Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905

“Anything specific – as about the Heathflower thing?” Hilary asked, affecting to speak with awe.

Allys nodded. “A heap,” she said. “I can hear Billy now, as we watched her on the training track, saying: ‘She hasn’t got any looks – but legs are better for winnin’. And she must win; she’s bound to – whenever she feels like it, and the track and the weights suit her. She can’t help it – she’s got eight full crosses of Blink Bonny blood.’”

“Blink Bonny! H’m! Who was he? What did he do?” Hilary asked.

Allys looked at him severely. “‘He’ happens to have been ‘she,’” she said. “As for the doing, it was only winning the Derby, with the Oaks right on top of it. Mighty few mares have ever done that – as you would know if you had grown up in Virginia, with time to know everything. Billy does know everything about pedigrees – he can reel them off at least a hundred years back. Remember, now, I’m strictly quoting him: ‘Blink Bonny is really ancient history – she won the year poor old Dick Ten Broek tried so hard to have his American-bred ones carry off the blue ribbon of the turf. He didn’t win it – no American did – until one of them had luck enough to try for it with something of Blink Bonny’s blood. Iroquois went back to her through his sire, Bonnie Scotland-Iroquois, who wasn’t really a great horse, but a good one that happened on a great chance.’”

“Why, Allys darling, I can hardly believe my ears! Here you are talking horse like a veteran, when I always thought you didn’t know a fetlock from a wishbone,” the Hammond girl cooed, swimming up behind them on old Van Ammerer’s arm. They were headed for the paddock, although it was not quite time for the saddling bell. The Heathflower thing was still invisible – Allys searched the course for her through Hilary’s glass, saying the while over her shoulder, with her most infantine smile: “You thought right, Camilla dear. I don’t really know anything – have only a parrot faculty of repeating what I hear.”

The Hammond girl flushed – that was what she had said of Allys when people laughed over the Rhett mots. But before she could counter, Allys cried joyously: “At last! The Heathflower thing! Really, she hasn’t any looks – but see her run, will you?”

“She does move like a winner – but it’s impossible she can stay,” Hilary said, almost arrogantly. “Pedigree is all very well – until it runs up against performance – ”

“Right you are! Quite mighty right, Rich, me boy,” old Van Ammerer interrupted. “But I didn’t know they let dark horses run in the Far and Near – ”

“Lucky you are young, Van – you have such a lot to learn,” Adair said, brusquely, as they went toward the paddock. It was thronged, but somehow at sight of Hilary the human masses fell respectfully apart – albeit the men and women there had forgotten themselves, even forgotten each other for the time being, in their poignant eagerness over the big race.

They were hardly through the gate and well established in an eddy when the bell brought the racers pacing or scurrying in. The Heathflower thing came straight off the course, and stood spiritlessly, drooping her head and blinking her eyes. Clear eyes, matching the loose, satiny skin, beneath which whipcord muscles stood out, or played at each least motion, they told the eye initiate that she was in the pink of condition. Like her so-famous ancestors, a bay with black points, neither under nor over size, with a fine, lean head, a long neck, and four splendid legs, it was a marvel that she could so utterly lack any trace of equine comeliness. Her chest was noticeably narrow, her barrel out of proportion to shoulders and quarters. Still, against those patent blemishes, a judge of conformation would have set the splendid sloping shoulders, the reaching forearm, the bunches of massy muscle in the long loin, the quarters well let down into perfect houghs, the fine, clean bone of knees and ankles, the firm, close-grained hoofs spreading faintly from coronet to base.

Clean-limbed throughout, with ears that, if they drooped, had no trace of coarseness and were set wide apart above a basin face, the mare showed race indisputably, notwithstanding the white in her forehead was too smudgy to be called a star, or that, though her muzzle tapered finely, the lower lip habitually protruded a bit. A four-year-old, she was still a maiden – consequently had but a feather on her back in the Far and Near. The handicapper had laughed, half wearily, half compassionately as he allotted it, muttering something about the jockey club robbing the cradle and the grave – that poor old Major Meriwether, it was well known, hadn’t any money to spare; what he did have was the gambler’s instinct to sit into any game where the stakes were big.

The race was open to three-year-olds and upward, and run over a distance – two miles and a half. The distance kept out the sprinters – it also, now and again, played hob with racing idols. To win a horse must be able to go – also to stay. With twenty thousand of added money, there was sure to be always a long list of entries. The conditions held one curious survival from the original fixture – namely, that, horses brought over three hundred miles to run in it got a three-pound allowance if they reached the course less than a week before the day of the race.

Major Meriwether had chuckled whenever he thought of that. He knew “the weight of a stable key may win or lose a race.” And the Heathflower thing was a splendid traveler, coming out of her padded stall as ready to run as when she went into it. She had got to the Bay Park only two days back, in charge of her rubber, Amos, and Black Tim, her jockey. Tim stood at her head, Amos was giving her lank sides their last polish, as Allys and her train swept down upon them.

Allys nodded to them gayly, as she asked: “Tim, have you come up to break New York? I hear your stable will need a special car to take home its money – after the Far and Near.”

“Yessum, dat’s so!” Tim said.

Amos scowled at him, but said to Allys, respectfully: “Please’um, don’t ax dat dar fool boy no mo’ ’bout de Flower – hit’s mighty bad luck sayin’ whut you gwine do, ontwel you is done done it.”

“Dar come Marse Billy Wickliffe – you kin ax him all you wanter.” Tim giggled, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Tim was lathy – long-legged, long-armed, with an ashy-black complexion and very big eyes. As he stood fondling the Flower’s nose, he glared disdain of all the other candidates, or, rather, of the knots of folk gathered admiringly about them.

Allys turned half about – for two breaths at least she had a snobbish impulse to overlook Billy and hurry away. Billy was tall, with a face like a young Greek god – but how greet him there with the Hammond girl to see, in a checked suit, patently ready-made, with the noisiest of shirts, a flowing bright red tie, and a sunburned straw hat? If it were only Adair, she would not mind – Hilary was, she knew, very much more critical. She might have run away, but that she caught the Hammond girl’s look – amusement and satisfaction struggled through it, although the young lady tried hard to mask them.

Allys turned wholly, holding out both hands, and saying: “Billy, by all that’s delightful! I’ve just been telling these people about you. Come, show them I kept well within the truth.”

Billy caught the outstretched hands, his heart so openly in his eyes Hilary wanted to strangle him on the spot. The Hammond girl laughed, and turned to whisper in Van Ammerer’s ear. Adair, alone of the group, shook hands. Although the others gave him civil, if formal, greeting, Billy felt their hostility intuitively, and flung up his head like a stag at bay.

“You got my note – have you done it yet?” he asked, bending over Allys in a fashion that made Hilary’s teeth set hard.

She laughed back at him: “Have you done it yet? Bet your whole fortune on the Heathflower thing at a hundred to one?”

Billy nodded confidently. “That’s just what I have done. Unc’ Robert was willin’ – he thought as I did, such a little bit o’ money was better risked than kept.”

“H’m! I hope you kept the price of a return ticket,” Hilary said, trying to speak jocularly. “Really, Mr. Wickliffe, you can’t think that ugly brute has a chance to be even in the money.”

“My money’s talkin’ for me,” Billy said, facing Hilary. “’Tain’t much – only a thousand. Lordy! if I could, wouldn’t I burn up these ringsters! You ought to a-heard ’em, Miss Allys, when I went at ’em. ‘The Heathflower thing, did you say?’ the first one asked me. ‘Oh, say! do you want to rob us poor fellows? Couldn’t think of layin’ you less’n a thousand to one on that proposition.’ But he cut it mighty quick to a hundred to one when I said: ‘I’d take you for a hundred, only I know you couldn’t pay.’ Tell you he rubbed his slate in a hurry after I got down fifty. The next one tried to be smart as he was – sang out to some o’ the rest: ‘Here’s the wild man from Borneo, come to skin us alive!’ Then made out he was skeered to death when I offered him one little pitiful rag of a ten. But when they saw me keep on right down the line, some of ’em shut up and looked a little anxious, some cut the price, and some got sassier than ever. They called me Rube, and Johnny-on-the-spot-of-wealth, and Shekels, and a heap of other things. But I didn’t mind. Still, next time I’ll send my money by one of those commissioner fellows. To-day I couldn’t risk it.”

“What makes you so suddenly avaricious, Billy?” Allys asked. “Last summer you cared less for money than anything. There must be a reason – tell me, does it wear frocks?”

“Not the special reason,” Billy said, with an adoring look; then in her ear: “I know you don’t care for money any more’n I do. But I’m bound to have some – if there’s any chance – it’s – it’s because of the major. I’ll tell you all about it, after the race.”

The parade was nearly over when Allys and her three swains came again to the lawn. By some odd chance, the long shots had been well toward the head of it, leaving the two favorites and the three second choices to bring up the rear. The Heathflower thing was immediately in front of them. She had moved so soberly, plodding with low head and sleepy eyes, the watchers had given her an ironic cheer, mingled with cat calls. All the others had got a welcome more or less enthusiastic, but it was only when Aramis, even-money favorite, came through the paddock gate that the crowd got to its feet.

All up and down, and round about, roaring cheers greeted him, followed him – men flung up their hats for him, women in shrill falsetto cried his name. Nobody could fail to understand that he carried the hopes and the fortunes of a great multitude. Nobody could fail to understand either that Aldegonde, who followed right on his heels, would win or lose for as many. The pair were blood-brothers, sons of the great Hamburg, but one out of an imported dam, the other from a mare tracing to Lexington, and richly inbred to that great sire.

Still the line of cleavage was not patriotic nor even international. Folk had picked one or the other to win freakishly – on hunches of all sorts, tips of all manners, pure fancy, or “inside information” of the hollowest sort. As to looks, pedigree, or performance, there was hardly a pin to choose between the pair. Both were three-year-olds, tried in the fire of spring racing; both held able to go the distance and stay the route, in that they had won from everything except from each other.

By some curious chance they had not met before that season – in their two-year-old form they had won and lost to each other.

Thus to many onlookers the Far and Near held out a promise of such an equine duel as would make it the race of the century. And certainly two handsomer or gallanter beasts than the pair of raking chestnuts, long-striding, racelike, with white-starred faces and single white hind feet, never looked through a bridle.

Notwithstanding, the second choices were far from friendless, albeit their greatest support was for the place or to show. The greeting they got was tame compared to that of the favorites, but still a volleying cheer, rising and falling along the quarter-mile of humanity banked and massed either side the course. Shrewd form players and the plainer sort had taken liberal fliers on them – that was evident by the way the shouting mounted in the free field, and the jam in front of the betting ring.

Not a few of the professional layers had turned their slates and were out on watch for the event that would mean thousands in or out of their pockets. Among the second choices Artillery, the black Meddler mare, was held a shade the best. Next to her came Tay Ho, a son of Hastings, five years old, who might have divided honors with the favorites but for being an arrant rogue. To-day he ran in blinkers, and nodded the least bit in his stride, whereas his stable mate, Petrel, the last of the second choices, went as free as ever water ran.

Billy watched the parade, scarcely conscious that Allys clung to his arm. Hilary stood at her other hand, frowning blackly. The finish line was almost in front of them.

Hilary moved back a pace. “We can see better here,” he said, trying to draw Allys along with him. She shook her head obstinately, but said nothing; in her heart she was resolved that Billy should have the comfort of her presence in his hour of defeat.

Since she was very far from being a model young person, Hilary’s manifest anger was not displeasing. She was going to marry him – but only at her own time, and upon her own conditions. So far, there was no engagement – she had fenced and played with him beautifully all through the last three months. He had no right whatever to be nasty about Billy; of course, if it were some grown-up body, Adair for example, there might be a color of reason for his wrath. He ought to understand that Billy was, in a way, her guest – also a person to whom she owed something in the way of hospitality. What provoked her most was knowing that Hilary was less jealous than ashamed – ashamed to have her thus openly countenance anybody who wore Billy’s clothes. She was all the angrier for her own moment of snobbishness – men ought to be above such paltry things, she reasoned; anyway, she was bound to stand by Billy to the inevitably bitter end.

The start was tedious. Again and again the line of rainbow jackets drew taut across the course, only to break and tangle, and at last dissolve into its original gaudy units. Billy sighed as he watched it, then smiled shyly, and drew a long breath, saying in Allys’ ear: “I hate to win except right square out.”

“I don’t understand,” Allys returned.

Billy looked at her in surprise.

“Don’t you see – the favorites have got so much on their backs, the longer they wheel and turn, the more they take out of themselves?” he asked. “I’ll bet they are frettin’ like everything, too. See there! One of them chestnut-sorrels – can’t tell whether it’s Aramis or Aldegonde – is cuttin’ up high didoes. And the Heathflower thing standin’ like a little lamb – ”

“She may be standing there when the race is over,” Hilary interrupted.

Billy did not put down his glass, but said over his shoulder: “Oh, I reckon Tim can stop her before she gets that far around. Don’t know, though – if she feels like runnin’ she’s a handful. And this is one of the days – I know, because she looks as though she couldn’t beat a funeral.”

Allys pressed Billy’s arm – it was all she could do to show her enjoyment of the way he had turned things. Hilary bent toward her, saying, with a hard smile: “You seem to be on Mr. Wickliffe’s side – I wonder will you back his judgment?”

“Maybe so,” Allys said, without turning her head. “That is, if you care to make it anything worth while. I’m not quite sure which I’d like best – a winter in Paris or a pearl necklace – and I know I shan’t ever get them at bridge – I have no luck at all.”

“Give you millions against – just one word,” Hilary whispered; then aloud: “Is it a bet?”

“Say yes, Miss Allys,” Billy entreated. “You ain’t trustin’ to my judgment – remember that – but to the blood of Blink Bonny.”

“I take you up,” Allys said, nodding to Hilary. As well this way as any other, she thought – besides, she could hold him off as long as she chose. Her father would stand by her loyally – he was in no haste to see her established. Besides, this was what she had always craved – to watch a race with a heartrending wager on its event.

“Here they come!” Billy shouted, dropping his glass, and flinging up his head.

Up course the rainbow line had at last held steady, then, as the tape flew up, bellied out like a sail in gusty wind, and been rent into flecks and tatters. The lightweights, of course, were in the foremost of the flecks and tatters – all, that is, save the Heathflower thing, who came absolutely last. Tim’s orange jacket and scarlet sash were dust-dimmed by the time he came to the stand. But right in front of him were Aldegonde’s tiger stripes, black and yellow, and the blue and white in the saddle of Aramis.