with a toss of her head, she threw
care behind her. She urged her horse for-
ward; we turned up the road that led past
the track. From my cottage, old Mammy
Jane waved a fat hand.
“Gawd save yo’, Miss Bertie, honey,” she
called. “Don’t yo’ be too keerless an’ brash,
honey! Yo' go out alone again and Mammy
gwine treat yo' like when yo’ usto steal
jam!”
I saw the girl blush as she kissed a hand
to the old colored woman. Then we swept
by the track, where the stable-boys smiled
broadly at their mistress, and so up the
handsome drive that led to the main en-
trance of the mansion Tom Leland had built
away down in the jungle of Florida. Jerry
came out on the veranda as we drew rein.


104 THE SPORT OF KINGS
His face was very solemn, and as we dis-
mounted he said:
“I’m afraid, ma'am, the stor-rm ain’t
abated, though I’ve thried to pour ile on the
throubled waters.”
Jerry was right; behind him came Mrs.
Clarke. The storm had not abated; it broke
upon us with a vigor that could hardly have
been greater.
“Roberta Leland! How dare you? When
I’m sick! When I’m nervous! Oh, I should
think you’d be ashamed ! I should think
you’d despise yourself for being so wicked!
I’m half-dead with fright and—and—”
I didn’t hear any more; if I’d stayed I’d
have had to gag her and that would never
have done. Gently, and on tiptoe, with
Jerry following, I led Vivandiere away. It
was not until we’d delivered our horses to
the stable-boys that a word was said. Then
Jerry spoke.
“The lucky dawg,” he said. “The lucky
dawg !”
“Who?” I asked.
“Mrs. Clarke's husband; he’d dead,” said
Jerry.


CHAPTER VIII
DANE MAKES THE RUNNING
WAS up, had given Vivandiere and the
I other horses a morning gallop, and
was finishing my second plateful of Mammy
Jane's wonderful waffles when a boy came
down from the big house with word that
Miss Leland wished to see me at once. I
pushed back my chair, and under Mammy
Jane’s reproachful eye—there were two
waffles left upon my plate—left the cottage.
Miss Leland received me in the big sunny
breakfast room. Mrs. Clarke was there, too.
“Coffee?” asked Miss Leland.
I took a cup for the pleasure of watching
her pour it; a colored maid set it down on
the table and I drew up a chair.
“We are going north to-day,” said Miss
Leland.
The spoon with which I was stirring the
Sugar dropped from my hand, tilted over the
105


THE SPORT OF KINGS 107
“Indeed it has,” exclaimed Mrs. Clarke.
“You’ll never know—”
“I’m trying to understand, Luella,” said
Miss Leland, a bit wearily, I thought. “Any
way, we’re going!” And Mrs. Clarke
looked, I thought, triumphantly at me. As
for myself, I tried to avoid looking uncom-
fortable, upset.
“So, of course, I’ll leave everything in
your hands, Mr. Kernan,” said the girl. “The
Grantham meeting opens January first; I'll
hope to be at Grantham by then. A little
later, at any rate. All expenses, of course,
you may draw upon me for. I—I hope that
Vivandiere will live up to our hopes.”
I rose. “I hope so, too, Miss Leland,” I
said. “I believe she will.”
I stood a moment awkwardly. Then she
gave me her hand; I bowed above it, and
stepped away from her; Mrs. Clarke and I
exchanged frigid bows and then—I was out
of the house and walking down toward our
cottage. Jerry met me in the doorway.
“Well, what's wrong?” he asked, noting,
I imagine, my gloomy countenance.
“That Clarke woman,” I said savagely,


108 THE SPORT OF KINGS
*
“has persuaded Miss Leland to go north at
once—to-day. Took yesterday’s affair as
her excuse—horrible country—savage ne-
groes—you can guess it. Hysteria, re-
proaches—all the rest of it.”
“I know,” said Jerry. “Still—maybe the
young lady was wantin’ to go herself.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” said I bitterly.
“Florida is no place until after Christmas.
Then she'll have her friends down, and—”
“And maybe it ain’t her friends she’s
missin’ So much,” said Jerry. “The lady
don’t strike me as one of them social butter-
flies. Any gir-rl that'll run a stable is pretty
livil-headed. Maybe she ain’t missin’ th’
intertainmints in New York. Maybe she'd
be glad of the rist down here until her
friends come down to visit her.”
“Then why doesn’t she stay?” I asked. “I
hope Mrs. Clarke chokes!”
“Sure, maybe the gir-rl, God bless her, is
thryin’ to git a chance to find her mind,”
said Jerry. “Ye see, Misther Sale, if she
gets away from ye, she’ll have a chance to
get the right proportions of things. Just at
present ye're the only man in sight; ye’ve


THE SPORT OF KINGS 109
done her a favor; risked ye'er life for her,
and—away from ye, she'll know.”
“Jerry,” I said, “I suppose I wear my
heart on my sleeve, don't I?”
“Well, it's pinned on th’ outside of ye'er
vest,” he grinned.
“Well, hers isn’t,” I Snapped. “She
doesn’t care a tinker’s damn for me—
couldn’t—and—let’s not talk about it any
more! Our business is training horses.
Let's stick to it!”
“Right,” agreed Jerry.
On the afternoon train Miss Leland left.
She waved to me from her carriage as she
and her chaperon were driven by; Mrs.
Clarke didn’t even look at me. Next day I
was hard at work preparing the little string
for its campaign on the Grantham track.
November passed; I began to see possibil-
ities in the other horses, besides Vivandiere.
They’d never do up north, but at Grantham
they might help pay the stable’s bills. I
began to study the list of owners who were
to race at this Florida meeting. I was glad
to notice that some fairly prominent names
in race circles had entered horses. Not their


110 THE SPORT OF KINGS
real good ones, but still—there'd be sport
a-plenty, of a mediocre kind, at Grantham
this winter.
In December I received a letter from Miss
Leland—the first one. It merely answered
One of mine, a business one, and told me to
move the string to Grantham whenever I
thought best. In the middle of December I
shipped three horses besides Vivandiere to
the track on the west coast. I took along a
couple of hands and two exercise boys, one
of whom I thought might develop into a fair
jockey. Jerry, of course, went with me. I
acquired a small stable near the track and
settled down to active business, preparing
my own horses, and studying the lay of the
land. It promised better sport than I’d ex-
pected. The agitation against the New
York tracks was reaching its climax. The
governor of New York was supposed to be in
favor of closing the tracks in that state.
There really wasn’t much danger that he'd
do so, but lots of owners were thinking the
feed bill proposition over very carefully.
Some decent nags had been shipped to
Grantham. No big purses there, but—ex-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 111.
penses. And expenses were very welcome
in view of a possible raceless year in New
York. I soon learned that my three platers
stood very little chance of doing more than
breaking even on their expenses. But Wi-
vandiere—the purses weren’t so much—but
the books!
In late December I received a letter from
Sam Benton, scolding me for not having
written to him, telling me that he'd met Miss
Leland and so learned where I was, and that
he was busy trying to have me reinstated.
But the stewards were granite; an apology
or nothing! Further, now that the racing
season was long over, Sam despaired of his
detective agency getting the goods on Clas-
son, Connors or O'Toole. His advice was
for me to take back my unproved statements
—as the stewards considered them—some
time during the winter and join his stable
in the spring. He himself wasn’t going to
do any winter racing. And in conclusion he
reminded me that a telegram would get me
any amount in his ability to lend. And that
meant quite a sum. Good old Sam!
Then, on the last day of December, I re-


112 THE SPORT OF KINGS
ceived a telegram from Miss Leland saying
that she and a party of friends would be in
Grantham on the second of January and that
she hoped Vivandiere would be running
that day. The only thing on the card that
at all suited Vivandiere was a five furlong
dash for three-year-olds. So I entered her,
not even daring to hope that she’d win, for
I’d not intended to start her for another two
weeks and then only in distances ranging
from seven-eighths to a mile and a quarter.
But a sprint wouldn’t hurt the mare and
might do her good.
On the morning of January second I was
at the train to meet Miss Leland; I thought
it a simple courtesy that could not offend.
I expected her to be accompanied only by
Mrs. Clarke. Instead, quite a party de-
scended from the train. I was introduced
to all of them. There was Mrs. Clarke's
daughter, a simpering miss named Mabelle;
three young men, one of whom was named
Carteret Dane, was Mrs. Clarke’s nephew,
and I speedily learned by his manner, was a
suitor for Miss Leland’s hand. Indeed, a
favored suitor, for in the grandstand that


THE SPORT OF KINGS 113
afternoon, I heard him talking with Miss
Leland about a cruise they were shortly to
take on his power-boat, a sixty-five footer,
now in readiness at Sarasota.
Vivandiere lost. Five furlongs was too
little for her; also, as I’ve said, the mare was
a bit short of work for a race. She ran a
good race, but—she didn’t win. Young Dane
turned to me as the numbers went up. (I
was in a box with the party.)
“Rather bad judgment that, eh? Starting
her in a sprint?”
“I did it to oblige Miss Leland,” I said
shortly.
“And she'll win next time, won’t she, Mr.
Kernan?” asked Miss Leland.
“I expect her to,” I replied.
“And we'll all bet on her,” said the girl.
“And—I’ll not ask you to enter her again-
to oblige me.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
Then I left them to look after the mare.
I did not see Miss Leland again, for that night
the party continued on its way to Stephanie,
there to remain a week or more. And when
they returned—well, Dane was with her all


114 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the time; he had the inside track, and I-
well, I gave up. For her manner was
changed. Not that she wasn’t kind and all
that. But—the little friendliness, the cam-
araderie, was all gone. She was cool, a bit
aloof, a trifle distant. I began to look for an
excuse to leave her employment, for the
presence of Dane proved conclusively to me
that I’d aspired too high, that I was a pre-
Sumptuous fool and—well, though we lived
at the same hotel after the party's return
from Stephanie, I saw little of Miss Leland.
And I began to think too much about her;
in the wrong way magnifying everything
she said, making a slight appear where none
had been intended; imagining a snub where
none had been, and—all in all—acting like a
jealous love-sick fool. And as, in the even-
ings, I’d see her dancing at the hotel with
Dane, or with Tennant or Mathews, his two
friends, I’d go to my room and gloom half
the night away, refusing even the compan-
ionship of my faithful Jerry who understood
and—could not help me. Indeed, Jerry lost
the confidence he’d had.
“Ye're afther lettin' th' other felly make


THE SPORT OF KINGS 115
all the runnin’,” he said to me more than
OI1Ce.
“Damn it, Jerry,” I’d answer, “he has
money. I haven’t. He’s aided by his aunt,
Mrs. Clarke, and—oh, the devil, Jerry!”
And then, a week after their return from
Stephanie, Vivandiere was entered in a race.
At the track that morning, I read a letter
just received from Sam Benton. It was full
of cheery gossip, but one important thing it
had in it. Carteret Dane, he told me, was
related to Classon. At least, his aunt, Mrs.
Clarke, was a cousin of the Jockey Club
Steward and financier. -
“I understand,” wrote old Sam, “that
Dane has been rushing Miss Leland for some
time and is now in Florida. Miss Leland’s
too nice a girl, Sale, to marry young Dane.
He's got a nasty record behind him. Why
don’t you cut him out?”
I tore up the letter grimly. I looked
around at the shabby track buildings. I
looked over toward the betting ring, where,
in a few hours, would be gathered the worst
bunch of crooks that ever grouped beneath a
betting shed. A dog track! A bunch of


116 THE SPORT OF KINGS
curs behind it! Worse than Juarez ever
was ! Already whispers of crookedness had
come to me. Why not get out of it? For if
Dane was related, ever so distantly, to Clas-
son, what sort of a black eye must he and
his aunt be giving me to Miss Leland? I
wasn’t imagining it! She was cool, distant,
aloof. And I-
As I took a trolley into Grantham for my
luncheon, I noticed that two men, on a seat
ahead of me, were indulging in much whis-
pered conversation. I paid no attention to
them, being too much occupied with my own
gloomy thoughts, until the car stopped near
the center of the town. Then I noticed, as
One of them descended from the car, that he
was “Smiler” Smith, a New York book-
maker known for the size of his operations,
and whom I had not hitherto seen in Grant-
ham. As he said good-by from the street,
his erstwhile companion turned toward him,
so that I got a side view of his face. It was
Dane!
No definite suspicion was in my mind; yet
I could not but think it strange that the
wealthy young New Yorker was on intimate


THE SPORT OF KINGS 117
terms with a noted, or notorious, “bookie.”
Moved by impulse, and certain that neither
had noticed me, I jumped from the car as it
started ahead, and followed Smith. He went
straight to the railroad station, and I heard
him buy a ticket for New York and claim a
section previously reserved for him on the
afternoon train. Considerably mystified,
yet really without reason, I walked to the
hotel, had my luncheon, and, still puzzled,
a little later returned to the track. But
before I did so, I looked at the hotel register.
Smiler Smith had arrived in Grantham,
according to the book, at eleven the night
before. And he was leaving within eigh-
teen hours. There'd been several strange
things occur during the two weeks of racing.
Several horses had run queerly. So queerly
that I’d not hesitated to speak my opinion.
And now Smiler Smith took a forty-eight
hours’ journey down here for the privilege
of staying less than a day. I wondered what
was in the wind. Then, for the moment, I
forgot about it, as I conferred with Jerry
about the mare.


CHAPTER IX
A DOG TRACK
NE last look I gave her, standing
there, Smooth as Satin, Soft as silk;
from the honest eyes of her to her dainty
feet a lady! And a thoroughbred ! But
those brown eyes could flash fire; that satin
skin hid muscles of steel; the silken softness
couldn’t conceal the hard fighting nerves.
A little female gentleman! A thoroughbred !
Trained to the minute now, facing a distance
that suited her. As sure as my name was
Sale Kernan—a horse!
I made my way through the crowd that
thronged the paddock, and under the long
sideless shed that housed the betting ring.
A couple of touts saw me from the dingy
bar, where they were rotting away what
little brains they had with the stuff that
passes for whisky down Florida way. They
ran out and intercepted me.
t 118


THE SPORT OF KINGS 119
“Got a little word for us, Kernan?” one of
them asked.
I have no use for this sort of cattle; they
and their kind have blackened the eye of
racing.
“Vivandiere is in the next race,” I said.
“That ought to be enough; isn’t it?”
“But just a wise word,” begged the other.
“Is She meant?”
Back in Kentucky, where I was raised,
or even up north, I’d have knocked him
down. But this tout never dreamed he was
insulting me! And good wine needs no
bush. I didn’t aim to lower myself to the
level of every Tom, Dick and Harry by ex-
plaining to them that every Kernan-trained
horse is meant to win, every time he starts.
Life is too short. So I just brushed by and
took a squint at the first board I passed. My
eyebrows went up; good reason!
For Vivandiere was fourth choice in a
field of seven | She was quoted at five to
one, while Queen Molly and Cresswell were
equal odds—on favorites, at four to five.
Bay King was second choice at five to two.
I thought some exiled hop fiend from the


120 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Long Island tracks must have had a relapse
and chalked up those odds, but a glance at
the next board made me dismiss that idea.
The figures were the same. I couldn’t un-
derstand it.
Queen Molly and Cresswell were all right;
they were legitimate favorites on their past
performances and present condition. Bay
King’s odds were O. K., too. But Vivan-
diere! If the bookies had known what I
knew about my mare they’d have come close
to marking her off their slates. For if ever
a horse had a race all won, if ever race was
in—before it started—this one, with Vivan-
diere entered, was it! Of course, the bookies
and the public too, knew something about
her. They knew her pedigree; knew that,
if blood means anything, the mare should
have been a top-notcher, barring her unfor-
tunate disposition which had vanished be-
neath my handling of her. They also knew
that she was carrying four pounds less than
in her last race, when she'd finished outside
the money by a nose; also they knew that
the distance of this race, a furlong beyond


THE SPORT OF KINGS 121
the mile, was not unsuited to a horse with
her ancestry. Two or one would have been
normal odds, considering what all the world
knew. But five to one!
I stood back, away from the stools, and
watched a few minutes. And I saw a dozen
bettors back away from two bookmakers,
each, according to the singsong voice of the
bookmaker as he cried their bets to the
clerk, with a piece of change on Vivandiere.
The public wasn't misled by the scornful
odds. The public knew enough to realize
that at five to one Vivandiere was a tempt-
ing bet. But the bookies! Where did they
get off to price the mare that way? I went
down the line to Ikey Blatz’ book.
Funny, too, when you stop to think of it.
Just because, a year or two before, I’d
trimmed a couple of Long Island City
roughs who were trying to take Ikey's roll
away from him, and because Ikey had been
fervent in his protestations of friendship
ever since, and had almost fallen on my neck
when he met me down here at Grantham,
now, when I thought I had a sure thing, I


122 THE SPORT OF KINGS
played it with Ikey. Friendship is a queer
thing. But Ikey’d been sore if I’d “patron-
ized” another book.
“Some of that nice, fat, Vivandiere stuff,”
I said to him.
“Show?” said Ikey with a grin of wel-
COrne.
“Win,” said I. “Just write me a ticket
for eighteen hundred, and here's the bank-
roll.” I handed him three hundred dollars
as I spoke, and it was the bank-roll—entire.
Ikey waved his fat hands. “You don’t
need that much to make it look good.”
“I don’t get you,” I told him. “Make what
look good? My faith in the mare?”
He looked at me with an odd expression
on his fat face. “Sure, that’s it; why not a
ten-spot, and—”
“Well, you fat son of Israel,” I blurted
out; “what are you running? A charity
kindergarten for sap-head bettors?”
Ikey couldn’t flush; at least, you’d never
detect it on that sallow greasy face of his.
But he perspired a bit and his grin was
feeble.
“Sure not, but—Kernan, you’re my


THE SPORT OF KINGS 123
frient, und II don’d Vant a frient of mine to
lose all he's got.”
If I hadn’t been hot under the collar at
his trying to play Wisenheimer, I’d have no-
ticed his dialect then, instead of later. Ikey
never talked like a Hebrew unless he was
, rattled. But the idea of any one—and a
bookmaker at that!—advising me how to bet
on a horse I’d trained—
“There are other books,” I told him coldly,
“only, knowing you and none of the
others—” I turned away.
“Gif me your money,” said Ikey, with a
shrug of his fat shoulders; a shrug that
seemed to say he might as well take it as
any one else.
I got my ticket, calling for eighteen hun-
dred if Vivandiere won. Then I grinned.
Ikey was a good little skate, at that. I
crooked my finger and he bent over from his
high stool.
“Let me tell you something, Ikey,” I whis-
pered. “Just erase those odds. I noticed the
public's eating 'em up. I know every horse
in the race and I want to tell you—Vivan-
diere in a Walk! That’s all!”


124 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Ikey perspired a bit more freely. He took
off his derby and mopped his bald head.
“Sure, Mr. Kernan, dot's righd; you trained
der horse.”
And as I turned away, I saw the figures
On Vivandiere being changed—to seven to
one! I saw the public rushing to it. I
Smiled; for Once the bookies were going to
get theirs.
Then I climbed into the rickety grand-
stand—if possible I always watch my en-
tries from the grandstand; I don’t know
why; I think it's because racing, though a
business, is a sport to me, and I want to be
away from the business atmosphere of the
stables and up with the spectators to whom
a race is a race, and not the culmination
of—sometimes—years of patient and pains-
taking effort. From way up at the top I
watched the seven horses charge at the bar-
rier.
Two attempts and it lifted. They were
off! I glued my glasses to the mare. Fourth
and on the outside! A little ahead of her,
and nearer the rail, were Queen Molly and
Cresswell. Out in front was Sunshine, but


THE SPORT OF KINGS 125
that didn’t worry me. Sunshine was a flash
runner; he’d be back in the ruck at three-
quarters. I looked for Bay King; he was
fifth. Those three, Queen Molly, Cresswell
and Bay King were the ones I had to watch.
The two in back of King I didn’t bother
with at all. Outclassed, they wouldn’t fit
unless all the others dropped dead. I
watched my boy, the little exercise boy I’d
brought from Stephanie, on Vivandiere.
A nice ride! He’d profited by the two
starts others of my string had made thus
far in the meeting, and in which they hadn’t
even been placed, but due to no fault of the
boy's riding. High up, well forward, he was
easing her along just as I’d taught him.
He hadn’t lost his head because Sunshine
was hitting the dirt out front. I could see
that he kept glancing to the left and I knew
that his eyes were on Cresswell and Queen
Molly. A nice ride!
The two favorites were waiting for Sun-
shine to come back; then they’d hit their
stride, and then—my little lady, Vivandiere,
was none of your back-stretch runners! She
wouldn’t bother about where she stood until


126 THE SPORT OF KINGS
after the third turn. It was the fourth turn
—and the home-stretch—that would count
with her.
At the quarter I dropped my glasses and
looked at the row of boxes at the base of the
grandstand, fronting the track. In the third
one my eyes found the party I was looking
for. Three women and three men. And two
of the women and two of the men were all
reared up, waving parasols and programs
and yelling like mad. The other couple were
Seated a bit at the rear of the box. They
were chatting—I could tell that by their
manner — with seeming unconcern, as
though between the acts at a theater. They
were watching the race, but they weren’t get-
ting heated about it. The real nerve—both
of them. I had to admit it, though I had no
use for Dane; it was his presence with her,
and the feeling that I’d be an interloper,
that had kept me from their box. Yes, I had
to admit that he looked a worthy match for
the girl, although I knew that the pallor of
his face, that silly women might call “inter-
esting,” was caused by dissipation. Yet he
was handsome, and I couldn’t blame Miss


THE SPORT OF KINGS 127
Leland for liking him. I looked at her ani-
mated face.
Maybe there are prettier girls topside .
this earth. Maybe—I haven’t seen them.
And I’ll take my oath that a gamer sports-
woman—well, she sat there in the box with
Dane, watching her own horse run, and was
the calmest woman at the track. I turned
my glasses back on the race.
The leader was just at the half. I made
out the jockey’s colors; it was Bay King.
Sunshine had blown up already and was a
bad fifth, while the other two starters were
in the ruck. I watched my mare.
Oh, but she was moving along, free as the
air, Smooth as an electric engine. And the
ride she was getting! That little coon was
certainly due for a chunk of my winnings!
They reached the third turn; Vivandiere
was a bit closer; Cresswell was back a
length now. A murmur came from the
crowd; it rose to a roar.
“Come on, you Vivandiere!”
I switched my glasses down to the fence
near the betting ring. The bookies and their
clerks and markers were hanging over it. I


128 THE SPORT OF KINGS
easily picked out Ikey Blatz' fat face. There
was a grin on it a mile wide. Grinning!
With the Lord knew how much on his books
to Vivandiere! I turned the glasses a bit
beyond him. Samuels, the most excitable
layer at the track, was looking at the race,
calm as though betting didn’t exist. Beyond
him was Markham, and he was calm. Yet
here was my little mare, coming like a house
afire, almost turning into the stretch, right
at Queen Molly's shoulder, and four thou-
sand people were yelling their heads off for
Vivandiere. For the tempting odds had
lured them, and they had gone down, line,
hook and sinker, on my mare. I was dazed.
There must be thousands on the mare. At
four to five I’d have wagered on my baby to
cop. At those odds the public would have let
her alone. But at five to one—seven at the
post—
I ground my glasses against the bridge of
my nose. There was a mark there later on.
They were around the last turn; they
straightened out; Vivandiere was by Queen
Molly; at Bay King's shoulder; by-by-she
had the rail!


THE SPORT OF KINGS 129
“Oh, you Vivandiere! Oh, you baby; oh,
you bright-eyed dolly-girl!”
Two furlongs to go! One little bit of a
quarter of a mile and out in front!
Out in front! With the blood of the Water
family in her veins! The blood of the racers
who had made turf history, and behind that
blood—the blood of Lexington! The blood
of Lexington, greatest four-miler of his or
any other day! Speed of the Waters, heart
of Lexington | And out in front with over a
mile behind her, a furlong to go, and—no
horse that lived could catch my baby now!
I dropped my glasses to my side and
laughed aloud. And then my laugh died
away. I whipped the glasses to my eyes
Once more. For I couldn’t believe it! It
couldn’t be so! And yet, two hundred yards
from home, a clear length in the lead, Vivan-
diere's jockey was using the whip. The
whip! On the proudest-stepping lady that
ever spurned the track. The whip! I heard
a gasp from the crowd. I heard some one
shriek, in the silence of a second:
“Lost his head, the—coon!”
Then I heard myself groan. For the blue-


130 THE SPORT OF KINGS
blooded lady whose turf career had been
interrupted by the whip resented it now as
savagely as ever before. She lost her stride;
she went suddenly wild with rage; she
stopped; she crashed against the fence.
Queen Molly flashed under the wire, a win-
ner.
I understood now—everything! Ikey
Blatz' unwillingness to take my bet; the ques-
tion of the touts; the false odds. The dirty
dogs! An outlaw track! Outlaw was right.
They’d fixed my jock, reached him. They
lured the form players away from Cress-
well, Bay King and Queen Molly, by the
ridiculous price at which they’d held Vivan-
diere. The public money had gone down on
my baby. And an almost unplayed favorite
had won!


CHAPTER X
I ASK MYSELF MANY QUESTIONS
T seemed to me that within ten Sec-
onds after the number of Queen
Molly, first, Bay King, second, Cresswell,
third, had been put up, every pair of eyes in
the crowd had found me and was glaring at
me. I could hear my name running from
mouth to mouth, and some of the language
used was enough to make me want to fight.
But I didn’t do anything like that. My eyes
were fixed on Miss Leland and I was making
my way down the grandstand to her. She
was pale, and a glint of anger was in her
eyes. Beside her stood Dane.
“Well, Mr. Kernan?” she said.
“That jock has sold us out, Miss Leland,”
I told her. “He had his orders and—
“So it seemed,” said Dane meaningly.
I turned to him. He was just about my
size; maybe a little heavier, but I rather
131


132 THE SPORT OF KINGS
think I was harder. I put my hands be-
hind my back, after looking him over coldly,
and faced Miss Leland again. He was a
friend of hers; that let him out with me. At
present.
“The-the people seem quite angry, Mr.
Kernan,” she said.
“They have a right to be,” I answered.
“They’re victims of as raw a deal as ever
was pulled in Florida, and that means any-
where. They were coaxed to bet on the
mare by the juicy odds, and all the time it
was framed—you’ll have to excuse me, Miss
Leland. I’ve got to see that jock.”
She laid her hand on my arm. “He’s only
a poor, ignorant little negro,” she said.
I bit my lip. “I guess you’re right,” I ad-
mitted. “He isn’t worth monkeying with,
except for the purpose of making him talk.
But—a trainer's protest doesn’t amount to
anything unless his owner sides with him.
Will you give me permission to speak to the
judges, Miss Leland?”
Dane butted in. “You don’t want your
name mixed up in a nasty race-track scan-
dal, Bobbie,” he said.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 133
That “Bobbie” angered me. It would
have been bad enough for him to have called
her Roberta, but the pet name—
“I’ll tell you, Miss Leland,” said I coldly,
“if I owned the mare I’d rather have my
name mixed up in open scandal and come
clear, than have the scandal the gossipy kind
and—”
“No one will gossip about Miss Leland,”
interrupted Dane. “The gossip will be
about—her trainer.”
I kept my temper. “In that case,” I said,
“it seems to me that I should be given a
chance to clear my name. Miss Leland, may
I speak to the judges?”
The other two couples in the box edged
nearer to us; Mrs. Clarke put her hand on
the girl’s arm.
“Roberta, you don’t care about the old
race, anyway. We didn’t lose much. And
newspaper talk—”
I could have hit Mrs. Clarke if she’d been
of my sex. I felt that she butted in merely
because she disliked me. But the elderly
chaperon couldn’t scare the girl. She
looked me straight in the eyes. “The run-


134 THE SPORT OF KINGS
ning of the race reflects on your good
name?”
“You hear the crowd,” I said.
She could hear them all right; faker, trim-
mer, framer-up—those were the milder
names the hard losers called me.
But I could see that Miss Leland didn’t
care for an investigation. The papers might
make a lot of it; her name would be men-
tioned; whereas—well, the judges had or-
dered Queen Molly's name posted as the
winner. Evidently, they were satisfied.
There’d be no scandal if matters were al-
lowed to rest. I could see the struggle on her
face; between the dislike of being coupled
with race-track notoriety of the cheapest
sort and the desire to give me a square deal.
Dane saw it, too.
“I say, Kernan; you’re Sale Kernan, aren’t
you?”
“You know it,” I answered.
“The Sale Kernan of Kentucky?” with a
bit of a sneer.
“Yes.”
He looked at the girl. “I’d let the matter
~ rest, Bobbie, if I were you. I—er—don’t


THE SPORT OF KINGS 135
think that letting it rest can hurt—very
much—the name of a man who has been
ruled off the metropolitan tracks.”
He turned his back to me, as though the
incident were closed. I reached forth and
gripped his arm, whirling him around.
“You know why I was ruled off, sir,” I
Snapped.
He tried to throw off my grip of his arm,
but I dug my fingers into his flesh.
“You know why,” I said again.
I think he'd have struck me then and
there, but for Miss Leland. She spoke to
him sharply.
“Carter! You are unfair! Mr. Kernan’s
personal honesty, his racing honesty, has
never been questioned ! I know why Mr.
Kernan is barred, as do you. He is under
the ban because of unproved statements
made by him.”
“Unproved? Isn’t that a bit—er—mild,
Bobbie? He deliberately—”
“Failed to prove charges, Carter,” she
said.
His jaw dropped; he stared at her. “But,
Bobbie, Classon is Aunt Luella's cousin.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 137
The crowd, seeing me in conversation with
my owner, and then seeing me start for the
judges’ stand, hung around. There was a
chance that I’d been called before them, that
the race might be declared off—bets can-
celed. None of them, of course, realized
that I wanted the race called no race; that
I, who had always run my horses honestly,
could afford less than ever, now that I was
under the ban, to have suspicion rest on my
name. I could feel eight thousand eyes on
me as I climbed the steps of the judges’ stand.
The race just ended had been the last,
and, long as it's taken me to tell about what
happened after its finish, I don’t think three
minutes had elapsed from the time the win-
ning numbers went up until I reached the
top of the stairs. The judges were writing
the day’s records as I came upon them. Old
Colonel Buckmaster saw me first. His face
colored—a little bit ashamed, he looked.
“Well, Misteh Kernan, what can we do
foh yo’?” he asked.
“I wish you’d recall the numbers posted
below,” I said, “until after an investigation
has been made.”


138 THE SPORT OF KINGS
The other judges looked up at me. One
of them, Holt, spoke, with apparent surprise.
“Recall the numbers? What are you
driving at, Mr. Kerman?”
“In less than five minutes more this race
will be history,” I Snapped. “Ten minutes
after the race ends—on this track—the
bookmakers pay off. That's plenty of time
for protest to be filed. After that—I’m fil-
ing my protest now.”
Kendrick, the third judge, stared at me.
“Explain yourself, Mr. Kernan,” he said
sternly. -
“I haven’t had time to see my jock—yet,”
I said. “But he has been ordered, all along,
mever to use the whip on Vivandiere. That's
been his religion, as I’ve taught it to him.
You saw him less than ten minutes ago. You
saw him whip my mare until she threw
away a race already won. I want the de-
cision as to the result of the race held up
until it’s discovered who bribed my boy to .
throw the race.”
“Oh, now, aren’t yo' a bit excited, Misteh
Kernan?” asked Colonel Buckmaster. I
looked at him; his eyes seemed frightened,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 139
and his voice seemed to hold appeal. “Yoah
boy is just a triflin', no-'count nigger, and—”
“He’s a mighty intelligent coon,” said I
angrily. “He knew his orders. He got his
for what he did! I know it and I’ll be able
to prove it, I hope.”
“You hope,” said Holt. “Who bribed
him?”
“I haven’t had time to find that out,” I
replied. “But if you’ll give me twenty-four
hours yy
“I guess you don’t know much about nig-
gers, Mr. Kernan,” interrupted Kendrick.
“That boy of yours lost his head, that’s all.
We can’t declare bets off because of a jock's
poor riding.”
“Foul riding,” I corrected. “Not know
niggers? Gentlemen, I’m from Kentucky,
where they invented them! I know a bright
darky when I see one. My boy's bright and
—crooked. In justice to those who bet on
my mare 99
“How big does your ticket read, Mr. Ker-
nan?” inquired Holt with a Sneer.
I took the ticket from my pocket. “It
calls for eighteen hundred dollars,” I an-


140 THE SPORT OF KINGS
swered, “and just to show you where I get
off—” I tore the ticket to pieces and let
the fragments flutter down to the track be-
low. “That shows where I get off,” I said.
“It isn’t because I want my money. But
when a gang of bookmakers sweeten a
horse's price so’s to gull the public, and then
fix it for that horse to lose—that isn’t hon-
est! And without honesty this track can’t
live. Gentlemen, before it's too late, before
they’ve paid off on Queen Molly—I ask you
to 99
“Honesty, eh?” said Kendrick. “And who
are you to come here telling us our duty?”
“You know who I am,” I retorted. “I’m
one of the trainers of this track that isn’t
owned by the betting ring. And unless you
want this track given a worse black eye than
it wears already, you’ll listen to me.
You’ll—”
“And you’ll listen to us,” cried Holt. “How
dare you come to the judges’ stand and talk
this way?”
“I thought you’d thank me, though I
should have known better,” I answered bit-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 141
terly. “I thought honest talk would appeal
to you. If it doesn’t—”
“You’ve been ruled off the track up north,
Mr. Kernan,” said Kendrick coldly. “One
more word of this sort of talk and we'll bar
you here. We're willing to forget what
you’ve already said; we realize that it was a
hard race to lose, but—be careful, Mr. Ker-
nan. We judges are competent to run
things here without a sore-headed trainer
squealing because his incompetent jockey
gave his horse a bad ride. If you have one
iota of proof, now, that there was a conspir-
acy on the part of the books to keep your
horse out of the money, say so!”
“All right,” I retorted hotly. “I’ll tell
yOu 99
Then I paused. What had happened be-
fore the race? Nothing except that a book-
maker had been reluctant to take my bet;
that a tout asked me an insulting question.
In view of the result of the race those two
matters became important, but—not evi-
dence. Besides, Ikey had tried to do me a
Service. It would be a poor return for me


142 THE SPORT OF KINGS
to get him into trouble with the gang that
ran the thing.
“Well?” Said Holt.
I shrugged my shoulders. “You hear the
crowd, gentlemen. Evidently they think
something was wrong with the race. They
blame me.”
“Crowds always act that way when a
juicy good thing goes wrong,” said Ken-
drick. “You’re too old a horseman to mind
the crowd, Mr. Kernan. You were going to
tell us something?”
I looked at him; I looked at Holt. A man
that knows horses is quick to sense things;
he knows when a horse is going to act nasty,
even though the animal outwardly, is calm
and gentle. Knowing horses that way
teaches a man to know other men. I could
sense that Holt and Kendrick were ready to
hand me something, if I didn’t watch out.
Why, I wasn’t yet sure, though I was begin-
ning to suspect the reason. Most judges and
track-owners are mighty glad to ferret out
Scandal, if there's reason to believe it exists,
even though, at Beaumont, my charges had
been scoffed at. But that was different;


THE SPORT OF KINGS 143
there my word was flatly contradicted by in-
terested parties. But here—they wouldn’t
even hold over the decision on the race's re-
sult! All that I’d seen, all the little bits of
gossip I’d picked up from other trainers
since the track opened—all these I remem-
bered—and grew cautious. It wasn’t up to
me, in bad up north, to get ruled off down
here. *
“Tell you something?” I echoed Kendrick.
“Why-er—gentlemen, if you’re satisfied
with the way the race was won, I suppose
I'll have to be. You're the judges; I’m just
a trainer.”
Kendrick and Holt exchanged swift
glances. Kendrick pursed his lips.
“That's better, Mr. Kernan,” said he.
“Grantham is very glad to have a top-notch
trainer down here; we should be sorry if
resentment at losing a race should cause a
repetition, down here, of the unpleasantness
at Beaumont. We think that we are gener-
ous in not making your disbarment run
down here. Let us have no cause to repent
our generosity. Poor sportsmanship, Mr.
Kernan, is most offensive.”


144 THE SPORT OF KINGS
I didn’t dare trust myself to answer. I
started toward the steps that led to the
track. As I did so, Old Colonel Buckmaster,
who had kept silent after his first speech,
caught my eye. His lips moved ever so si-
lently, but I caught the words, “Hotel—
to-night.”
More puzzled than angry—and I was fair-
ly hot under the collar, at that—I descended
the steps to the track. The crowd hooted
me a trifle, but like all race-goers, already
they were thinking of to-morrow; their re-
sentment at me had begun to die, and they
were drifting out of the grounds as soon as
it was evident that the result of the race
stood. Something seemingly raw had been
pulled, but—well, to-morrow was another
day. I glanced toward Miss Leland's box.
Somehow, just then, I didn’t have the heart
to tell her that my protest had been sum-
marily dismissed. I turned toward the
stable, outside the track.
Jerry Kenney was rubbing down Vivan-
diere. The mare was still a bit fractious,
nervous, with nostrils dilated. I walked up
to her and stroked her nose. She greeted


THE SPORT OF KINGS 145
me affectionately. I ran my hand down her
quarters and felt the welts that the whip
had raised on that glossy coat.
Jerry stared sympathetically at me. “I
saw ye go to the judges’ stand, Sor.”
“Uh-huh,” said I, gently stroking the raw
wales on my beauty. “Of course you knew
why.”
“I kind of guessed,” said Jerry. “The
jock got away from me, bad cess to the little
thief! But we’ll find him later. Did it do
anny good, sor?”
“Devil a bit, Jerry! As raw as anything
—you saw it! You know what our orders
have been to that boy. Listen!”
I told him all that had transpired since I
left the mare and him just before the race.
Also I told him about seeing Smiler Smith
with Dane. Jerry whistled.
“I can’t see it, sor,” he said, “but I can
Smell it, it’s that rotten.”
He ceased applying liniment to the swell-
ing muscles of the mare and straightened up.
“Sure, Misther Sale,” he said, “ye won’t
stand for it and ye can’t buck it! What can
ye do?”


146 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Keep on running the mare,” I answered,
“and be careful.”
“This Clarke woman,” said Jerry, “is
afther bein’ fond of her nevvy. Be the same
token, she ain’t fond of ye. And she's re-
lated to Classon, old Sam writes ye. And
the gir-rl is fond of ye, so 95
“Don’t be an ass, Jerry,” I snapped. “She
feels under an obligation to me, and she's on
the square; that’s all.”
Jerry pursed his lips. He changed the
subject.
“Me nevvy, Mike, him that's exercise boy
for old Sam, sor,—I got a letter from him
this mornin', sor. He says old Sam ain’t
engaged a trainer for next season yet.”
“Well?” I demanded angrily.
“If—if there’s anythin’ in the wind down
here, and ye try to smell it out—it might
mean trouble, Misther Sale. Maybe we’d
better dodge it. There's tin thousand a
year, and real horses on real tracks—up
north. If ye wanted to admit ye was mis-
taken last fall ** -
“Jerry,” I snapped, “you don’t mean it!”


148 THE SPORT OF KINGS
right or wrong, stay or leave, and the divil
fly away wid all again ye? Two choices—
stay or apologize to thim back north.”
“There's still Juarez,” I said.
“Yes,” said Jerry, with the least bit of
contempt in his voice, “there's Juarez.”
He resumed rubbing the mare, and shortly
afterward I left the stable. I’m no detec-
tive; I’m not good at solving puzzles, at run-
ning down clues. This much I knew; there
was crookedness at the Grantham track, and
the race officials were cognizant of it. Car-
teret Dane had the inside track with Miss
Leland and I had seen him with a notorious
New York bookmaker. Dane was a distant
relative of Classon, who, I strongly sus-
pected, was connected with the crookedness
of the Beaumont starter, O’Toole, and the
Classon trainer, Connors. Yet, what did it
all lead to? Was there connection between
crookedness at Beaumont and crookedness
here? And if there was, could I hope to
buck? Did Smiler Smith's flying visit to
Grantham have anything to do with booking
operations down here? If so, did his being
with Dane have anything to do with those


THE SPORT OF KINGS 149
operations? Was Dane in any way con-
nected, in racing business, with his cousin by
marriage, Classon? Could I stay here and
watch Dane carry off Miss Leland without a
struggle? And if I did fight, would I em-
broil myself with the powers here, and
would I get it in the neck harder than at
Beaumont? I hadn’t answered any of these
questions when I reached the hotel.


CHAPTER XI
I KISS A STAR
LITTLE time helps thought. The pa-
trons of the Grantham track were
not rich. Even though the betting ring was
allied with the track, not enough money
came from the pockets of Grantham bettors
to support the elaborate machinery of even
such a dog track as this. Over my dinner I
wondered. Here was a possible answer to
to-day’s events: -
Smiler Smith was commonly reported to
own an interest in a country-wide chain of
poolrooms. Poolrooms would pay big money
to know, in advance, not which horse would
win, perhaps, but which horse was certain to
lose. For, by offering juicy odds against
that horse they could tempt the public to for-
get its choice—poor enough at best.
I’d been suspicious before to-day. But this
afternoon’s events had crystallized sus-
150


THE SPORT OF KINGS 151
picion. And with the crystallization my
blood began to boil.
I thought of the many people who knew
me and who had possibly—probably even-
placed bets on to-day’s race, tempted by the
combination of my name as trainer of
Vivandiere and the sweet odds against her.
What would they think of me?
I looked sullenly about the dining-room.
The head waiter was just escorting Miss
Leland, Mrs. Clarke and the latter’s daugh-
ter, and Dane and his two friends to a flow-
er-decked table whose conspicuous position
in the center of the room was tempered by
the potted plants that surrounded it.
Through the fringe of palms I saw Dane
remove the girl’s wraps from her shoulders.
It seemed to me that his hands touched
caressingly, though, of course, fleetingly, the
ivory of her flesh. It galled me—into action.
I forgot her squareness to me; forgot the
camaraderie of Stephanie; forgot Jerry's
Scorn when I mentioned Juarez. I forgot
everything save the fact that I loved her,
and that I could no longer endure seeing
another man proceed to win her to whom I


152 THE SPORT OF KINGS
hardly dared aspire. I was better out of
Grantham. Better out of it because staying
only made it harder to keep unuttered my
hopeless love; better, because I should never
have come to Florida, never should have
allowed the name of Kernan to be connected
with a track such as Grantham. Juarez was
bad enough, but nothing like Grantham
where I’d been used as the monkey to pull
dirty chestnuts out of the fire to-day.
I'll be honest; it wasn’t altogether because
of what had happened at the track; it was
partly—mostly, so far as the immediateness
of my decision and action is concerned—
the air of proprietorship used by Dane as
he removed Miss Leland’s wraps.
Anyway, I pushed back my chair and
walked toward their table. Miss Leland was
first to see me. She smiled impersonally;
the friendliness that had been in evidence
at Stephanie was gone. I attributed that to
Mrs. Clarke and I hated that lady for it. The
others, save Dane, paid me no attention. I
worked for Miss Leland; to their super-aris-
tocratic notions I was no more than a serv-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 153
ant. Dane, I felt, was looking at me closely,
but I paid no attention to him.
“Good evening, Mr. Kernan,” said the girl.
“You didn’t come to the box to tell us what
the judges said.”
“I didn’t think it necessary, Miss Leland,”
I told her. “You saw that Queen Molly's
number remained up.”
“I saw. What did the judges say?”
“In effect,” I answered bitterly, “that if
I made charges I couldn’t prove—on the
spot—I might lose my license.
“They don’t want charges made, much
less proved, at this track, Miss Leland,” I
went on. “And as I’ve always made it my
business to run my stable for my owner and
not for the betting ring, why—I’m leaving
Florida—to-night!”
“Throw a stone and run away,” sneered
Dane.
“But I didn’t throw it from behind a
woman’s skirts, Mr. Dane,” I retorted.
That fetched him for his dirty sneer. He
Started to climb out of his chair, and the
rest of the party grew tense at the im-


154 THE SPORT OF KINGS
minence of trouble. Mrs. Clarke put her
hand on her nephew's arm, as though to
restrain him, but Miss Leland took command
of the situation. Her face was suddenly
angry as she looked at me. At the moment
I’d told her of my suddenly acquired inten-
tion of leaving the state I had thought a
shade of regret showed in her eyes. But
every good woman hates to be made party
to a scene. I had offended; she punished me.
The regret was gone from her eyes. Her
voice was that of the mistress to the servant
as she said to me:
“Very well, Mr. Kernan. If you will be
in the drawing-room at nine I'll give you a
check for what is due you.”
The grin of malicious triumph on Dane's
face at her cool dismissal of me almost
goaded me into angry answer. But I bit my
lip and turned away. Whatever daring
thoughts I’d had, whatever wild hopes I’d
foolishly nourished—well, a horseman be-
comes used to disappointments after a while.
He expects hope to fade away like a yellow-
hearted plater in the fight for the wire.
In the hotel office I inquired about trains.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 155
The earliest one was the eleven-ten, and it
was now not quite seven. I had lots of time.
Half an hour later my bags were all packed
and ready. Always able to travel lightly, I
had few effects at Grantham; I had lost
everything in the wreck of the Christina and
the things I’d bought since took up little
room. So I had an hour and a half before
meeting Miss Leland, which I intended do-
ing. I was justly entitled to my salary for
the past two weeks and I needed it. In fact,
as I mentally noted my needs, I saw that my
pay for half a month—a hundred dollars;
we had won no purses yet—would barely be
sufficient to take Jerry and me—of course
I’d not leave him behind if he cared to come
with me—to Juarez.
I wished I’d gone there in the fall, as I’d
intended doing when I left New York, and
as I would have done but for Fate and Vivan-
diere.
Vivandiere! My heart ached suddenly. I
went down-stairs and, across the tropical
garden surrounding the hotel, I climbed
aboard a trolley car. I had an hour and a
half before seeing Miss Leland for the last


156 THE SPORT OF KINGS
time, and in that time I could see my mare,
For, though she'd been barred from the
northern turf, and though to-day she’d been
robbed of a race that was under her belt, all
tucked away; and though wiseacres would
probably condemn her forever as a result of
the temper she had displayed to-day, I knew
that some day Vivandiere would burn up the
northern tracks. Whoever Miss Leland hired
in my place would profit by what I’d done
by the mare. Some day—
And I might be there, watching my baby
Spreadeagle her field, and I’d know, and the
mare would know—don’t tell me she
wouldn’t! I know horses—that but for me
she’d never have been anything but an out-
law, barred from the track. For it was I
who had begun to turn her into a racing
machine that would sometime justify the
blood that was in her, and would make her
show her heels to the best the far-flung
stables of the North could produce. I saw
her some day winning a big stake at Beau-
mont, and—well, there were tears in my
eyes as I swung from the trolley fifteen min-
utes later and made my way to the group


THE SPORT OF KINGS 157
of rickety stables that bordered the track.
It's fierce to have to say good-by to a race-
horse that you love!
“Where's Jerry?” I asked of the young
darky who slept with the horses, but who
was now shooting craps with other exercise
boys, in the light of a lantern that swung
from the open stable door.
“He done went in town, Mist Ke'nan,
seh,” answered the boy. “Prob'ly gone to
one of dem pictuah shows, Seh,” he chuckled.
I smiled, too, at the reference to Jerry's
weakness for the film drama.
“Mare all right?” I asked.
“Yasseh, she's all right, seh. I’ll show
yoh—”
But I didn’t want him to see my parting
with the little lady that I loved.
“It’s all right; never mind,” I snapped at
him. “You find another lantern.”
I took the lantern from the hook over the
door and entered the stable. Only five stalls
in it, and I passed by the first four, platers,
that's all; no speed to amount to anything
and what was worse, no heart for the game.
I didn’t mind leaving them. But my beauty,


158 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Vivandiere—I thought I heard a rustle up
by her feed-box. I swung the lantern for-
ward and its light showed me a crouching
figure at her forefeet. Suspicion, anger,
possessed me. The mare wasn’t entered in
to-morrow’s races, but—
“Come out of there,” I cried, “Come out
or I'll let a bullet into you!”
A figure crawled by the mare's feet and
its owner whined.
“Foh Gawd, Mist Ke'nan, I ain’t doin’
nuffin’ to Vivandiere. I on’y wanted to see
her and tell her dat—”
It was my jock; the little coon I’d brought
from Stephanie, made a rider of, and who’d
sold me out this afternoon. I reached down
and gripped his collar. My hand passed over
his cheek and it was wet. I swung the lan-
tern until it illumined his face, and I saw
that his eyes oozed tears.
Only his small size prevented me from
thrashing him; that and the fact that, know-
ing negroes as well as I do, I never expect
too much of them. Not the young ones; the
old ones that have grown gray serving you
Or your family—they’re different. But the


THE SPORT OF KINGS 159
young bucks— Nevertheless I could feel my
voice shaking as I said to him:
“You tell me what you’re doing in this
mare's stall, or by the Lord Harry I’ll lace
you until you howl, you black rascal!”
“Go on, Mist Ke'nan, whale me,” he said.
“I dese’ves it, seh. Jes bu'st ma wufles haid
open, Mist Ke'nan, seh; it's a-comin’ to me.
But don’t yoh b'lieve I was aimin’ to do dis
baby hawss no hahm, Seh !”
“Then what are you doing here?” I de-
manded.
“’Pologizin', Mist Ke'nan. 'Pologizin’
foh doin’ her dirt when I jest plumb had to,
seh! I been in there askin’ an' pleadin’ an’
beggin', tellin’ her how I jest had to, but
she won’t listen to me, Seh. She won’t nuzzle
me, nor whinny-talk a-tall. It's about
bu'stin’ ma heart Mist Ke'nan, to have dat
baby girl think I hit her out ob debilment,
seh. It won’t matteh much if yo bu'sts ma
haid l’’
Never mind what Judge Kendrick said to
me; I know negroes! This boy didn’t have
brains to frame such a beautiful lie. He
was telling God's honest truth; he’d done


160 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the mare dirt and was in her stall trying to
square himself, with the childishness of his
race. Crooked as he’d shown himself, I was
sorry for him. But I shook him, until his
ivory teeth rattled in his black head.
“What about apologizing to me? Explain-
ing to me?” I asked. “Haven’t I treated you
right? Weren’t you a dirty little exercise
boy until I gave you the leg up on Clover-
leaf?” (One of Miss Leland's platers.)
“And then didn’t I pick you from all the
jocks at the track to ride Vivandiere? And
then you knife me in the back, you ungrate-
ful dog! Why? How much did you get for
that foul ride? Who paid you?”
“No one, Mist Ke'nan, seh. I didn’t get
a jitney from no one, Seh.”
He was telling the truth. Maybe he
thought he deserved to have his “haid bu'sted
open” but he wasn’t anxious for his deserts.
The fear of death was in him at my grip on
his collar and he didn’t dare to lie. I shook
him again.
“Then why did you whip her? Why?”
“I jest had to, Mist’ Ke’nan, Seh. I had
to ! He told me if I didn’t—”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 161
“Who told you?”
But something even stronger than the
fear of death gripped the little black scoun-
drel now. The whites of his eyes gleamed in
the light of the lantern; they rolled in an
ecstasy of terror. His black skin was an
ashy gray.
“Don’t ask me dat, Mist Ke'nan, Seh; you
can frazzle me right now if yoh wants. But,
Mist Ke'nan, I wouldn’t answeh yoh dat if
yoh cut my heart out. I jest simply don’t
dast, and dat's Gawd's honest troof. Yoh
can kill me, Mist Ke'nan, but dat's all yoh
can do! But de gemman what made me—
go on, Mist Ke'nan, skin me alive if yoh
wants! I done used yoh rotten, but—I ain’t
Said nuffin and I Won't!”
Well, you can’t hit a little coon; if he'd
been big—even though my strong suspicions,
amounting to positive belief, were verified
now, I turned him loose. I was leaving in a
few hours. That Vivandiere had been
“framed” was nothing to me now. The boy
Scampered away, and I, a little touched by
his evident love for the mare he'd used so
shabbily, and wondering what on earth could


162 THE SPORT OF KINGS
scare a coon more than an imminent “fraz-
zling,” turned into the stall.
Yes, I kissed her! Right on the star in
the middle of her forehead. Then I left
her and went back to the city. In the mov-
ing picture theater across the river that
splits Grantham in two I saw Jerry, staring
with fascinated eyes at a reel whereon the
poor shop-girl was scorning the millionaire.
I asked an usher if the picture was about
OVer.
“Just started,” he told me.
And I wouldn’t have dragged Jerry away
from an unfinished film play for a thousand
in cold cash. So I pointed Jerry out to the
usher and asked him to tell my faithful fol-
lower to come to the hotel when the perform-
ance was over. That would be in plenty of
time for the late train. Jerry never had
any packing to do. A change of socks and
underthings—Jerry would start for darkest
Africa on lots less.
Once more I passed through the gorgeous
grounds of the hotel. A flight of steps de-
scended, beneath the main porch, to the bar.
I thought a drink would cheer me up, and


THE SPORT OF KINGS 163
went down there. The usual crowd of touts
and bookies and “sports” was there. I
nodded coolly to a few I’d met and went to
one end of the bar where I might drink
alone.
“Corn,” I told the bartender. Then I
glanced along the polished surface of the
bar. At the far end stood old Colonel Buck-
master; he caught my eye; he seemed to
signal me; I remembered what I had for-
gotten; his almost inaudible whisper to me
in the judges’ stand. I nodded carelessly.
A moment later he finished his drink, left
the group he’d been with, and departed from
the bar, going up the stairs that led to the
main lobby.
A couple of minutes later I, too, finished
my drink. But the old colonel’s manner
showed a furtive desire for secrecy. So I
left the bar by the stairs leading to the
garden, and took the elevator, a minute
later, at the far end of the long hotel corri-
dor, to the third floor. If the colonel feared
to be seen talking to me—and it seemed he
did—I’d humor him. There was no one to
See as I knocked upon his door.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 165
as he leaned over the railing of the judges’
stand. For the Buckmasters had been white
men, all of them. At first I’d pitied him
to think that he, who’d bred and raced some
of the finest horses that ever came out of
the Blue-Grass, was compelled to act as judge
at a dog track. Later—now—it seemed to
me too bad that one of the ancient Buck-
masters should have sunk so low as to be
cognizant of, and remain party to, without
protest, crookedness in the field of Sport
which they had done so much to elevate.
As he rose from a rocking-chair to greet
me, and I noted his whispy white goatee, his
sunken, sad old eyes, I felt sorry for him;
mighty sorry. For he was getting pretty
old; maybe he didn’t know, didn’t appre-
ciate, all that was going on. For the sake
of his old name I hoped so. But from the
outset of our conversation that hope
Vanished.
He greeted me warmly. “I’m glad yoh
came, Misteh Kernan, seh. It's been a hurt
to me, Seh, to stand by while the son of
Majah Jack is handed the tarred end of the
Stick.”


“I had a daughter—born blind.”





168 THE SPORT OF KINGS
ce’tain conditions yoh could regain yoah
license back nawth?”
“Yes,” said I stiffly.
“That’s because, Seh, theah’s neveh been
any crookedness mentioned in the same
breath with the name of Sale Kerman.”
“Or any other Kernan,” said I.
“Of co’se. But if theah was, Seh? What
then?”
He waited a moment for that to sink in.
I said nothing.
“The name of Kernan,” he went on, after
a moment, “ain’t without magic. Even the
name of a Kernan that's barred back nawth.
If a Kernan should denounce the people that
run this track— Well, Misteh Kernan, while
this track don’t belong to the big association,
owners ain’t penalized for runnin’ theah
strings heah. But if any big scandal crops
out, what will happen? Ownehs that race
heah, then, will be barred from the metro-
politan tracks. That means racin’ will stop
heah. Foh the public won’t play a track
that’s got too bad a name. The poolrooms
will lose the public’s play and—Grantham
will end its racin’ days. Undehstand, seh?”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 169
I was beginning to—clearly. But how all
this applied to me—
“Where do I come in on this, Colonel?” I
asked.
There was color on his old cheeks and
shame in his voice as he answered:
“Misteh Kernan, yoh look dange'ous to
the men that run this track. Yoh’ve spoken
yoah mind freely about things that looked
off-coloh to you, befoah to-day. And afteh
yoh left the stand this aftehnoon, Holt and
Kendrick did some talking. Misteh Kernan,
theah’s a frame-up in the air. And they
ain’t afraid to let me hear them discuss it,”
he added, self-reproachfully.
I nodded. “So that anything I might say
about the rottenness of this track would
seem the squealing of a caught crook?”
“Exactly, seh. They ain’t fools. They
know yoh ain’t weak-kneed. They know yoh
wasn’t finished with them when yoh left the
stand to-day.”
I laughed—bitterly. “They hold me too
highly. I thank you, Colonel, for what
you’ve told me, but—I’m leaving the state
to-night.”


170 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“You’re What?”
He slumped back in his rocking-chair. I
was a bit surprised at his complete amaze-
ment.
“Misteh Kernan, Seh, might I take the
libehty of an old friend of yoah fatheh's, and
ask yoh why yoh are leavin' Miss Leland?”
“I’m not leaving her particularly,” I re-
torted. “Isn’t it pretty obvious that I’d be
a fool to stay?”
“But yoh ain’t asked me why yoh should
be the one picked on foh the goat, seh?”
“Because I’m liable to talk; isn’t that it?”
The colonel brushed his hand across his
lips. He poured himself a little drink, from
a decanter on a table, and gulped it down.
“Yoh met Miss Leland by accident,” he
said. “I’ve heard about how yoh rescued her
haw'ss, and about how yoh had intended to
go to Juarez instead of trainin’ heah. Misteh
Kernan, yoh didn’t give up your idea of
goin’ to Juarez just because Miss Leland
offered yoh a job. It was because Miss Le-
land offehed it! I’ve seen yoh and I’ve seen
her, and I’ve watched yoh both. I’m an old
man, and I see lots, Misteh Kernan! Juarez


172 THE SPORT OF KINGS
run away. I thought with fayeh wawnin',
yoh’d fight better; but if you’re goin’ to run—
Tom Leland was my friend, too. If I
were alone in this world, I’d go to Miss Le-
land to-morrow-to-night! And I’d tell her
what I suspect. But I’m not alone in this
world. There's one dependent on me, and
all I can do is hope anotheh will fight the
battle I can’t take up. I’ve told yoh all,
seh, that I can. Yoh know yohse'f how yoh
regard the lady whom we’ve mentioned.
Yoh know, too, what are yoah rights and
privileges. Yoh can run away and be—
safe. Or yoh can stay and do yoah best to
keep her from the clutches of a scoundrel,
Seh ! Maybe yoh have good reason to think
yoh ain’t in the runnin', Seh. That has
nothin’ to do with it! Yoh have no right
to permit a scoundrel to be in the runnin'!
The Kernans are fightin’ men—always have
been. Yoah daddy would have risked his
good name a thousand times to protect a
lady from an unhappiness that she may not
perceive but which you know must await
her.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 173
“But, damn it, Colonel,” said I, “I’m not
Cupid! If she wants another man—”
“She wouldn’t want a scoundrel, Seh,” he
snapped. “By stayin' you risk yoah good
name, yoah future; yoh also have a chance
of circumventin’ the houn’ who would dare
drag yoh down that he might step up.”
I sighed. “Colonel,” I said, “I’d like to
stay—now; I’d like to give the gang of
crooks who think they can run a blazer on
Sale Kernan a taste of their own medicine.
But—I can’t stay; I’m through; I’ve resigned
as Miss Leland’s trainer.”
“Shucks!” said the colonel. “If yoh ask
her to let yoh stay—Misteh Kernan, she's in
the hands of thieves, and I can’t help her.
I don’t dare help her. But yoh can; at least,
yoh can try. It's yoah duty to stay and—”
A clock on some Grantham church struck
the hour of nine. As its bell ceased tolling
I rose to my feet.
“Well, Colonel,” I said, “I’ll ask Miss Le-
land to let me stay; I can’t do more than
that.”
“Nor less,” he replied.


174 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Then I left him. As I closed his door be-
hind me a man at the end of the corridor
turned toward me. I recognized Ikey Blatz;
and he recognized me. He waved a hand,
but I turned away from him and took the
elevator at the other end of the hall. Yet,
as I waited for it, Ikey came slowly down
the corridor, and I could see that he was
scrutinizing the number on the door of the
room I’d just left. I hoped that my visit
wouldn’t get the old colonel in trouble. But,
selfishly, I only thought of that for a
moment. What I did think of was that Jerry
and Colonel Buckmaster both thought that
Roberta Leland—well—didn’t dislike me,
perhaps.


176 THE SPORT OF KINGS
She saw me almost at once. I could see
her excuse herself to Dane and, rising, come
toward me. The Smile that had crinkled her
lips and the corners of her mouth disap-
peared. She was cold and distant as she
Spoke to me.
“I’ll go up-stairs and get your check, Mr.
Kernan,” she said.
She made as though to pass me, but I
stopped her with a touch on her arm.
“You—you needn’t bother about it, Miss
Leland,” I told her. “I—I’m going to stay-
if you want me to.”
“I thought you never took back anything,
Mr. Kernan.”
“I don’t—if I’m right,” said I. “But when
I think I’m wrong—that’s different.”
She looked inquiringly at me. “Then I’m
to take it that you were wrong in your
charge this afternoon?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“Then why—”
“Wrong in leaving—the stable,” I blurted,
growing red. “Vivandiere was given up as
hopeless. I’ve made a race-horse of her.


178 THE SPORT OF KINGS
I answered. “And—and, Miss Leland, I wish
you wouldn’t ask me any more—now.
Later on—”
She looked long at me, as though reading
my heart. Then she laughed. “Detectives
never wish to give away their clues, do they?”
“Call it that,” I said.
She parted her lips as though to press me
further; then, as though the subject was
not vitally interesting, she passed over it
without question, for which, in my heart, I
thanked her. She glanced over her shoulder.
Dane had apparently joined in the conver-
sation of Mrs. Clarke and Mathews. Yet I,
facing toward him, had noticed that his eyes,
forever wandering, returned again and again
to us. As the girl glanced back she saw
Dane laughing at something just said and
seemingly paying no attention to us. She
looked at me.
“Then I won’t get your check, Mr. Kernan.
And—I thank you for a box of gloves.”
“Gloves?” I echoed, wonderingly.
“I—didn’t think you were the kind to—
run away,” she said. “And I-backed my
judgment.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 179
“With Mr. Dane?”
She nodded, blushing a bit. “I wagered
that you’d not leave Grantham—and me.”
At least, that's what I thought she said:
“and me.” It made my pulses leap; I felt
like a colt, all legs and no head.
“You wagered a box of gloves that I’d
not leave you?” I asked hoarsely.
“The stable,” she said. Her eyebrows
lifted the least trifle, and the blush had all
gone now. It was as though her eyebrows
were one end of a see-saw and my heart the
other. My end went down with a thump.
Of course, even if she’d said “and me,” she
meant the stable. Funny how a woman, by
just a lift of her brows or an intonation of
her voice, can summon into the surrounding
atmosphere, even in Florida, an unmistak-
able chill. Her voice became businesslike.
“When do you plan to start Vivandiere
again? We're going to Stephanie for a few
weeks on Sunday.”
“She’s entered for next Saturday,” I
answered, “in the Hotel Stakes. If the beat-
ing she got to-day isn’t on her nerves—well,
she'll prove all I’ve said about her, then.”


180 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Dane had been moving uneasily in his seat.
I guess he thought we'd been long enough
talking over such a simple matter as a train-
er’s good-by to his owner. He rose and
walked over to us.
“You promised to play for us, Bobbie, you
know,” he said, ignoring me.
“So I did,” she answered, “but it took a
trifle longer than I’d expected, to win my box
of gloves.”
And by that answer she won my gratitude,
which is something entirely different from
love. She saved my pride, made it appear
that I’d not asked to have my position back,
but had been urged to retain it. A good
sportswoman! The chill left the atmos-
phere; I began to believe that she had said
and meant “and me.”
“You’re not leaving Grantham, then?” he
asked.
“Not for a while,” I answered coolly.
“Yes, work is hard to find—for a man
barred from the turf,” he said.
I didn’t mind that; it must hurt him with
the girl more than it could possibly hurt
me. I began to feel that Mr. Dane was the


THE SPORT OF KINGS 181
sort of man who'd overplay a good hand if
you let him alone.
I bowed to Miss Leland and started off.
But she loved fair play too much to let me
leave with any scars caused by Dane's nasty
Inmanner.
“Oh, Mr. Kernan,” she smiled, “perhaps
it would interest you to know that your
check was not up-stairs. I’d not even written
it.”
That might be interpreted as a bit of con-
ceit on her part; an assurance that I’d not
leave her. It might also be interpreted to
mean that she had believed me not the sort
of man to run away from trouble. I chose
to interpret it that way; it was balm for
the sneers of Dane, had I needed it.
She flashed a smile, for good measure,
upon me, and started toward the piano with
Dane. And I heard him say petulantly:
“Deuce take it, Bobbie, it isn’t good form
to be so free with a-”
That's all I heard; but it was enough.
Dane was jealous!
I walked on air as I entered the lobby.
She had tacitly admitted that I, her


182 THE SPORT OF KINGS
trainer, was her social equal. And then my
backbone stiffened with pride. Why not? I
had not always been a trainer. And even
So! Training horses was an honest pro-
fession; an honorable profession. And the
Kernans had formerly owned their own
stables and hired others to train for them.
History might repeat itself. I was dreaming
of a great farm in the Blue-Grass; a great
hall wherein were bits of plate—
“Ye were afther leavin’ wor-rd at the
pitcher show for me, sor?”
From heaven I brought my eyes down to
earth. Jerry Kenney was before me.
“Come down to the bar and have some-
thing, Jerry,” I invited. And I think he was
a bit amazed at the extreme friendliness with
which I gripped his elbow and steered him
toward the bar stairs.
We sat down at a little table, apart from
the boisterous bookies and touts and hangers-
On and northern tourists. We drank to each
other in silence. Then:
“Ye didn’t go afther me to the pitcher
show just for this, sor,” insinuated Jerry.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 183
“No. I left word for you because I in-
tended to start for Juarez to-night.”
Jerry set down his drink; he looked at
me; deliberately he spoke.
“For the sake of the Kernan pride, sor,
what nivir permitted thim to let anny one
run a blazer on thim, I hope ye'er mind is
changed.” His voice and manner were whip-
lashes. But I did not resent it. Jerry was
my best friend on earth.
“Listen,” I said. And then I told him of
my conversation with Colonel Buckmaster.
In his hard-repressed excitement Jerry took
it upon himself to order another drink. He
downed it.
“The buck is passed and we pick it up,”
he said. “”Tis you an’ me again them all–
for the lady, God bless her! And for our-
selves, God bless us! And the divil fly away
wid that dirty, crooked, naygur-consortin'
dawg Dane.”
“Nigger-consorting?” I queried. “What
do you mean?”
Jerry spat into a cuspidor at his feet.
“What I say, sor. Doesn’t he go visitin’ the


184 THE SPORT OF KINGS
naygur forchune-teller out be the track?
Him that gives the naygurs tips on the races?
Him that says he’s a voodoo an’ has th’ Evil
Eye? Glory be an' Gawd forgive me, but
there’s men come out of Ireland that’s for-
got more of the Evil Eye than anny black
naygur ivir dreamed !”
“You mean that Dane frequents that for-
tune-teller?”
“I don’t know about his frequintin' th'
place,” admitted Jerry. “But I seen him
goin’ in there th’ other night. I saw the light
of the hall as the door was opened shinin’ on
his thief's face, bad scran to him!”
“Jerry,” said I slowly, “I found Pete, our
jock, in Vivandiere's stall to-night, when I
went out to say good-by.”
“Did ye kill him?” demanded Jerry.
I told Jerry what had happened; what
the boy had said. Then I asked:
“Jerry, what does a negro fear more than
death?”
Jerry was not slow of thought. “Witches,”
he said.
“You’ve got it! Listen: you get hold of
that boy of ours! Some of the stable-hands


186 THE SPORT OF KINGS
to be wise,” I answered. “But I doubt if
anything you may tell me will make me
Wiser.”
He led the way to the table I had just
vacated.


188 THE SPORT OF KINGS
drink. He put his glass down and looked
at me.
“Kerman,” he said abruptly, “just what
did that nigger jock tell you?”
Miss Leland, thinking no harm, had re-
peated to Dane my words about the jockey’s
confession. And the result had been that
we were beginning to get out into the open;
our cards were on the table. At least, they
were getting there fast. I looked at Dane.
“Well, you heard me,” he said angrily.
“Yes, I heard you,” I said slowly. “You
aren’t a bit ashamed of admitting that you’re
a crook, are you, Dane?”
“I’ll pass that remark—for the present,”
he said. “Kernan, Miss Leland told me what
you said about your jockey.”
“Too bad Miss Leland doesn’t know you,”
I said. “When she does she’ll be more
stingy with her speech.”
He took a long drink; then he put his
glass down and stared at me.
“It’s only quarter past ten, Kernan,” he
Said. “Fifty-five minutes more before the
late train leaves. Kernan, take that train!


THE SPORT OF KINGS 189
You're not wanted in Grantham. Kernan,
you’ve got to go!”
His eyes grew narrow and his nostrils
flared slightly. His lips twitched with the
sudden violence of his anger. Away back in
the corner of my brain I was thinking.
Dane might fear exposure at my hands of
his schemes, and so want to get rid of me.
But, if this were so, how much better to
disgrace me! Why drive me away, when by
my staying he could ruin me in my pro-
fession for all time and forever damn me
with Miss Leland? Why? And I thought
I knew the answer!
Because he couldn’t! Because he couldn’t
ruin me, couldn’t damn me with the girl! If
I stayed! Because he was afraid of me,
deep down in the rotten crook's heart of
him. Because he and whoever were behind
him feared that I could give them a better
fight than they could withstand.
“You haven’t much time to decide, Ker-
nan,” he said.
I pushed back my chair; not that I wanted
any advantage, but because I didn’t wish to


190 THE SPORT OF KINGS
be at a disadvantage when I gave him the
fighting word.
“I don’t need one second, Dane,” I said.
“I’ve said I’d stay. And let me tell you
something; and you can go and bellow it
all over this hotel if you want! I'm not go-
ing to be run off; but I’m going to run you
off; you and every other dirty crook like
you that sponges on the rottenness here!”
I was prepared to clinch with him on the
spot; I didn’t think he’d take it. Yet he did;
smiled as he took it; and his Smile was not
forced. It seemed that he enjoyed my de-
fiance, as though it coincided with some plans
of his own. As though—despite his words,
in his heart he really had not wished me to
go. For his voice rang true as he answered.
“I’m glad, Kernan. I’m glad you’re go-
ing to stay now because—”
“Being a crook you think you'll hand me
something.”
He bit his lower lip at the iteration of the
epithet and I saw the hand that held the
glass tremble. “Some day, Kernan,” he said
gently, “and not too far away, I'll call you
to account for your talk. But just now-


192 THE SPORT OF KINGS
vantage of it and—a bell-boy interrupted my
meditations in a great leather chair in the
lobby. He handed me an envelope.
“In your key-box, sir,” he said, “and see-
ing you here—”
I gave him a coin and opened the envelope.
The note within was from Colonel Buck-
master. It read:
“My Dear Mr. Kernan: I have just re-
ceived a visitor who knows of your visit to
me. He is suspicious, and wary of you. I
trust whatever you may do can be accom-
plished without my aid.”
How the mighty fall! The poor old man!
I thought of him as I had heard my father
speak of him, and as he was now. It was
pitiful. His visitor—Ikey Blatz undoubtedly
—had frightened him with the possible loss
of his position at the track, and—well, I
tore his letter up. There was no possible
help to be obtained from the colonel beyond
the information he had already given me.
Nor could I blame him; he was old and his
daughter was blind.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 193
I lighted a cigar. There was the negro
fortune-teller, but—how could I make him
talk, provided my rather far-fetched sus-
picions were true?
“Good-by, Mr. Kernan.”
I looked up to see Ikey Blatz surveying me
doubtfully.
“Going away, Ikey?” I grinned.
“Not me—but ain’t you?”
“Rumors travel more quickly than contra-
dictions, don’t they, Ikey?” I asked. “No,
I’m not leaving.”
He glanced around, as though fearful that
Some one might overhear.
“You’re a frient of mine, Mr. Kernan, und
I don’t want trouble to touch you,” he said
quickly, dropping into the dialect that nerv-
ousness gave his speech. “I heart you was
going und I was glat. Now—”
“You’re a friend of mine, Ikey, you say?
Well, then, prove it! Just forget that you
Saw me this evening—up-stairs.”
He looked at me doubtfully. Whatever
Suspicions he’d had of my visit to the old
colonel must have been justified now. But
I had to take the chance of his friendship


194 THE SPORT OF KINGS
for me compelling him to grant my request.
For if he blabbed about my seeing the
colonel, well—it might cause trouble, would
cause trouble for the old man.
“I don’t know, Mr. Kernan,” said the little
bookie. “I don’t think you realize—”
“I realize everything, Ikey,” I interrupted.
“My eyes are open; you needn’t give me any
hints; I don’t want them. I’m going to stay.
Are you going to keep your mouth shut?”
He pursed his fat lips. “It won’t do any
harm,” he said at length. “Und the old
colonel—”
“If it will relieve you any,” I said, “I’ll
tell you that Colonel Buckmaster’s position
is bigger to him than anything in the world.
He'll take no chances of losing it.”
“I’ll say nodding,” promised Ikey. He
half-turned away, then faced me again.
“Mr. Kernan, take a frient's advice.” He
stopped; greed, his inborn crookedness and
his fear all combined to wage war upon his
gratitude for my rescue of him back in
Long Island City. Gratitude won. “Don’t
start your mare on Saturday,” he said.
Then he turned and left me; but I knew


196 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Send me ten thousand. If don’t pay back
in ten days will return to New York square
things with stewards and work for you one
year without pay. Smiler Smith left here
to-day for New York. Pick him up on arrival
and note where he goes.”
This last a desperate clutching at a straw
of evidence.
Then I went to the hotel and to bed. In
for a penny, in for a pound! Not only would
I run Vivandiere, but the bank-roll would go
down! More than that: the Kernan pride,
the pride that made us never retract what
we had truthfully said, would be part of the
wager. Yet I was willing to risk even that,
though arrayed against me was the hidden
conspiracy which I could not quite fathom.
If the mare lost I’d apologize up north. But
on her fleet feet, and on my ability, fore-
warned, to see that she got a fair deal, I’d
stake everything: borrowed money, my
pride, my hope of winning Miss Leland. If
Vivandiere lost—but I put that thought from
me. She wouldn’t lose. *


CHAPTER XV
“REVEREND DOCTOR YANCEY”
WAS up early and out at the track before
many were astir in the hotel. But Jerry
was ahead of me; in the cool of dawn he'd
let Vivandiere jog around the track and now
she was back in her stall. But other horses
were darting about the track, and the rail-
birds, stop-watches in hands, were timing
the likely ones for themselves, or for their
employers, who might be bookmakers, or
tipsters who advertised and sold racing in-
formation in the big cities.
“Did you get hold of Pete?” was my first
question.
Jerry shook his head. “I think he’s beaten
it, Misther Sale. He didn’t show up to sleep
with the other boys last night, and they tell
me he was afther talkin’ about goin’ away
whin they last saw him.”
“When Was that?”
197


THE SPORT OF KINGS 199
“Not much use, Jerry,” I warned him.
“If he's made up his mind to disappear-
well, he handed me the man partway higher
up, anyway. Where does this fortune-teller
hang out?”
“I’ll take you down there,” he volunteered.
But I knew the rash temper of Jerry too
well. If the fortune-teller refused to talk,
to admit the truth of our slender suspicions,
Jerry would be apt despite his sixty-odd
years, to brain the man with the nearest
handy chair. I’m not wonderfully self-con-
trolled myself, but a little more so, on
occasion of need, than my faithful Jerry.
“You’d better stay here, Jerry,” said I.
“Then, if by any chance Pete shows around,
or you get word of his whereabouts, you'll
be able to act.” -
“I’ll act,” said Jerry grimly. “But even
though ye find out what ye'er afther, sor?
The crooks that run this place—will they
listen to ye?” .
“If the racing authorities up north get
proof of what's going on here, Jerry,” I
said, “it won’t be twenty-four hours before
they threaten to bar from the turf controlled


200 THE SPORT OF KINGS
by them all owners who race here, all horses
entered here, and all officials connected with
the track. That would mean that the public,
if the threat were made good, would refuse
to bet in the poolrooms on the races down
here. Will they listen to me? Jerry, I don’t
care whether they do or not! I'm out for
their hides: they told me they’re after
mine.”
Then I told him of last night's events.
Jerry whistled.
“And Vivandiere starts on Saturday,” I
ended. “So, Jerry, before Saturday, we’ve
got to get the goods!”
“We’re bitin’ off a whole lot, sor,” said
Jerry.
“We'll chew it,” I answered. “What else
is there for me to do? I’ve picked my path,
Jerry.”
“An’ I’m treadin’ it wid ye,” he said
grimly.
Then I left him and went toward the
huddle of shanties which was the negro
“Tenderloin” of Grantham, and where the
fortune-teller lived. It was only ten minutes’
walk from the stable and I found the place


THE SPORT OF KINGS 201
without difficulty. A sign over his front
door called the attention of the world that
passed to the fact that within dwelt the
“Reverend Doctor Yancey.” I pulled the
bell of the reverend doctor's home and in a
minute the door opened.
A yawning, blear-eyed negro, dressed in a
dirty red dressing-gown, and wearing carpet
slippers, so worn that a great black toe pro-
truded from each, looked at me.
“Whaffoh you wake me up dis time o’ de
mawnin', white man?” he asked insolently.
“Goddlemighty, it ain’ Seben o’clock and yoh
comes heah pullin’ on the bell like—”
My hands itched to knock him down; but
he stood a step above me, and I feared might
slam the door in my face if I made an overt
move. It was better to temporize.
“Aren’t you willing to do business any
time?” I demanded. “If you don’t want my
money I can take it elsewhere.”
His eyes widened with greed and he
stepped back, throwing the door wide.
“Scuse me, seh,” he said, “I done thought
yoh was de butcher's collector. Step in,
Seh.”


202 THE SPORT OF KINGS
I wasn’t particularly flattered but I
stepped in. “Right in de parlor, Seh,” said
his “reverence,” opening a door from the
hall.
I entered the parlor, so-called. In reality
it was his office, I imagine. At least, from
the walls hung heavy black curtains, dusty
from lack of care, and on them were crudely
painted representations of Biblical scenes.
On a flat table in the center of the room
stood a large crystal ball, and beside it was
a grinning skull. Also, around the room
were little figures stuck through with pins.
A queer minister! The Haytian “Voodoo”
will sell to a client a little doll, and will claim
that that doll represents his client’s enemy,
and that torture administered to the figure
is torture administered to the enemy. This
man claimed to be a voodoo all right, and I
knew how great a power such claims would
give him over ignorant negroes.
“Sit down, Seh, sit down,” said the negro.
“Yoh wanted to see me about—”
“You tell fortunes?” I asked.
“I hab combined de truth ob de Lawd wid
de truth of my race,” he said pompously.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 203
“Good from all sou’ces, seh. I am a minis-
ter ob de Gospel and likewise I am high in
de councils ob voodoo. I can tell de future,
de pas’, de present, de-Yoh wanted yoah
fortune told, Seh?”
There was in his voice that sneer of con-
tempt which the low negro has always for
the white man who will meet him on terms
of equality. By consulting him I was doing
more than that: I was admitting a su-
periority on his part, and he took unction to
himself accordingly. I looked him squarely
in the eye.
“You’re no more a minister than you are
a voodoo,” I said. “You’re a damn’ faker
and you’d better be careful of your manner
or I'll cut your black heart out and jump
On it. Understand?”
I was between him and the door now and
the interview could not be cut short by any
act of his. His teeth showed in a grin of
rage.
“Whaffoh yoh talk dataway? Whaffoh—”
“Sit down,” I snapped, “and don’t try and
make a run for the door or I'll pulverize
you! I want to talk to you, you black scoun-


204 THE SPORT OF KINGS
drel! What have you been doing to my
jockey, Pete Johnson?”
“I’ll call down de Vengeance ob—”
I walked over to him and shook my fist
under his flaring nostrils.
“You’ll call down nothing,” I snapped.
“You’ll answer my question. What have you
been doing to that jockey of mine? Answer
me now or—”
He was terrified—at once. “I jes’ dunno
who yoh mean, seh,” he stammered. “I
dunno any jockey by dat name—particular.”
“You know him by the name of Pete,
then,” I snapped, “if you don’t know his last
name. He rode Vivandiere yesterday.”
He knew; my far-flung guess had lighted
correctly. For his eyes lighted at the horse's
name. Nor, in his terror, did he dare to lie.
“Yasseh, yasseh, I knows de pusson now.
A little yaller-colored—”
He was trying to gain time and I cut him
short.
“You know; what did you tell him?
Never mind that; I know; you told him to
throw that race; told him to whip the horse.
Why? Who told you to do it?”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 205
He looked at me cunningly. Despite his
fear, his greed ruled him.
“Yoh mentioned money when yoh come in
heah, Seh,” he said.
“I’ll pay you,” I snapped, “if you tell me
the truth! If you don’t—”
His blear eyes were wicked. “How
much?”
“That depends on how much you can tell
me,” I answered.
“Oh, I can tell yoh lots,” he said, “if—”
My hands had dropped to my sides now
and I stood but a yard away from him,
awaiting his revelations, revelations that I
hoped would make the odds even, if not in
my favor, in the contest upon which I had
entered. And he caught me off my guard!
He sank a little lower into the chair he
had taken. He seemed to relax, and I felt
myself thrill with expectation. And then
he leaped! Taken by surprise he was past .
me, active negro that he was, before I could
put out a hand to stop him. He was across
the room and from a table had lifted a
metal-studded club, that might once, for all
I knew, have belonged to some African chief,


206 THE SPORT OF KINGS
or some high-priest of voodoo on the Island
of Hayti. He brandished it above his head,
his eyeballs rolling in his wrath.
“Come on, yoh white man,” he jeered.
“Mek me talk, will yoh? Come on now and
Shake yoah fist under ma nose!”
I did nothing of the sort. He wasn’t so
big as myself, but any difference between
us of weight and size was more than balanced
by that ugly club he brandished. And I
carried no gun.
“A fine minister you are,” I said.
He winked, still brandishing his club. “I
gits de money, white man.”
“And why is it you don’t want some of
mine?” I asked.
“Yoh ain’ got enough,” he sneered. “Yoah
name’s Ke'nan, ain’ it? Suah! Yoh trains
dis hawss Vivandiere, eh? Wheah yoh git
money to 'mount to anythin’? Go On outa
heah now, white man! I ain’ goin’ fool wid
yoh no more. I’m goin’ swing dis yeah club
an’ bat yoh one on de brains wid it an’ spill
dem all oveh dis cahpet if yoh don’ beat it
quick.”
He advanced a trifle toward me now and


|
d
jeere
“Come on, yoh white man,” he
|
-





THE SPORT OF KINGS 207
his eyes rolled farther back in their sockets.
I could see that he was working himself into
a frenzy; if he should succeed before I left
his house—well, an excited negro is as dan-
gerous, I rather imagine, as any Malay
running amuck.
“Maybe I haven’t so much,” said I, “but
my owner—she’ll spend a young fortune to
put you in jail, Yancey! The Leland horses
have always been run on the level and she'll
see to it that they always are; and that those
who prevent their doing it pay the penalty.”
Oh, it was a weak feeble sort of a threat;
I know it. But I could think of nothing else
to say. Nor could I do anything. If I
rushed Yancey I knew that that great club
would crash down on me. Possibly I might
avoid it and then subdue him. But it was
a chance I didn't care to take. I could only.
utter futile threats. At least, I thought the
threat was futile. I was not prepared for
the sudden dropping of the negro's jaw and
his wide-eyed stare.
“What's dat yoh say?” he stammered.
“Leland? What Leland dat? Yoh say ‘she’?
Who dat?”


208 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“The lady who owns Vivandiere,” I
answered.
“What heh name? Wheah She come
from? She dat Miss Robe’ta Leland what
come from down Stephanie?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Yoh lyin’ to me, white man? Yoh lie
to me and 'foh Gawd I bu'st yoh right now !”
And he took still another step toward me
and I could see, where the sleeves of his
dirty bath-robe had fallen back, the muscles
of his black arms tighten.
“Yoh lyin’ to me, white man?” he re-
peated.
“Look here, Yancey,” I said, “much more
of that talk and I may take a chance with
that club of yours. Miss Roberta Leland
owns Vivandiere. And now, you black
scoundrel, I’m going to leave you. And I’m
coming back with policemen; we’ll see then
whether you’ll talk so big.”
“Huh, dem coppers ain’ got nuffin’ on me,”
he jeered. “Dey don’ know me; neber been
in Grantham in my life befoh dis month.
Don’ yoh botheh 'bout dem police. Yoh
bring Miss Leland to me!”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 209
“Bring her here? What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say,” he said. “I—if yoh
ain lyin’ to me, yoh jes’ bring Miss Leland
heah. I’ll talk to helh.”
“Do you know her?”
“I know heh; and she'll know me,” he
said. “And if she does own yoah hawss
Vivandiere, I—I ain’ goin’ talk wid yoh!
Yoh bring heh heah.” He looked toward the
door leading into the hall. But I had closed
it. His voice lowered. “Yoh bring heh heah
befoh Sat'day,” he said. “Yoh bring heh
heah. And now—yoh git!”
I could see that there was nothing to be
gained by staying; whatever his reason for
seeing Miss Leland I knew that he would not
tell it to me. Nor could I hope, in the face
of that menacing club, to drag the truth
from him myself. Wondering, puzzled, as
gracefully as I could, I “got.” As I rode into
town on the trolley I kept repeating to my-
self the negro “minister’s” emphasized
words, “before Saturday.” Strange, incom-
prehensible in its daring ramifications as the
gigantic crooked system was; incapable of
absolute proof though my suspicions might


210 THE SPORT OF KINGS
in the end turn out to be, one thing was cer-
tain: Saturday was the day on which I
tumbled into the mire spread for me, or—
did some tumbling of other people. I won-
dered which—with a little more hope than
before my visit to the “Reverend Doctor
Yancey.”


CHAPTER XVI
BREAD UPON THE WATERS
T was only a trifle after nine when I
arrived at the hotel, but Miss Leland was
not in the dining-room, where, at that hour,
she usually might be found breakfasting
with her party. The head waiter told me
that all of them had breakfasted before
eight, so I went to the desk and asked that
my name be sent up to my employer. But
she was not in; the clerk believed that she
and her friends had taken the early boat to
St. Johnsburg, a resort near Grantham, but
separated from it by an arm of the sea.
Evidently they had gone on an excursion;
it was a common trip from Grantham. And
there was but the one boat which did not
return until evening, and the only train con-
nection was a long tedious journey around
the shore. Even if I took it and found Miss
Leland I could not get back to Grantham
211


212 THE SPORT OF KINGS
with her before night. I must possess my
soul in what patience I might call to my aid.
I hung around the lobby all morning, wait-
ing for an answer to my telegram to Sam
Benton, and filling in the long wait by vain
conjectures and attempts at Solution of the
puzzle, which all resolved themselves, for
answer, down to the person of the “Rev-
erend” Yancey. If he would talk to Miss
Leland—then, at last, I’d have something
more than hints which the speakers dared
not utter publicly, or frank admissions
which the speakers could easily deny. I’d
have the end of the clue that would lead to
the men “higher up.” And then—as Jerry
had asked—what then?
Well, for one thing: Dane was slightly
related to Classon. Might not Classon be
involved? Those stories about his brokerage
business being founded on a house of bucket-
shop cards might have something in them.
Of course, they were merely rumors, at that.
Still— But even though that proved to be
the nonsense it seemed, in cold truth, to be;
even though Classon had no interest in
Dane's doings, one thing, by the exposure


THE SPORT OF KINGS 215
“Sure, if Miss Leland can make him talk—
though Gawd knows why he should want to
See her—”
“We'll hope for the best, Jerry,” I said.
“You try and find out an honest boy to ride
the mare.”
“By gorry, I know him,” exclaimed Jerry.
“A dacint Irish lad, too, be th’ name of
Murphy. He's ridin’ for the Blair stable.
But they have no entry on Saturday. I’ll be
afther seein’ th’ trainer there an' gettin’ per-
mission for the lad to ride.”
“The Blair stable,” I said thoughtfully.
“Who is Blair, Jerry? We can’t afford to
pick up a boy from some stable in on the
deals here.” -
“It's all right,” averred Jerry. “I been
noticin’ the horses. And I’ve talked wid the
trainer; Simmons, his name is. He don’t
like the way things is goin’ here no more
than we do. His boy'll be safe.”
“Good! Any news of Pete?”
“Divil a wor-rd,” said Jerry.
Then I left him, knowing that whatever
the plot might be, I’d be safe in trusting my
jockey, and knowing, too, that if part of the


216 THE SPORT OF KINGS
plot consisted in damaging the mare, the
plotters would have to pass over Jerry’s dead
body to succeed. I watched the day’s races
from the grandstand, and saw nothing pe-
culiar, although I did think that one horse
might have finished in the money instead of
being a poor fourth. But, I reasoned, I
mustn't suspect everybody! The jock might
have been inexperienced.
At half past five I was back in the hotel.
But there was some delay on Miss Leland’s
return trip from St. Johnsburg. I learned
afterward that her steamer had gone
aground on a sand-bar, a common mishap,
and lost three hours. So it was nine when
she came back to the hotel, and I didn’t
speak to her until she and her party had
eaten a hasty supper. Then I approached
her, ignoring Dane, and asked for a moment
with her. I told her of my visit to the for-
tune-teller and his promise—implied—to
tell her of the reason for my boy’s bad ride
of yesterday. I also told her of the chain
of reasoning which had led to my visit to
the fortune-teller. She was bewildered by
it all, but too tired to talk much.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 217
“You should have been a detective, Mr.
Kernan,” she said. “But—I’ll go out with
you in the morning. And if anything can
be proved—”
Her lips tightened ominously.
“Miss Leland,” I said, as I was leaving
her, “will you please—er—not mention to
any one our visit of to-morrow?”
“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I—”
“I’m merely asking it as a favor,” I said.
She looked at me keenly for a moment.
Then she nodded assent and tripped away
to join her friends. I slept pretty well that
night.
Next morning, at ten o’clock, she joined
me in the hotel lobby and we took a carriage
out to the Reverend Yancey’s place. We said
very little on the trip, as she seemed to be
in an uncommunicative mood, and I was too
excited over the possible verification of my
charges by Yancey to wish her otherwise.
Yancey himself let us in; and this time he
was attired in a frock coat and patent leather
shoes whose pointed toes must have hurt his
feet, if the view I’d had of them the day
before enabled me to judge their size. His


218 THE SPORT OF KINGS
hall was rather dark and if he recognized
Miss Leland he said nothing, beyond an im-
pressively delivered “good morning,” and an
invitation to step into the parlor. We did
so. Yancey followed us in and shut the door.
Then he peered at the girl.
“It’s suah Miss Leland ob Stephanie,” he
said. Then he walked to the window, lifted
the shade and stood dramatically in the flood
of sunshine that ensued. “Don’ yoh know
me?” he asked.
“The-the convict?” she gasped.
Yancey grinned. “Yas'm. Buck Higgins,
ma'am. Dough I ain’ goin’ by dat name, no
moh, ma'am. I’m de Rebrend Ob'diah
Yancey, now, ma'am.”
“And you’ll be going by a number pretty
soon, you black rascal,” I said. “So that's
who you are, eh? That's why you wanted
to see Miss Leland! Well, by George, I
guess we can make you talk now.”
Miss Leland turned on me rebukingly.
“Considering that unless he’d wanted to talk
he'd not sent for me, I don’t think it's quite
fair—”
“No'm, Miss Leland, ma'am,” said the


222 THE SPORT OF KINGS
'splains. Sometime he’d lak to be suah a
ce’tain hawss don’ win. I asts why he don’
fix de jocks. He laffs an’ says mos’ly he
does, but dere’s cases wheah it won’ do foh
him to be mixed in a-tall. Dat's wheah I
come in. Ce’tain jocks visits me; I can
advise 'em how to ride deir races. He ast
me if 'tain’so dat dem jocks would do lak I
tell dem. I answeh him yes. Den he gets
down to cases.
“Seems lak dere’s a hawss named Vivan-
diere dat he don’t want to win. But dat
hawss’s trainer can’t be fixed nor his jock
neither. Leas' wise, dis man can’t fix dem.
But he says he's been Snoopin’ roun’ an” he
fin's de jock what'll ride de hawss is in de
habit of consultin’ wid me. I tells him dat’s
so. An’ he asts me if I could fix it so dat
jock, nex’ time he comes to get his fohtune
tol’, will promise to ride dat hawss to lose.
I grins at him; dat littul jock is about de
foolishest pusson dat visits me. I say I
guess dat's easy. An de man gives me
anodder piece of change an’ says he'll see
me again soon, an I can tell him what's
what.


224 THE SPORT OF KINGS
prove he hol's de right feelin's tohds dem, is
to make his hawss lose de nex’ race she
Stahts in.
“He gits all wohked up oveh dat an’ say
he can’t do it nohow. Den I tells him dat de
witches has ohdehed me to make him suffeh
if he don’ do what dey say, an I can’t do
nothin’ but mind dem. So I tells him dat I
got a figgeh of him all prepayehed, an’ dat
I gotta stick pins in it so his soul’ll git de
misehy an' go plumb to hell right away. An’
I stahts stickin’ de pins in right den.
“Well, dat fetches him; he ain’ got much
Sense nohow. But seems lak he don’ know
how he can lose dat race widout his boss
fin'in’ out he done it a-puppose. But dis
yeah white man has 'splained dat to me.
He's tol’ me dat all de jock gotta do is whip
de hawss tohds de end of de race and dat
dat hawss ain’ goin’ stand foh it. An I
tells de jock dat an’ he promises. An” he
goes ahead an’ does it day befoh yest'day.
Dat night de white man sends me a hund’ed
dollahs. But, Miss Leland, ma'am, I didn’t
know dat it was yoah hawss. I ain’ fohgot
what yoh done foh me an’ de Second I finds


THE SPORT OF KINGS 225
out de hawss is yoahs—well, I’m boun’ I tell
you no matteh what happens. But I ain’
anxious foh nothin’ to happen,” he went on,
“an’ I’m obliged to yoh if yoh don’ Sey
nothin’ a-tall.”
She looked at me. “What—what are we
to do, Mr. Kernan?” she asked, helplessly.
I didn’t answer her; I looked at the blear
eyes of the negro.
“You don’t know the name of the man who
bribed you?”
“No, seh.”
“But you’d recognize him?”
“Ce’tainly, seh. Of co’se. But I hopes I
don’git in no trouble wid dat man, seh. He
'pear to me lak a mighty brash soht of man
what wouldn’t lak nothin’ betteh than to
bu'st a niggeh's haid open, seh.” He turned
to Miss Leland. “You ain’ goin’ let me git
in no fuss, ma'am, are you? I done tol’ yoh
all dis beca’se you saved me las’ fall, but
I hope—”
“You’ve trusted me; you’ll not be be-
trayed,” she assured him quietly.
“An’ no one's goin’ know 'bout de turpen-
tine camp?”


226 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Not unless you tell them yourself,” she
answered.
“Lawdy, Miss Leland, ma'am, I ain’ goin'
do dat,” he chuckled.
“But, of course,” she said thoughtfully,
“you’ll have to repeat what you’ve already
told us. And the jockey will corroborate—”
“If we find him,” I interpolated. “He’s
disappeared. But we don’t need him. This
man’s story is enough—”
“It will be the word of a white man
against that of a negro—and this is a
Southern track,” she said.
“But there’s other corroboration,” I cried,
“Jerry saw the man come in here!”
Her eyes opened wide. “Jerry saw the
man? Then you know who he is!”
“I think I do,” said I.
“Who?”
But there was always the chance that the
cogs didn’t fit; if I accused Dane without
being certain—and, of course, I couldn’t be
certain, though I was sure enough—and if
it later transpired that some person other
than Dane had been the conspirator with


230 THE SPORT OF KINGS
She did not speak again until we were
almost at the hotel. Then:
“Mr. Kernan,” she said, “you do not like
Mr. Dane?”
“I do not,” I said frankly.
“And yet—when I asked you who the man
was, you would not answer.”
“It is not proved yet, Miss Leland,” I re-
minded her.
She made no answer to that, and yet I
seemed to read in her eyes an approbation
that was better than anything she could
have said. A moment later we drew up at
the hotel. As I helped her from the car-
riage, she said:
“I—I think I'll keep to my room to-day,
Mr. Kernan. I’ll see you this evening. I—
I’m not feeling well.”
I murmured some words of sympathy, and
when I had finished paying the driver she
had entered the hotel. A half minute later
I saw her entering the elevator. Shortly
thereafter I went out to the track, where
Jerry and I held conference.
“If the naygur sticks,” said Jerry, “ye’ve
got this man Dane on the run.”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 231
“Yes,” said I, “if he sticks. And there's
no reason why he shouldn't.”
“We’ll see to-night,” said Jerry.
It was the longest day I ever spent. I
had no wish to watch the afternoon races,
yet, for very lack of other things to do, I
did so. As soon as they were over I re-
turned to the hotel. And on my way there,
a thought came to me: why hadn't Miss
Leland suggested returning at once to the
fortune-teller's and confronting Dane? The
idea had come to me as we sat there in the
carriage, but for various reasons I’d not
suggested it. Why hadn’t it come to her?
It probably had | Then why hadn’t we got
the nasty business over with at once? Then
I remembered that Dane was a frank suitor
for her hand. In the shock of the suspicion
that had come to her she had wanted to be
alone; to think. That was only natural.
She wished to be in the frame of mind to
judge fairly. Time would bring that frame
of mind. That’s how I read her attitude,
anyway. And yet, having come to that con-
clusion, I nevertheless wished that the con-
fronting of Dane had not been postponed.


CHAPTER XVII
DOCTOR YANCEY DOES NOT APPEAR
66 UR mirthful friend went directly to
call upon Classon. What's the
answer?”
Such was the telegram from Sam Benton.
My far-fetched suspicions were by way of
being verified. What business could Smiler
Smith have with Francis Classon—honest
business? What possible reason was there
for a notorious bookie and poolroom owner
to visit a prominent stock-broker who was
also a steward of the Jockey Club? No
honest reason |
It was exasperating; here I had at my
finger-ends all the moral proof I needed; but
the physical proof—the proof that would be
needed if I were to overthrow the gang
fattening on the rottenness of Grantham and
defeat their shady ends—the physical proof
233


THE SPORT OF KINGS 235
Yancey was still missing. And now I knew
that something must be wrong. For Surely
the negro's sense of gratitude had not made
him go so far only to withdraw now. And
he had been grateful; no question about that.
What, then, had caused his gratitude to stop
short of the point where it might prove use-
ful to us? Downcast, I entered the draw-
ing-room. Miss Leland left her friends and
came to me.
“Well?” Said She.
“Yancey isn’t here yet,” I answered.
“Then he isn’t coming, do you think?”
“It doesn’t look that way,” I admitted.
“Then what are we to do?” she asked.
“Why,” I said, “I’ll go out to his place
again in the morning and—”
“And meanwhile I’ll have cherished evil
suspicions for twenty-four hours,” she inter-
rupted.
I stared at her.
“Mr. Kernan,” she said, “every person has
the right of confrontation with his accusers.
And if the accusers can’t be produced, to
hear the accusation. I have known Carteret


236 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Dane for many years; I have never known
him to do a dishonorable thing; he has done
me the honor to ask me to marry him.”
She paused a moment, drew a long breath,
and, as I stared stupidly at her, went racing
On.
“I am not engaged to Mr. Dane. Yet
I have not definitely refused him. And I
tell you these things that you may know why
it is that I can not endure holding what
thoughts of him to-day has brought me with-
out letting him know those thoughts.”
“But to-morrow I’ll have Yancey—”
“How do you know?” she cut me short.
“He said he would be here to-night; yet he
has not come! Do you think, Mr. Kernan,
that I could rest to-night if I had not frankly
told Mr. Dane of my thoughts? Do you
think it has been pleasant to be with him
this past hour and not voice the thoughts
within me? I am going to ask him now if
these things are true.”
Of course, I could see her point of view;
absolutely square and on the level; and I
made no attempt to stay her as she beckoned
to Dane. He left the group and joined us,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 237
Smiling upon Miss Leland and favoring me
with a glance that I thought was sneeringly
triumphant.
“You wanted me, Bobbie?”
“Carter,” she said, “you remember what I
told you the other night? That Mr. Ker-
nan’s jockey had confessed to him that he
threw the race on Tuesday?”
“I remember,” he said calmly.
“Mr. Kernan has since discovered that a
negro fortune-teller named Yancey—or call-
ing himself that name—frightened Vivan-
diere's jockey into acting as he did in the
race.”
“Yancey? Why, I can’t believe that
worthless vagabond would dare tamper with
a jockey,” said Dane.
“You know him, then?” she asked.
“Why, yes,” replied Dane. And I thought,
though I may have imagined it, that from
the corner of his eye he flashed a look of
malicious amusement at me. His calm ad-
mission of acquaintance with Yancey stag-
gered me. I think it did Miss Leland, too.
“I saw him this morning,” went on Dane
easily. “My valet, Jeff, came to me early


238 THE SPORT OF KINGS
*
this morning and said that a voodoo man
was bothering the life out of him. Seems
that he'd been visiting this fellow Yancey,
and Yancey had been threatening him with
witchcraft if he didn’t buy him off. So I
told Jeff I’d settle this voodoo man’s hash.
I did, too,” he chuckled. “I’ll bet he's cleared
out of Grantham by this time. I told him
that I’d have the police on his trail if he
didn’t quit annoying my man. Shouldn’t
wonder if he thinks this town may grow too
hot to hold him and had gone to seek new
pastures.”
Again I felt, rather than saw, that glance
of malicious mirth in the corner of his eye.
For I knew he was lying. But what a plaus-
ible lie! Undoubtedly his colored valet,
Jeff, would stand by him in the yarn, too.
And it would be useless for me to repeat to
Miss Leland the threats of Dane to me. Al-
ready I felt that she looked a bit coldly
upOn me.
“Yes,” she said to Dane, “we saw you go-
ing into Yancey’s house this morning.”
If Dane were not surprised at this state-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 239
ment—and subtly I felt that he was not—he
counterfeited amazement remarkably well.
“You saw me? You said “we.’ What do
you mean?”
“Mr. Kernan and I,” explained Miss Le-
land. “We were in a carriage; had just left
Yancey’s house, and—”
“Just left Yancey’s house? What on
earth do you mean, Bobbie?” He looked from
one to the other of us in curiosity.
Miss Leland's hands doubled into fists and
her sweetly curving lips trembled. She
made one or two false starts.
“Carter—Mr. Kernan and I—he told
me—” She drew breath and began again.
“Mr. Kerman told me that he’d suspected
this man Yancey was at the bottom of Wi-
vandiere's bad ride. He told me that he'd
been to see Yancey, and that Yancey wanted
to see me. Yancey had promised to talk to
me. So we went out there and Yancey was
a negro named Higgins that I—” She hesi-
tated. I hardly believe that she knew why
herself. Anyway, she did not tell Dane of
her rescue of Yancey—or Higgins—from


240 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the posse. She said merely, “that I knew in
Stephanie. Out of gratitude for a favor
done he was willing to confess to me. He
said that he had worked upon the fears of
my jockey until he made him whip Vivan-
diere out of Tuesday’s race. And he said
that a white man had bribed him to do this.”
She stopped, and Dane stared at her.
“Well?” he said. '
She moistened her trembling lips.
“Yancey did not know the name of the white
man who had bribed him, but Said he’d rec-
ognize him, of course. And he agreed to be
at the hotel here to-night, and if he saw the
man to—to-point him out.”
Dane was still innocence personified.
“Well?” he said again.
“Don’t you see, Carter? Mr. Kernan sus-
pected that it was you, and I saw you go
into Yancey’s house and—and—”
“Bobbie!” Hurt pride, humiliation, grief,
outraged love—he was a fine actor, Dane,
and should have been on the stage. Re-
proachfully he looked at her.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “I know what a
beast I’ve been to think such things. But—”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 241
“Not a word, dear,” he said. “You were
deceived ! I don’t blame you although,
knowing me, knowing what we are to each
other—”
“Don’t, Carter, don’t,” she said faintly.
“I—feel so—”
“No need to feel badly,” he said. “But as
for the man who filled your innocent ears
with his lies—you, Kernan | Where's the
man that was to identify me to-night?”
His voice was hard, but no harder than
mine as I answered. “Perhaps you know
that, Dane, I don’t.”
He laughed scornfully. “See, Bobbie? I
told you what it meant to employ a man
ruled off the track up north. How can you
expect honesty from—”
“Easy,” I warned, “easy.”
“No threats, please, Kernan,” he snapped.
“I’ve stood about enough from you. You see
his scheme, Bobbie? The man’s crazy to
think he can impose upon any one.
He had money on Vivandiere—he says. To
me it looked as though—well, Bobbie, the
track officials have set on foot an investiga-
tion of that ride. Kernan's stage play didn’t


242 THE SPORT OF KINGS
fool them as he thought. The judges have
reason to believe that he himself instructed
his jockey to whip the mare. Knowing his
danger he cooks up this wild scheme: this
talk of Yancey being bribed by some un-
known white man to fix Vivandiere's jockey.
Yancey couldn’t tell you the white man’s
name. No. But Yancey said he would be
here to-night. He never intended to be here,
I don’t believe, nor did Kernan expect him.
For Kernan knew that no negro would dare
to face me with a lie on his lips. A coward's
Scheme, Bobbie!
“A blow in the dark at me! A prepara-
tion for next Saturday's race, when, if the
mare loses again, he'll have a good excuse.
There'll be more talk of plot and—augh!
Bobbie, the man’s insane on the subject of
plots! He was barred from the turf in New
York because of that craziness. Discharge
him now and be rid of him!”
He stopped, glaring at me. As for me—
well, I held myself in. I could see that what
he had said must make its impression. Clev-
erly, suavely, had Dane turned the tables.
He’d been prepared for this. But who had


THE SPORT OF KINGS 243
told him? It was hard for me to believe that
Yancey’s gratitude to Miss Leland had been
feigned. How then had Dane known of
what was coming? How had he been pre-
pared? Then I saw it. Dane had paused a
second before entering Yancey’s home; he
must have seen us in the carriage and recog-
nized us. He had coupled our presence there
with my statement that my jockey had con-
fessed. He was not dull, this man Dane.
And so he had come upon Yancey, surprised
him into admission—I could visualize the
whole scene. And it was not hard to im-
agine what Dane had been doing, calling
upon Yancey this morning. Yancey had em-
phasized the fact that Miss Leland must see
him before Saturday. Although I had for-
gotten, this morning, to ask him what he
had meant by that, it was not hard to guess
the meaning. It had to do with Vivandiere's
race on that day. And now—I shrugged
my shoulders as I waited for Miss Leland to
speak.
“You hear what Mr. Dane says, Mr. Ker-
nan?”
I bowed my head. “Mr. Dane is not


244 THE SPORT OF KINGS
afraid to speak boldly in the presence of a
lady,” I said.
“You did not hesitate to bring just as
grave accusations against him,” she re-
torted.
“Mine are justified,” I said boldly. “Mr.
Dane—”
“I will not listen to such talk,” she cried
angrily. “Mr. Dane has explained; I beg his
pardon for ever having dared to doubt him
for a moment!”
“To his own Satisfaction he has ex-
plained,” I said.
“To mine!” she cried angrily. She looked
long at me; and her eyes were cold; hard,
almost. “Mr. Kernan,” she said slowly, “it
is hard for me to believe that the man who
risked his life for Vivandiere can be any-
thing other than an honorable gentleman. I
have believed you—greatly. I can not un-
derstand your—”
“Pardon me, Miss Leland,” I interrupted
her. “I’d like to ask Mr. Dane one question.
Mr. Dane, will you kindly tell me your rela-
tions with Smiler Smith?”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 245
He started slightly, but his voice was un-
der control as he replied.
“Not recognizing your right to ask any
such question, still—I’ll answer it. Who is
Smiler Smith?’”
I shrugged my shoulders. I turned to
Miss Leland. “I think that's all, Miss Le-
land,” I said. “Yancey hasn’t come; Mr.
Dane is safe in his denials; I seem to be a
fool, frightened of bogies and—”
“You’re not a fool, Mr. Kernan,” she said.
“Nor do I think—I will be fair to you, Mr.
Kernan. Mr. Dane tells me to discharge
you.”
“You have that privilege,” I said coldly.
“Of course; but I do not wish to exercise
it. You have hinted at things not creditable
to Mr. Dane. Mr. Dane replies, in part, by
intimating, by charging, that you are paving
the way to Vivandiere's defeat on Saturday.
Mr. Kernan, how good a chance has Vivan-
diere in the Hotel Stakes?”
“She should win by lengths,” I replied.
“That is your opinion?”
“It’s an opinion,” I said, “that I intend to


246 THE SPORT OF KINGS
back with my money; so much money, Miss
Leland, that there can be no question, in the
minds of sane people, as to my honesty in
starting the mare.”
“How much?” Sneered Dane. “A hundred
dollars?”
“Ten thousand,” I said.
Involuntarily Dane whistled. His eyes
held a fleeting gleam of respect for an ad-
versary who fought so hard and against such
odds. For he knew that I was no fool and
recognized the odds against me. Miss Le-
land looked surprised.
“So much as that? Indeed! Then, Mr.
Kernan, if you’ll risk that much on a horse,
trained by you, your honesty is beyond ques-
tion.”
“If he bets it,” put in Dane.
The girl looked from one to the other of
us. “I believe he will,” said she.
But Dane did not like this turn of events.
“Aren’t you going to discharge him, Bob-
bie? Not because of his insult to me, of
course, but because he's bluffing. He won’t
make such a bet; Vivandiere will lose and
he'll have his excuse and—”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 247
The girl looked at me. “If Vivandiere
loses Mr. Kerman will make no excuse. He
has said his horse will win, I expect Vivan-
diere to Win.”
She inclined her head in token of dis-
missal, and with a bow I left them. There
was more than ever at stake upon Satur-
day's race now. My honor, in the eyes of
Miss Leland, was at stake. For my effort
to show Dane's connection with crookedness
had failed; she was inclined, in the reaction
from suspicion to faith in the man who had
proposed to her, to look suspiciously upon
me. She expected Vivandiere to win! That
meant that if the mare lost, the girl would
think me a liar, a thrower of mud upon bet-
ter men—she’d think my betting talk was
what Dane called it—a bluff. She'd think
I’d carefully concocted all my charges of
crookedness to hide my own cloud, like any
cuttlefish, to hide my own evil presence. If
Vivandiere lost! If she lost!
I left the hotel and took a car. Too much
was at stake; I wanted to sleep in the same
building with the mare. Jerry was a good
protector, but two are always better than one.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 249
A coin refreshed her memory. Yes,
Yancey had left word for Mr. Kernan. It
was to the effect that he was powerful sorry
he couldn’t do what he had promised but im-
portant business had called him away. Also,
the “minister” had left Word that Mr. Ker-
nan was to “watch out” on Saturday.
And that was all. Dane overlooked few
bets.
I left her then; there was no more to be
gained by talking with her. Yancey had left
town; the promised disclosure of the plot
against the mare was not to be. At least,
not through the medium of the negro ex-
convict whose gratitude had not been proof
against the bribes or threats of Dane.
The spilt milk had hardly been mopped
up.
Jerry was seated at the door of the stable,
smoking a battered old pipe when I arrived
there.
I sat down wearily on a stool beside him.
“I wanted to be with the mare,” I told him.
He nodded, as though my coming but con-
firmed his own gloomy suspicions.
“The naygur didn’t stick?” he asked.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 251
it looks as though Classon is interested in
poolrooms, but—proof, Jerry, proof! I'm
all muddled up!”
“Did the lady seem terr’ble surprised
whin ye told her ye’d bet tin thousand dol-
lars?”
“Not terribly; she looked surprised
though.”
“I shud think she might,” sniffed Jerry.
“And she didn’t ast ye where ye got it? Ye
that wor-rks for her for two hundred a
mOnt’?”
“No,” I answered.
“And they say a woman’s curious,” said
Jerry.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The man looking on sees a lot of the
game,” he said, “but it ain’t the proper
thing for him to advise one of the players,
now is it, sor?”
He knocked the ashes from his pipe and
filled it again, while I stared at him in per-
plexity. He tamped the fresh tobacco down
with a blunt forefinger, and lighted a match.
“Did ye ivir stop to think, Misther Sale,”
he inquired, “that there's more real ac-


THE SPORT OF KINGS 253
horses are opposed to her. We know that
she can give ten pounds to the best horse in
the race and breeze home lengths in the
lead. As far as a bet goes, it's legitimate
enough. But—there's more than the mere
money to be gained. There's—”
“I understand,” he said. “And I wouldn’t
be afther preventin' ye from bettin’. Ye
know that. All I got mesilf goes down on
her. But—Misther Sale, I don’t leave the
horse one second from now until she goes to
the post!”
“And I won’t be absent much,” I said
grimly. “Jerry, if all these suspicions of
ours are absolutely true, and all these hints
and threats are true—Jerry, we’re old horse-
men—both of us! There isn’t any trick of
the game we aren’t wise to. You say Mur-
phy is honest. You know men well enough:
I’ll take your word on that. And no one
will get near the mare between now and the
race. And during the race—I’ll give Mur-
phy instructions how to ride—nothing can
happen during the race. We both know all
that. Then, Jerry, when the devil and how
the devil will they rib us up?”


254 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“If we knew that,” said Jerry, “we’d not
worry. How? Gawd knows, Misther Sale.
And mebbe—sometimes a bluffer lays down
his hand whin the play is too strong. Mebbe
nawthin's goin’ to be ribbed up.”
“I’m dead sure of that,” I said grimly.
“But how will they try?”
“They may not even try, Misther Sale,”
he said.
But both he and I shook our heads at that.
Matters were too sinister for us to gather
any consolation from the belief that my hand
was too strong for the Grantham gang to
buck. We knew they’d buck it—how?
Jerry had two cots on the stable floor,
drawn across the entrance to Vivandiere's
stall. There we spent the night. Not a
restful one for me, for the tension I was
under was too great for me to slip away
from it even in my sleeping hours. I had no
dreams, but ever and again I’d wake with a
start, look around me, and then, content that
no intruder had come to the stable, try to
sleep some more. It was a bad night.
And the ensuing day was worse. Of
course, the early morning was passed in my


258 THE SPORT OF KINGS
want. And yet—he could not have suffered
more than he did now, conscious that he
was dishonorable, had his daughter been
starving. He didn’t know that, but—it was
true. Gloomily I turned back to the tele-
graph. It was from Benton and it read:
“Your letter received. Think you must
exaggerate danger. Anyway, no one will
pull anything on you with your eyes open.
Can learn nothing of S.’s business with C.
Maybe things are rotten but not so open as
you think. You’re plot shy after experience
up here. Glad the mare is right. Have
tipped a few of your friends and are going
down strong. Luck to you.”
I smiled bitterly. I couldn’t blame old
Sam, despite the evidence of rottenness
which I had written him two days ago. No
one, not actually “in the know,” could be-
lieve that things were as bad as I painted
them. I was sorry that my pity for old Col-
onel Buckmaster had made me refrain from
mentioning my talk with him in my letter to
Sam. That would have convinced my old


260 THE SPORT OF KINGS
wakeful, Friday night was even worse. I
barely closed my eyes all night. And every
time I moved Jerry would start up from his
cot and ask me what was wrong, so I knew
that he, too, was wakeful. But I hardly
think that either of us can be blamed much.


CHAPTER XIX
A SLEIGH-RIDE—AND THE JUDGES STAND
HAD given young Murphy his final
instructions, and I was convinced that he
was not only honest, but intelligent and cap-
able. From my wallet I drew twenty crisp
five-hundred-dollar bills that I had received
from the bank that morning in exchange for
the telegraph company’s check. I separated
one of them from the bunch and held it up
before the lad’s eager eyes.
“This goes down on the mare—for you,” I
told him.
He turned, slim and trim in his white rid-
ing breeches, shiny black boots, silken blue
shirt and golden sash slanting across his
chest. He looked at the mare, fit, ready,
shining. Then he turned back to me.
“She’s a horse, sir,” he said simply.
“She’d win with an exercise boy up, ridden
fairly. With me—my fee's enough for me,
261


THE SPORT OF KINGS 263
what my words meant. But I’m a horse-
man. And I say she knew!
“So long, girl,” I said.
I left the mare with her jock and old
Jerry. The race was too near, now, I be-
lieved, for any tampering to be done with
her. I had to get my money down, and
Jerry could guard her. I walked to the bet-
ting ring. And as I walked I wondered.
There’d been no attempt to harm the
mare; absolutely nothing suspicious. I was
sure of Murphy; no man with eyes like his
could be other than honest. And the ride
I’d planned for him precluded any possi-
bility of disqualification of the mare. Rot-
ten as the gang who ran things might be,
there were limits. If four thousand people
—and there were that many in the stands
to-day—could watch every inch of the ride
and see daylight between my mare and the
nearest opponent all the way, the judges
wouldn’t dare disqualify her for crowding,
or anything like that. That would be too
raw; the crowd might storm the judges’
stand!
Then—how? Once again I asked myself


THE SPORT OF KINGS 265
fectly plain, and a certainty against me, I
still, from very stubbornness would have
done as now I did; even with mystery Sur-
rounding me, with only my inability to see
how the plot would be worked to make me
think it could not be carried through. For
I went down the line of bookies and bet them
a thousand apiece—nine of them—to win.
The odds were two to one against my
beauty, and not a bookie shaded the price at
sight of the two five-hundred-dollar bills I
thrust into his hand. I had nine tickets in
my hand, each calling for three thousand
dollars if the mare won, when I reached Ikey
Blatz stool. Ikey, in his way, had been
decent to me. The thrill of betting such
large sums gave me renewed confidence. I
didn’t want to take his money.
“You don’t have to bet with me, Ikey,” I
said to him.
“I notice you comin’ down the line, Mr.
Kernan,” he grinned. “I hear them call
your bets. I don’t see no one rubbing your
mare off the slate.”
“But they aren’t offering any of that six
to one stuff to-day, Ikey,” I retorted.


266 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“The field ain’t so good,” he grinned. “Be-
sides, your mare showed something the last
time out.”
“She’ll show more to-day,” I said. “Want
a part of what's left?”
Ikey leaned over until his face was near
mine. “Not a part of it, Mr. Kernan, I'll
take it all. I’m a friend of yours, Mr. Ker-
nan, and you know it. But if a man wants
to throw his money away—why—”
“Are you giving me a tip to keep off,
Ikey?” I asked him.
He shook his head. There was no nerv-
ousness in his manner to-day. Instead, he
was innocent of manner, bland, cool, calm.
He spoke without accent.
“Why should I?” he inquired. “If you
think your horse is good, why—bet on her.”
I handed him my remaining thousand dol-
lars, received the ticket and walked away. It
was not hard to fathom the reason for Ikey's
change from last Tuesday. If Ikey were
deeply in “the know,” he realized that I was
a menace to Grantham as the track was now
conducted. And while I was his friend—
well, Ikey's friendship would never interfere


268 THE SPORT OF KINGS
ance—and they were numerous—had sus-
pected that I was in some “job” to make the
mare lose last Tuesday had forgotten that.
The public does not hold suspicion long.
They had forgotten how they had hooted me
and called me robber but four brief days
ago; all they remembered was that Vivan-
diere had run a good race for eight-ninths
of the distance and would have won but for
a jockey's criminal misjudgment. So now
they had made Vivandiere second choice in
a field of nine. Only Jeanne d'Arc, a first-
class little filly, but not to be mentioned with
my mare, was held at shorter odds. Jeanne
d' Arc was at evens, and a good play, be-
cause of her unbroken string of eight
straight wins, was being made on her. But
more was going down on my mare, and, if
amount of money wagered should affect the
odds—and it always does—Vivandiere
should now be at four to five. Yet she held
up, even though I’d tossed ten thousand dol-
lars into the ring. There wasn’t a doubt in
the world; the books were certain that Wi-
vandiere would lose.
I felt the loneliest man in the world, as,


270 THE SPORT OF KINGS
was a mile and a quarter, even better suited
to her than the distance of Tuesday, though
she carried three pounds more to-day. Away
outside Murphy took her; he lost another
length around the first and second turns;
then they straightened out in the back-
stretch; I saw Murphy’s blue silk jacket
with the golden stripe lean forward; I saw
her seem to stretch out horizontally; horse
after horse fell behind her; they neared the
middle of the stretch, half the distance not
done—Vivandiere shot by—she went a clear
length to the front and then, with daylight
between her and the bunch, Murphy sent her
in to the rail. A sleigh-ride! By the bones
of Lexington, a sleigh-ride!
Out of the tangled wilderness of sound,
One shrill voice could be heard by me. It
was a man just in front of me. “Damn the
luck,” he whined, “he's killin’ her off! She'll
go back to the bunch like a man fallin’ down
a well; whynell didn’t he hold her back?
She's a loser 99
I leaned over and tapped him on the
shoulder.


274 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“And I’m goin’ wid ye, sor,” said Jerry.
He followed me up the steep stairs. Holt
met me at the top.
“Kernan,” he snapped, “have your horse
taken to the stable at once! That your man
behind you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Tell him to take the mare to the stable
at once. As for you—you wait here!”
“Go,” I said to Jerry.
A dazed look in his eyes, that must have
matched my own, Jerry stumbled down the
steps. A moment later I saw him lead the
dancing mare off the track.
“Result! Result!” cried the crowd.
Judge Kendrick walked to the front of
the stand; he lifted a hand for silence. Then
he put the megaphone to his lips and cried:
“The result of the last race will not be an-
nounced for a few moments. Please wait
patiently until the report of the veterinary
now examining Vivandiere can be an-
nounced.”
I understood now! I sprang toward Ken-
drick as he faced me.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 275
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Do
you dare stand there and—”
“Kerman,” he snapped. “One word from
you and I’ll bar you from this track.”
My fists clenched; I think, understanding
the purport of the plot, its deadly effective-
ness, my own helplessness against its work-
ing, I’d have knocked Kendrick down in that
second of blazing wrath had not Colonel
Buckmaster interposed. His face was
ghastly white and his lips were bloodless as
he spoke to me. *
“Be calm, Misteh Kernan, be calm.”
Simple words but they had an effect on me.
To resort to violence would only prejudice
what case I had, and that, with my judges in
the plot against me, was little enough, God
knows! But calmness was my only chance
—now. Later—
In a daze I walked to the front of the
stand. If I had thought I’d been hissed four
days ago, I knew now that the crowd had
been gentle with me on Tuesday. For now,
at sight of me, and always prejudging, as is
the habit with crowds, they stood up and


278 THE SPORT OF KINGS
/
A man’s head and shoulders rose above
the floor of the judges’ stand. I recognized
him; he was Doctor Groome—well-named for
a veterinary. He was a short pursy little
man, with eyes that ever wandered. He
licked his lips as he looked at us.
“Well,” snapped Kendrick, as the little
man failed to speak.
“The mare, Vivandiere, was doped,” he
said. “I found marks of the needle—”
“You lie!” I Cried.
Kendrick turned on me. “Enough from
you, Kernan! You're barred from this
track; the race is declared
“Just one minute!” It was my owner
talking. “I own Vivandiere. Before you
take any such measures as these, you will
permit me to have my own veterinary look
at the mare.”
“Bobby!” Dane spoke to her. “Don’t be
foolish. Mr. Kendrick 59
She bit her lip. “What evidence have you,
even though Vivandiere was doped, to
charge Mr. Kernan with the offense?”
“Evidence? We have the man who did it
at Mr. Kernan’s orders! Sam, come here!”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 279
From a corner of the judges’ stand shuf-
fled a negro. He had been unnoticed up to
now, by me, as though all this were a play,
and he had been waiting for his cue in the
wings, before coming forth to denounce me,
the villain. He pointed his hand at me.
“Dat's de man, gemmen,” he said. “Dat's
de man done gie me fohty dollahs to stick a
needle into his mare!”





284 THE SPORT OF KINGS
shudder even now to think what might have
happened to the girl had they stormed the
stand. -
“Don’t move,” said the colonel. “I’ve used
my gun, seh. I’ll use it once moh if need-
ful.”
Kendrick spoke. “Buckmaster, you’re in-
Sane! Do you realize—”
“I realize,” said the colonel, “that I
thought I was bought. But I wasn’t! No,
by gad, Seh ! Hiahed, maybe, but not bought!
Theah’s limits! They have been reached. I
thought—my Gawd, I thought that I’d stoop
to anythin'! I thought I’d reached the plumb
lowest level of disonah! But I haven’t. If
yoh’d done anythin’ else—if yoh’d disquali-
fied for crowdin’—but to say that the son
of Majah Jack Kernan doped his own mare
—I won’t stand foh it! By the Gawd that
made me, seh, I’m low! But not so low as
that! Yoh have yoah gun, Mr. Holt, seh !
You have an equal chance! I give you until
I count three! If befoh that time yoh have
not called down to the man at the board to
post Vivandiere's number, by the Lawd, seh,
I fiah 1”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 285
He glared about him; Kendrick withered
under his glance; Dane went white; ghastly
white.
“Don’t mind him,” cried Dane. “The old
fool won’t dare—”
“My second shot will be foh yoh, Seh,” said
the colonel calmly. “Foh yoh, the masteh
crook. Foh yoh, who’d blacken a man's
name in the eyes of— Foh yoh, who'd kill
two birds with one stone. Two!”
“Let’s rush him; let's—”
I saw Dane crouch; I saw his loose lower
lip tremble with wrath. I stepped before
him. “Stay where you are,” I ordered.
“You—you, Kernan! You—” he rushed.
I struck him only once and he went
down— to stay. I turned to Kendrick, who,
white-faced, shaking, could only stare at the
gun in the colonel’s hand. He wasn’t worth
bothering with. I turned to Holt. He
seemed mesmerized by the colonel's eye. He
dared not press the trigger on which his fin-
ger rested. “I am about to count three,”
said the colonel. “I shall fire immediately
afterward. Thr—”
He didn’t finish the word; Holt's gun


286 THE SPORT OF KINGS
dropped to the floor of the stand. Hoarsely
he called down the steps to the waiting
clerk. “Vivandiere first, Jeanne d' Arc
Second, Halidon third.”
He turned back to us. “You may go,” he
said chokingly. “There's law in this land
and—”
“And yoh’ll neveh call to it,” said the
colonel.
“But I’ll see that you are—”
“Neveh mind me,” said the colonel. He
bowed to Miss Leland. “Shall we leave this
—er—den of thieves, ma'am?”
But I saw a flash in the eyes of Holt.
“Not yet, Colonel,” I cried. “Jerry!” I
thrust into his outstretched hands my bunch
of tickets on the last race. “Cash them—
quick! When they’re cashed, come back.
Until then—”
There were drops of foam on Holt's lips,
but he did not interfere with Jerry, as my
faithful follower darted past him, down the
steps and across the track, to mingle with
the crowd, that now was hoarsely cheering
for Vivandiere.
“No danger, if we stay here until the bets


THE SPORT OF KINGS 287
are cashed, of them changing the posted re-
sult,” I smiled.
The colonel nodded gravely. Miss Leland
spoke to him.
“Colonel, was this all—did they all know-
of this plot? Were they in it? All of
them?”
She looked down at the almost-forgotten
Dane, just beginning to sit up.
“All. And myse'f, too,” he said gravely.
“But I—theah is limits, Miss Leland, and
I—”
“You are a brave and honest gentleman,”
she cried.
Dane rose unsteadily to his feet. He
glared around at us. He felt the bruised spot
on his jaw, where my fist had landed with
every ounce of my strength.
“You—you—what happened?” he asked.
“Bobbie! what are you—”
Remembrance came to him. He glared at
Holt and Kendrick. “You let—what have
you done?”
“Vivandiere's number has been posted,” I
said. “The books are now paying off the
bets on my mare.”


288 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Paying off? On Vivandiere?” His voice
rose to a shriek. “Do you realize—Holt!
Kendrick! Did you stand for this? Don’t
you know that—”
“Carteret,” said Miss Leland, “what differ-
ence can it make to you whether Vivandiere
is declared winner or not?”
If after what Colonel Buckmaster had said
there remained the slightest doubt still, it
vanished now.
“Difference?” Shrieked Dane. “Differ-
ence? All the difference in the world. It
means that—”
“Then you were in this conspiracy to de-
feat Vivandiere; to rob her of the victory
she earned. What Mr. Kernan told me was
true; his suspicions were true. You—Car-
teret, you’re a thief!”
But he was lost to all sense of shame now.
“Thief! Don’t talk nonsense, you little
meddler ! If you’d minded your own busi-
ness and kept out of here—”
“That's plenty, Dane,” I snapped. “Un-
less you want more.”
He glared at me, red murder in his eye.
He looked away and his eye fell on the re-


290 THE SPORT OF KINGS
up, saw me. His face split in a wonderful
grin. He shook at me a thick packet of bills.
I waved my hand at him, and then turned
back to Miss Leland.
“I will,” I said.
She drew her skirt closely about her, as
though afraid it might be soiled if she
brushed against the loose-lipped, desperate-
eyed Dane. She looked at Colonel Buck-
master.
“You will come with us, Colonel?”
“He’d better,” snapped Holt. “If he stays
here—”
“I’d be in no dangeh, Seh, at the hands of
yoh,” said the colonel.
“No, you welcher, but you’ll be in danger
at the hands of your butcher and grocer and
—your daughter! When she's in an alms-
house, you double-crossing—”
Dane stopped, awed by the look in the
colonel’s eyes.
“I p’omised my dead wife,” said the col-
onel slowly, “afteh I shot Colonel Tobey foh
passin’ me th’ lie, thet I’d neveh kill anotheh
man. But yoh ain’t a man, yoh scoun’rel!
Yoh breathe my daughter’s name—yoh think


THE SPORT OF KINGS 291
heh name, seh, an’ I’ll blow yoah heaht
Out!”
It was Dane's last word; it was the last
word from any of them; beaten, baffled, they
drew aside while we, triumphant, passed
from the judges’ stand down to the track,
where the crowd that had but just a few
minutes before cursed me with every ounce
of hate in their bodies, now cheered me as
the trainer of the winner of the Hotel
Stakes. But I felt no elation at their ap-
plause. I have long since discounted the
mob's applause as I have its censure. The
praise or censure of people as units, means
Something to me. But when it comes from
the mob, its passions fanned by every breath
of rumor—I paid no attention to their
cheers; I merely felt Miss Leland's gloved
fingers on my arm as I steered her across
the track and up the steps of the grand-
stand, where she said she wished me to take
her first. Behind us followed Jerry and the
colonel and if the crowd thought that there
was something strange in the absence from
the judges' stand of the doughty colonel, we
didn’t care. Furthermore, with a self-pos-


298 THE SPORT OF KINGS
He winced at that; then he reached for
the money and buttoned it away inside his
waistcoat. Poor old colonel ! I’d have been
an ungrateful dog if I hadn’t split with
him. He’d earned it, if ever a man had 1
“And, Colonel,” I said to him, “don’t you
fret about what's happened. You’ve noth-
ing to reproach yourself for. When the
test came—you did the square thing. Let
those dogs yelp till their throats crack—
it’ll do ’em no good.”
“They’ll do more than yelp, Mr. Kernan,”
he said. “I don’t know just what is behind
all this, but—I’m ahmed, seh. Are yoh?”
I shook my head. Jerry chuckled.
“Misther Sale's fists is ar-rums enough.
And I think they’ve had enough. Their
pocketbooks is flat and—”
Whatever bit of wisdom would have fallen
from Jerry's lips then I do not know. There
came a knock at the door. Jerry opened it.
A bell-boy stood outside.
“Sev’al gemman, Seh,” he said, “wants to
see yoh, Mr. Ke'nan, Seh. Mr. Holt, and
Mr. Kendrick—”
“Tell them I'll be right down,” I said.


300 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Oh, you understand, Kernan. You’ve got
us on the hip. The question is, are you go-
ing to tell all you know? It's a nasty bird
that fouls its own nest, Kernan. Racing has
got enough black eyes, especially in this
state. Are you going to hand it another?”
“What do you mean?” I managed to ask.
He shifted nervously. “Well, now, we
know pretty well about how much you know.
Now that Classon’s dead—”
“What?”
“Haven’t you heard?” he asked.
I shook my head. He thrust into my
trembling hands a “latest extra” of the
Grantham Times. In red letters across
the top of the front page were the words:
“Millionaire Francis Classon Kills Him-
Self in N. Y.”
I read the story; a brief telegraphed ac-
count. It was as follows:
“Francis Classon, head of the firm of Clas-
Son and Company, bankers and brokers of
New York City, steward of the Jockey Club,
and well-known in business and sport circles,


THE SPORT OF KINGS 301
shot himself at four this afternoon. Mr.
Classon had been watching the news ticker
in his private office and died clutching a
piece of the tape which had on it the result
of a race at Grantham. On his desk was
found a statement evidently written in an-
ticipation of his suicide. In it he confessed
to the embezzlement of funds entrusted to
him by clients and stated that he was in-
solvent. His chief clerk, Adams, under the
grilling of Detective Lieutenant Peters, ad-
mitted that he had known of his employer’s
defalcations, and that Mr. Classon had lately
been betting heavily on the races in Mexico
and Florida in the hope of recouping.
Adams further admitted that Classon had
been backing a chain of poolrooms. This is
interesting in view of the fact that it is
known in sporting circles that a well-known
trainer was barred from the turf last fall
because he accused Classon of crooked prac-
tises on the track.”
That was all in the brief despatch; there
would be more to-morrow, but—this was
enough. I looked at Holt and the others.


THE SPORT OF KINGS 305
“Ikey,” said I, “at bottom you’re a good
little Scout. Too good for this dirty rotten-
ness down here.”
“That's right,” he said. “This afternoon
I got a telegram from my brother saying he
can buy Einstein’s haberdashery on Sixth
Avenue for ten thousand dollars and he'll
put up half if I’ll put up the other end—
Sure things don’t go wrong in the clothing
business, Mr. Kernan.”
“Not unless the styles change, Ikey,” I
agreed. “Good luck to you.”
“I’m leaving to-night,” he said.
He shook my hand and left us. “Well,
Jerry, and you, Colonel,” said I, “a little
drink—”
“Lady wishes to see you in the parlor, Mr.
Kernan, Seh,” said the boy.
I asked Jerry and the colonel to excuse
me and followed him to the drawing-room.
As I walked along I heard the buzz of gossip
behind me; admiring glances, from guests,
employees and hotel loungers, followed me.
No one knew exactly what had happened to-
day—at least, only those few actually in “the
know” were aware of the nature of the plot.


306 THE SPORT OF KINGS
But every one knew that I’d done something;
something more, merely, than to bring my
horse under the wire a winner. Rumor, ex-
aggerated but founded on truth, had it that
I’d brought off some tremendous coup,
Smashed the bookmakers, and almost put
the track out of business. I was somewhat
of a hero in the eyes of the people in the
hotel. But I felt like an abashed boy as I
entered the presence of Miss Leland. If I
had been inclined to feel at all puffed, my
conceit would have vanished before her sad
eyes. For they were sad; and red with
lately-shed tears.
“My dear Miss Leland,” I cried, “what's
wrong?”
“I understand that the evening paper has
something about Mr. Classon's—”
“Yes,” I said. “He—is dead.”
“Mrs. Clarke just left me,” said the girl.
“She-got a telegram from Mr. Classon’s
office. She-Mr. Dane has been talking to
her—they blame me and you and Colonel
Buckmaster — Mr. Classon was involved
in—”
“I know all that,” I said, to spare her the


THE SPORT OF KINGS 307
recital. “But as for blaming you—absurd.
You did nothing! Classon’s a thief. Dane—
well, the least said the better.”
“I know,” she said, “but Luella—Mrs.
Clarke—she carried on so—I wanted to talk
with a real friend.”
I bowed. “Thank you, Miss Leland,” I
Said.
“You are a real friend, Mr. Kernan,” she
told me. “You— Mrs. Clarke is leaving for
New York to-night. She seemed to think
that racing is business and that anything is
honest in business. She could not under-
stand why I felt so—”
“Don’t talk about it, Miss Leland,” I
begged her. “There's nothing to be gained
by it. It's all over—”
“But it isn’t,” she cried. “Mrs. Clarke's
telegram said that there’d hardly be a dollar
to pay the Classon bills; not enough money
to pay a small percentage of the accounts
entrusted to his keeping. Barely enough to
bury him and—”
She paused. “Well?” I prompted her.
“Mr. Classon was custodian of all that
father left me. Everything I possess, except


THE SPORT OF KINGS 309
money,” I said. “I’ll pay you that much for
a half-ownership in Vivandiere!”
“The mare wouldn’t bring more than that
at auction,” she protested.
“People don’t realize how good she is,”
said I. “But I do; I know! Will you ac-
cept me as partner? With that money we
can last through until the season opens-
have lots left over—up north. Then we'll
win enough to—”
“You really want to give me your money?”
“I want to buy something from you,” I
replied.
“Give,” she insisted.
“Why should I want to give you any-
thing?” I demanded hotly, fearful that she
would refuse.
“Yes, why?” she asked. “Why did you
risk your life for my horse?”
My lips were dry; my throat parched. “I
know why, Miss Leland,” said I, “but I don’t
exactly dare to tell you.”
“I’m not afraid,” she answered. “And—
and—while I’d not let you acquire a share
of Vivandiere by purchase—if you wanted
to—there's another way—” *


CHAPTER XXII
THE SPORT OF KINGS
EAUMONT— Velvet lawns, prancing
thoroughbreds, stands riotous with the
colors of the rainbow. Soft air; tinged with
excitement that lent snap to its softness; ten
thousand beautiful women, and the loveliest
of them all at my side. My wife!
The barrier lifted; the Manhattan was be-
ing run. For a purse of twenty thousand
dollars and the glory of victory.
“They’re off!” Thirty thousand voices
cried the word to heaven. I felt a small
gloved hand grip my arm.
“Where is she, Sale? I—I don’t dare to
look!”
“Third,” I answered.
“She’ll be first soon enough,” boomed the
heavy voice of old Sam Benton. “Nine to
two I got for my money—average—what’d
you get, Sale?”
311


312 THE SPORT OF KINGS
“Didn’t bet,” I answered.
“Not bet! For the love of—Mike, why
InOt?”
“I didn’t want him to,” said my wife.
“Sale, where are they now?”
“Lady wife,” I said, “you aren’t being
game! Here!” I thrust my glasses into her
hands. “Report to me. I like your voice.”
“Rounding the second turn Vivandiere's
dropped back. Oh, the beasts, that weight
is too much! One-seventeen and Marigold
is only carrying one-twelve. It's too much-
she's back to fifth !”
“Nice ride Murphy’s giving her, Sale,”
commented Benton.
“She’s back to sixth; what’s the matter,
Sale? What's wrong with her? They’re
running away from her!”
“It’s a mile and three-eighths, dear,” I re-
plied. “This race will be won at the wire.
Where are they now?”
“At the third turn. Vivandiere— Sale,
she's creeping up! She's creeping up!
She's fifth—they’re at the last turn—they’re
in the stretch— Sale! Sale!”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 313
“Nice ride Murphy's giving her,” boomed
old Sam.
I needed no glasses now. But my wife
still told the story of the race.
“She's fourth, Sale; she's fourth—she's
: third—she’s—”
She dropped her glasses and stood up. I,
too! Hand in hand we watched the daintiest
lady of the year show the northerners what
a race-mare really was! She got to the
shoulders of Minot! He tried to shake her
off; she would not be denied! Ding-dong,
ding-dong! She was by him! She was at
the neck of Marigold, crack filly of the last
year and best horse on the track to-day, so
wiseacres said. But the real wise ones—the
handicappers—they knew; when they’d put
the impost on my baby they'd known she
was good. They had not known quite how
good Marigold was going to be. Else they’d
have given her more weight. As it was, she
carried five pounds less than my baby and—
ding-dong, ding-dong! A hundred yards
from the wire Vivandiere caught her.
Side by side, neck and neck, they spurned


314 THE SPORT OF KINGS
the earth in the final dash for the wire.
Thirty thousand voices cried encouragement.
“Marigold! Marigold! Vivandiere! Vivan-
diere!”
But the blood of Lexington told; thirty
yards from the wire Marigold faltered; only
a second and then her jock had her in hand.
But the race was won and lost then; the
dainty lady that sported the blood of all
the Waters and the blood of mighty Lexing-
ton could not be denied. By an eyelash, per-
haps! But still—a winner! The blue and
gold of the Leland stable had won its first
big fixture in half a dozen years! Vivan-
diere, ruled off the track, had been rein-
stated and—come back. I, also ruled off
the track, had been reinstated and—come
back!
My eyes were misty as I saw Murphy
hoisted into the floral horseshoe and carried
down the track and past the grandstand.
My wife turned to me and I saw her sweet
lips tremble.
“You mustn't, dear,” I said, “you mustn't.
Why, we’ve won 1’’
“Yes, we’ve won, and—some one else has


316 THE SPORT OF KINGS
Well, he’d wanted to help us; fear had
prevented him from doing so. I tossed him
a coin.
“I ought to have hit him,” I said to my
wife as we rolled away.
“You didn’t hit poor little Pete when we
found him at Stephanie,” said my wife.
“You gave him a job. Sale Kernan, you
wouldn’t hurt any one.”
She was silent a while; then:
“Sale, did you see Carteret Dane to-day?”
“Dane? NO!”
“I saw him as we entered the track; he
was shabby and unkempt and—that's why
I didn’t want you to bet.”
“I don’t get the connection,” I told her.
“Don’t you? Sale, it's the betting I hate!
It's ruining racing, isn’t it? Isn’t it common
talk that the new candidate for the governor-
ship will make his campaign on the race-
track issue? And that he'll be elected to
do what the present governor wouldn’t do—
stop racing?”
I had to admit that it was even so.
“Well, Sale, when racing ends—and it will


320 THE SPORT OF KINGS
*
Vermont; why not in Kentucky, Sale?
There’d be no feverish excitement; there’d
be peace, calm, content, certainty. Sale—
could you—would you—” -
“And if, after racing is killed, it is re-
vived again, and the evil of betting is gone—
then, dear—if Vivandiere—or her get—”
“When racing is lifted to the plane of
honor, Sale, then—then I’d be the last person
in the world to stop you from flaunting the
Kernan colors to the winds of the turf. But
now—”
Kernan’s Farm! The home of my father;
his father; my great-grandfather. Always
had I thought, remotely, of acquiring by
purchase the place where I was born. And
now-
“Dear,” said I, “I’ll close the deal to-
morrow if it's possible. If you think you’d
be content away from the gaiety of New
York; if you think the dulness of a Ken-
tucky farm will not get on your nerves—”
“Sale Kernan, you stop talking that way,”
said my wife. “As if I could ever be dull-
with you!”
I pressed her hand; she responded. In


322 THE SPORT OF KINGS
|
no business. It’s hard for a Kentuckian to
admit that, but—it's so.”
“And we're going back to Kernan's
Farm,” cried Roberta.
“Where the folks is honest and the horses
is honest and the grass is honest and the trees
is honest and the liquor—glory be! but the
liquor is honest!” cried Jerry.
For, of course, he knew that he’d go with
us. Sam stared at us. “Sale,” said he, “for
a pudd’n’-headed jay that'd throw away a
chance to make a fortune with the best race-
mare in trainin’—I say, for a pudd’n’-headed
chump, you sure have brains! Or your wife
has. Racing—it's at its glory now, but the
handwriting is on the wall, and you are
Wise to read it.”
He rose and walked to the telephone on
the wall, “May I?” he asked.
“Certainly,” said I.
He spoke to the clerk down-stairs. “Send
up a bottle of the “ninety-three,’” he ordered.
The waiter that brought the champagne
brought also a telegram which had just come.
It was from Colonel Buckmaster, now
quietly living with his daughter in Coving-


“Vivandiere !”


THE SPORT OF KINGS 323
ton, in a house which he had bought with
part of the nine thousand I had given him,
and earning a comfortable salary as military
instructor in the academy in that city which
I had once attended.
“All hail the gallant Vivandiere,” the tele-
gram ended.
“Right,” cried Benton, rising to his feet
and lifting his glass on high. He bowed
toward my wife.
“I could drink to you, Mrs. Kernan, with
pleasure. I could drink to your husband
with keen enjoyment. I will do both later
on. But just now I’m going to offer another
toast. The little lady that brought you to-
gether; that made you, Mrs. Kernan, wire
me to tell you all I knew about the man
you’ve married, when the ship that bore you
to your joint destiny stopped at Charleston,
so interested were you in him at first sight;
the little lady, Mrs. Kernan, whose honesty
is such that you hate to let her remain in
dishonesty or in the evil places of greed; the
little lady that has redeemed the Leland and
the Kernan fortunes, insofar as she might;
the little lady that knows no fear; the little





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