Frank Merriwells Races | Page 2

horse swindled you."
A bit of additional color had risen to Frank's cheeks, and he looked strikingly handsome. The boys knew it would not do to carry the joke about Winnie Lee too far, and so they refrained.
"The man who owned the horse did not want to sell him at any price," explained Frank. "I induced him to set a price that he thought would settle me, and then I snapped him up so quickly it took away his breath."
"I should think your guardian would have kicked at throwing up a thousand for such a purpose."
"He did," laughed Frank, looking at Diamond, who showed a little confusion. "You remember that Jack, Rattleton and myself went on to Springfield to meet him a few days ago?"
"And got arrested for kidnaping a baby!" chuckled Griswold. "That was a corker. We didn't do a thing to you fellows when you got back here!"
"That's right," admitted Jack, dolefully. "Not a thing! You simply marched us through the streets and onto the campus with a band and banners and made a stunning show of us!"
"Well," said Frank, "Professor Scotch, my guardian, was so glad to get out of the scrape when the judge discharged us that he gave up the thousand without a flutter. That's how I got the money."
"Well," yawned Browning, "now you have the horse, you'll find him an expensive piece of furniture. It takes money to take care of 'em and feed 'em."
Diamond had been inspecting the gelding from all sides, surveying him with the air of one who knows something about horses, and he now asked:
"Has the creature a pedigree, old man?"
"Sure," nodded Frank. "Its pedigree is all right. I have it somewhere, but I don't care so much for that."
"Oh, I don't know! It may prove of value to you some day."
"How?"
"Well, you may take a fancy to enter Nemo in a race or two."
"What then?"
"If he should win, you'll want his pedigree."
"I suppose that is right, but I am no sportsman of the turf; that is professional. Amateur sports are good enough for me."
"Honest horse racing is one of the grandest sports in the world!" cried Jack, with flashing eyes.
"Honest horse racing!" laughed Griswold. "What's that? Where do you find anything like that?"
"Oh, there is such a thing."
"There may be, but people are not used to it."
"That's why I do not think much of horse racing," declared Frank. "There are too many tricks to it to suit me."
"Oh, there are tricks to any sort of sport."
"Very few to college sports. If a man is caught at anything crooked it means ruin for his college career, and he is sure to carry the stigma through life. I tell you college sports are honest, and that is why they are so favored by people of taste and refinement--people who care little or nothing for professional sports. The public sees the earnestness, the honesty, and the manhood in college sports and contests, and the patrons of such sports know they are not being done out of their money by a fake. Prize fighting in itself is not so bad, but the class of men who follow it have brought disgrace and disrepute upon it. Fights are 'fixed' in advance by these dishonest scoundrels, and the man who backs his judgment with his money is likely to be done out of his coin by the dirtiest kind of a deal."
"What makes me sore," said Diamond, "is that some sensational newspapers should send professional bruisers to witness our college football games and denounce them as more brutal than prize fights."
"That makes me a trifle warm under the collar," admitted Browning. "But I don't suppose we should mind what that class of papers say. Their motto is 'Anything for a sensation,' and the intelligent portion of the newspaper readers is onto them. These papers have faked so many things that they carry no weight when they do tell the truth."
"I wouldn't mind putting Nemo into a race just to see what sort of stuff there is in him," admitted Frank.
"Why don't you do it?" cried Diamond, eagerly.
"I wouldn't want to enter him in any of the races around here."
"Take him to New York."
"No; those races are beyond my limit. All I want to do is try him for my own satisfaction."
"Then run him into the Mystic Park races at Bethany. You can do that quietly enough."
"That's so," said Browning. "You can do that without attracting too much attention to yourself."
"We'll all go up and see the race," declared Griswold. "It will be great sport. Do it, old man!"
"But where can I get a jockey I can trust?"
"You'll have to scrub around for one, and take chances."
"No!" cried Merriwell, as a sudden thought struck him. "I can do better than that."
"How?"
"I have the fellow."
"Who?"
"A colored boy at