In Old Kentucky Part 33

"'Fraid he's done on bofe sides, missy; drunk cl'ar t'rough," said Neb.

The Colonel grasped his hat. "We'll try, we'll try," he said. "Oh, whisky, whisky! What a pity anyone can get too much of so good a thing!"

"I neber could, suh," Neb replied, "but dat 'ar jockey--"

They hurried out together.

Madge was in intense distress. She knew what this might mean. If Queen Bess could not run--and she could not, certainly, without a jockey--the Dyer Brothers would not buy her, probably; and if she were not sold in time, then Layson would be quite unable to meet the a.s.sessment on his stock in the coal-mining company. She was by no means certain what this was, or what the reason for it, but she had heard talk of it and knew that it was very serious. Almost beside herself with her anxiety, she could do nothing save sit there and wait for news. The entrance, even of Barbara Holton, who came in, now, was a relief to her overtaxed nerves.

"Say," said she, admitting Barbara nearer to good-fellows.h.i.+p than she had ever done before, "I reckon you have heered the news--Ike's drunk--dead drunk!"

Barbara regarded her excitement with a careful calm. She, herself, had been excited by the news when it had reached her, but a moment since, but she would not let this girl know that. Her role was to endeavor to force the mountain girl back into what she thought her place, at any cost.

"Yes, I've heard," said she, "and it's too late to get another jockey, so Queen Bess can't run."

She had formed a plan, deep in her mind, and had sought the mountain-girl with the skilful scheme.

"Then Mr. Frank is goin' to be ruined!" Madge exclaimed, dejectedly.

"Not unless you wish it," Barbara replied, looking straight into her eyes.

"Dellaw! Me wish that? Just you tell me what you mean!"

The bluegra.s.s girl stood looking at the mountain maiden with appraising eye for a few seconds. Then she crossed the room and stood close by her side, while she tapped upon the table nervously with her carefully gloved fingers.

"If this sale fails, as it seems it must," she said, slowly, "it rests with you whether my father will advance the money to pay the a.s.sessment on that stock of Mr. Layson's."

"Your father give him the money?" Madge said in astonishment. "Well, I'd never thought o' that! But what have I got to do about it?"

The situation was a hard one, even for the self-possession of the lowlands girl, who had inherited her father's coolness in emergency as well as some other traits less desirable. Her color rose and she tried, earnestly, to gather words which would express the thought she had in mind without including a confession of the weakness of her own position.

This she could not, do, however. She walked over to the window, gazed from it, for a moment, at the pa.s.sing crowds, and then returned to Madge, to tell her bluntly: "I want you to go away from here."

"Me go away? What for?"

It was impossible, Barbara now discovered, to make her meaning wholly clear, without some measure of humiliation. The first thing that was, obviously, necessary was a statement of facts as they were, and this must include confession of her own sore weakness. She hesitated, trying to avoid it, but when she quite decided that it could not be helped, plunged on with a perfect frankness. What she wished was immediately to gain her point. If she must eat a bit of humble pie in order to accomplish this, why, she would eat it, much as she disliked the diet.

"Can't you see that it is you who stand between Frank and me?" she cried. "If it hadn't been for you, I should have been his promised wife!

If you will go away and never see him again, I can win him back."

Madge was dumbfounded. The cold and utter selfishness of the girl's proposal was astounding. She looked at Barbara with eyes in which incredulous amazement gave way, slowly, to an expression of chill wonder. "Say, you don't seem to squander many thoughts on other people!

S'posin' I happen to love him a little, myself!"

Barbara laughed scornfully. Sprung from low stock, herself, but reared in luxury, she had the most complete contempt for anyone whom circ.u.mstances had denied advantages such as she had known. "You--_you_ love him!" she exclaimed.

The words had slipped from Madge's lips without forethought, and, instantly, she very much regretted them; but, now that she had uttered them she did not so much as think of trying to recall them or deny their truth. "Yes, and I ain't ashamed of it," said she. "I _do_ love him--a thousand times better nor you ever dreamed of."

"What good will it do you?" asked her rival, coldly. "You don't suppose he'll ever think of making you his wife! Why, look at the difference between you and me!"

"Yes," said Madge, sarcastically, "there _is_ a powerful sight of differ! You'd be willin' to ruin' him to win him, while I'd be willin'

to gin up my happiness to save him!"

Barbara, more in earnest than she ever had been in her life before, took a quick step toward the mountain girl. "Then prove it by going away,"

said she, "and I will see that my father advances Frank Layson the money he needs." She looked at her eagerly. "Do you promise?"

"No," said Madge, with firm decision. "No; I won't."

"Then it is you who will ruin him."

While they had been talking an idea had sprung to sudden flower in Madge's mind. It was a daring, an unheard of plan that had occurred to her. There were details of it which filled her with shrinking. She knew that if she put it into practice, and it ever became generally known, she would be the talk of Lexington and that not all that talk would be complimentary. She knew that, after she had carried out the plan, even the man for whom she thought of doing it might look at her with scorn.

But it was the only plan which her alert and anxious brain could find which promised anything at all. And if it won, perhaps--perhaps--he might not scorn her! At any rate it was a sacrifice, and sacrifice for him was an attractive thought to her.

"Me ruin him?" she said to Barbara. "Don't you be too sure! There is a shorter and a better way nor yours, to save him, an' I'm goin' to try it!"

The bluegra.s.s girl, astonished, would have questioned her, but Madge waited for no questioning. Without another word she hurried from the room, in a mad search for Colonel Doolittle.

From the country round about for miles the planters had come into Lexington upon their blooded mounts, their wives, daughters, sweethearts, riding in great carriages. Now and then a vehicle, coming from some far-away plantation, was drawn by a gay four-in-hand, and the drivers of such equipages, negroes always, showed a haughty scorn of their black fellow-men who travelled humbly on the backs of mules, or trudged the long and dusty way on foot. Gorgeous were the costumes of the ladies whom the carriages conveyed; elegant the dress of the gay gentlemen who rode beside the vehicles on prancing steeds, gallant escorts of Kentucky's lovely womanhood, prepared, especially, to watch the carriage-horses when the town was reached and guard against disasters due to their encounter with such disturbing and unusual things as crowds, bra.s.s-bands and other marvels of a great occasion.

Everywhere upon the sidewalks people swarmed like ants, delighted with the calm perfection of the day, the magnetism of the crowds, the blare of martial music, the novelty of pa.s.sing strangers, and, above all, by the prospect of the great race which, for weeks, had been the theme of conversation everywhere throughout the section.

In the s.p.a.cious corridors and big bar-rooms of the city's hostelries the rich men of the section vied with flas.h.i.+ly dressed strangers, in magnitude of wagers, and the gambling fever spread from these important centers to the very alleys of the negro quarters. Poor indeed was the old darkey who could not find two-bits to wager on the race; small, indeed, the piccaninny who was not wise enough in the sophisticated ways of games of chance to lay a copper with a comrade or to join a pool by means of which he and his fellows were enabled to partic.i.p.ate in more important methods of wooing fickle Fortune.

Here and there and everywhere were the piccaninnies from Woodlawn, the Layson place, crying the virtues of the mare they wors.h.i.+pped and her owner whom they each and everyone adored, boasting of the wagers they had made, strutting in the consciousness that ere the moment for the great race came "Unc" Neb would gather them together to add zest to the occasion with their brazen instruments and singing. The "Whangdoodles"

were the envy of every colored lad in town who was not of their high elect, and created, about noon, a great diversion upon one of the main streets, by gathering, when they were quite certain that their leader could by no means get at them, and singing on a corner for more coppers to be wagered on Queen Bess. The shower of coin which soon rewarded their smooth, well-trained harmonies, burned holes in their pockets, too, until it was invested in the only things which, on this day, the lads thought worth the purchasing--tickets on the race in which the wondrous mare would run.

Through the gay crowd old Neb was wandering, disconsolate, burdened with the melancholy news of the defection of the miserable jockey, looking, everywhere, for Miss Alathea Layson, but without success. He stopped upon a corner, weary of the search and of the woe which weighed him down.

"Ma.r.s.e Frank," he muttered, "say I war to tell Miss 'Lethe de bad news; but he didn't tell me how to find a lady out shoppin'. Needle in a haystack ain't nawthin'! Reckon 'bout de bes' dat I kin do is stand heah on dis cohnuh an' cotch huh when she comes back to de hotel."

He stood there for fully fifteen minutes, peering in an utter desolation of woe, at every pa.s.sing face, but finding nowhere that one which he sought. Then, at a distance, he saw the Colonel coming. The expression on the horseman's face amazed him and filled him with an instant hope that something had turned up to rob the situation of the horror which had darkened it, for him, ever since he had discovered that the jockey had disgraced himself.

"Dar come Ma.r.s.e Cunnel," he exclaimed, in his astonishment, "_a-lookin'

mighty happy_! Dat ain't right, now; dat ain't right, unduh de succ.u.mstances."

He hurried to the Colonel, who, instead of seeming sorrowful, discouraged, wroth, beamed at him with a genial eye.

"What's the matter, Neb?" he asked. "You look like a funeral!"

"Dat's de way I feel, suh; wid no jockey fo' Queen Bess an' Ma.r.s.e Frank good as ruined."

"Neb," said the Colonel, coolly, "you don't mean to be a liar, but you are one."

"What?" cried the darkey in delight. "Oh Ma.r.s.e Cunnel, call me anyt'ing ef tain't so about de mare!"

"Of course it isn't," said the Colonel happily. "I have found a jockey, Neb; a jockey."

"Praise de Lawd!" cried the old negro.