Bunch Grass Part 45

"Yes, Nal, ye'd better go, an' sonny, ye needn't to come back; I like ye first rate, but ye needn't to come back!"

Rinaldo walked home to the race track, and as he walked, cursed old man Bobo, cursed him heartily, in copious Western vernacular, from the peaky crown of his bald head to the tip of his ill-shaped, sockless toe. When, however, he had fed the filly and bedded her down in cool, fresh straw, he felt easier in his mind. Running his hand down her iron forelegs, he reflected hopefully that a few hundred dollars were easily picked up on a race track. Bijou was a well-bred beast, with a marvellous turn of speed. For half-a-mile she was a wonder, a record breaker--so Nal thought. Presently he pulled a list of entries from his pocket and scanned it closely. Old man Bobo had a bay gelding in training for the half-mile race, Comet, out of Shooting Star, by Meteor. Nal had taken the measure of the other horses and feared none of them; but Comet, he admitted ruefully to be a dangerous colt. He was stabled at home, and the small boy that exercised him was both deaf and dumb.

"If I could hold my watch on him," said Nal to himself, "I'd give a hundred dollars."

A smile illumined his pleasant features as he remembered that Mr.

Bobo, like himself, was sitting upon the anxious seat. That same afternoon he had tried, in vain, to extract from Nal some information about the filly's speed. The old man's weakness, if he had one, was betting heavily upon a certainty.

"By Jimminy," mused Mr. Roberts, patting affectionately the satin neck of Bijou, "it would be a nice howdy-do to win a thousand off the old son of a gun! Gosh, Mandy! how ye startled me."

Amanda, out of breath and scarlet of face, slipped quietly into the loose box and sat down in the straw.

"Hush," she said, panting, "grandfather would take a quirt to me if he knew I was here, but, Nal dear, I jest had to come. I've been talkin'

with the old man, an' he won't let me leave him, but I'll be true to you, Nal, true as steel, an' you'll be true to me, won't you?

Grandfather won't last long, he's----"

"Tough," said Mr. Roberts, "tough as abalone, tough as the hondo of my lariat. I suspicioned he'd peter out when Pap Spooner died, but he fooled us the worst kind. No, Mandy, the old gentleman ain't a-goin', as he says, till he gits ready. He told me that to-day, an' he ain't a liar. He's close as a clam, is Mr. Bobo, but he ain't no liar. As for bein' true to you, Mandy--why--dern it--my heart's jest froze to yours, it don't belong to Nal Roberts no longer."

The girl blushed with pleasure and rose to her feet.

"You won't quarrel, Nal," she said anxiously, "you an' grandfather. He gets awful hot at times, but your head is level. He's comin' down to the track to-morrow morning at five to work out Comet, an' you might have words about me."

"To work out Comet?" said Nal, p.r.i.c.king up his ears.

"Mercy!--" cried Amanda, "I've given it away, an' it's a deathly secret."

"It's safe enough with me," replied the young man carelessly. None the less his eyes brightened and he smiled beneath his blonde mustache.

"An', Mandy, don't worry, I wouldn't touch the old gentleman with a pair o' tongs."

"Well, good night, Nal--no, you mustn't--somebody might see. Only one then! Let me go, let me go!--Good night, Nal."

She ran swiftly away, holding high her skirts on account of the sticker gra.s.s. Nal watched her retreating figure admiringly.

"A good gait," he murmured critically, "no interferin' an' nothin'

gummy about the pastern!"

He then squatted down, cowboy fas.h.i.+on, upon his hams, and smoothing carefully a piece of level ground, began to--what he called "figger."

He wrote with a pointed stick and presently broke into a loud laugh.

"A low down trick," he muttered, "to play upon a white man, but Mr.

Bobo ain't a white man, an' mustn't be treated as sech."

He erased his hieroglyphics, and proceeded leisurely to prepare his simple supper. He ate his bacon and beans with even more than usual relish, laughing softly to himself repeatedly, and when he had finished and the dishes were washed and put away, he selected, still laughing, a spade and crowbar from a heap of tools in the corner of his shanty. These he shouldered and then strode out into the night.

The crowd at the race track upon the opening afternoon of the fair was beginning to a.s.sume colossal proportions--colossal, that is to say, for San Lorenzo. Beneath the grand stand, where the pools are always sold, the motley throng surged thickest. Jew and gentile, greaser and dude, tin-horn gamblers and tenderfeet, hayseeds and merchants, jostled each other good humouredly. In the pool box were two men. One --the auctioneer--a perfect specimen of the "sport"; a ponderous individual, brazen of face and voice, who presented to the crowd an amazing front of mottled face, diamond stud, bulging s.h.i.+rt sleeves, and a bull-neck encircled by a soiled eighteen-and-a-half inch paper collar. The other gentleman, who handled the tickets, was unclean, unshorn, and cadaverous-looking, with a black cigar, unlighted, stuck aggressively into the corner of his mouth.

"Once more," yelled the pool-selling person, in raucous tones. "Once more, boys! I'm sellin' once more the half-mile das.h.!.+ I've one hundred dollars for Comet; how much fer second choice? Be lively there. Sixty dollars!!! Go the five, five, five! Thank ye, sir, you're a dead game sport. Bijou fer sixty-five dollars. How much am I bid fer the field?"

The field sold for fifty, and the auctioneer glanced at Mr. Bobo, who shook his head and shuffled away. Ten consecutive times he had bought pools. Ten consecutive times Mr. Rinaldo Roberts had paid, by proxy, sixty-five dollars for the privilege of naming By-Jo as second choice to the son of Meteor.

"Fifteen hunderd," mumbled the old man to himself. "Five las' night an' ten to-day. It's a sure shot, that's what it is, a sure shot. I worked him out in fifty-one seconds. Oh, Lord, what a clip! in fifty- one," he repeated with his abominable chuckle, "an' Nal's filly has never done better than fifty-two. Nal didn't buy no pools. He knows better."

By a queer coincidence Mr. Roberts was also indulging in pleasing introspection.

"The old cuss," he mused, "is blooded. I'll allow he's blooded, but he thinks this a dead cert. Lemme see, fifty-one an' two make fifty- three. No clip at all. Gos.h.!.+ what a game, what a game! Why, there's Mandy a-sittin' up with Mis' Root. I'll jest sashay acrost the track an' give 'em my regards."

Mandy was atop a red-wheeled spring wagon. A sailor hat--price, trimmed, forty-five cents--overshadowed her smiling face, and a new dress cleverly fas.h.i.+oned out of white cheese cloth, embellished her person. She had been watching her lover closely for upwards of an hour, but expressed superlative surprise at seeing him.

"Why, Nal," she said demurely "this ain't you? You are acquainted with Mis' Root, I guess?"

Nal removed his cap with a flourish, and Mrs. Root, a large, lymphatic, prolific female, entreated him to ascend the wagon and sit down.

"You have a horse runnin', Mister Roberts?"

"Yes, marm, By-Jo."

"By what?"

"By Diamond," replied Rinaldo, glibly, "outer Cap Wilson's old Sally.

She was by----"

"Mis' Root didn't catch the name right," interrupted Mandy. "It's By- Jo, Mis' Root--that's French."

"Mercy me, ain't that nice--quite toney. I hope he'll win if Mister Bobo's horse don't."

"Nal," whispered Mandy, "you've not been betting against Comet, have you?"

"That's what I have, Mandy. I've got my hull stack o' chips on this yere half-mile dash."

"But, Nal, Comet will win sure. Grandfather's crazy about the colt. He says he can't lose no-way."

"That's all right," said Nal. "I'm glad he feels so well about it. Set his heart on winnin', eh? That's good. Say, I guess I'll sit right here and see the race. It's handy to the judges' stand, and the horses are all on the track."

In fact, for some time the runners had been walking backwards and forwards, and were now grouped together near the starter. Mr. Bobo was in the timer's box, chuckling satanically. Fifteen hundred dollars, according to his own computation, were already added to a plethoric bank account.

"Yer feelin' well, Mister Bobo," said a bystander.

"I'm feelin' mighty well," he replied, "never was feelin' better, never. There's a heap o' fools in this yere world, but I ain't responsible for their mistakes--not much," and he cackled loudly.

After the usual annoying delay the horses were dismissed with an excellent start. Bijou jumped immediately to the front, and Nal threw his hat high into the air.

"Ain't she a cyclone?" he shouted, standing upon the wagon seat and waving his stop-watch.

"Look at her, I say, look at her!"

The people in his vicinity stared, smiled, and finally cheered. Most of them knew Nal and liked him well.