Thoroughbreds | Page 9

have; we've just got to take our medicine like little men. Even if we make a break an' take McKay off there isn't another good boy left. If he jabs the little mare with them steels she'll go clean crazy."
"It's my fault, Andy. I guess I've saved and petted her a bit too much. But she never needed spurs--she'd break her heart trying without them."
"By God!" muttered Dixon as he went back to the paddock, "if the boy stops the mare he'll never get another mount, if I can help it. It's this sort of thing that kills the whole business of racing. Here's a stable that's straight from owner to exercise boy, and now likely to throw down the public and stand a chance of getting ruled off ourselves because of a gambling little thief that can spend the income of a prince. But after all it isn't his fault. I know who ought to be warned off if this race is fixed; but they won't be able to touch a hair of him; he's too damn slick. But his time'll come--God knows how many men he'll break in the meantime, though."
As John Porter passed Danby's box going up into the stand, the latter leaned over in his chair, touched him on the arm and said, "Come in and take a seat"
"I can't," replied the other man, "my daughter is up there somewhere."
"I've played the mare," declared Danby, showing Porter a memo written in a small betting book.
The latter started and a frown crossed his brown face.
"I'm sorry--I'm afraid it's no cinch."
"Five to two never is," laughed his friend. "But she's a right smart filly; she looks much the best of the lot. Dixon's got her as fit as a fiddle string. When you're done with that man you might turn him over to me, John."
"The mare's good enough," said Porter, "and I've played her myself--a stiffish bit, too; but all the same, if you asked me now, I'd tell you to keep your money in your pocket. I must go," he added, his eye catching the flutter of a race card which was waving to him three seats up.
"Here's a seat, Dad," cried the girl, cheeringly, lifting her coat from a chair she had kept for her father.
For an instant John Porter forgot all about Lucretia and her troubles. The winsome little woman had the faculty of always making him forget his trials; she had to the fullest extent that power so often found in plain faces. Strictly speaking, she wasn't beautiful--any man would have passed that opinion if suddenly asked the question upon first seeing her. Doubt of the excellence of this judgment might have crept into his mind after he had felt the converting influence of the blue-gray eyes that were so much like her father's; in them was the most beautiful thing in the world, an undoubted evidence of truth and honesty and sympathy. She was small and slender, but no one had ever likened her to a flower. There was apparent sinewy strength and vigor in the small form. Her life, claimed by the open air, had its reward--the saddle is no cradle for weaklings. Bred in an atmosphere of racing, and surrounded as she had always been by thoroughbreds, Allis had grown up full of admiration for their honesty, and courage, and sweet temper.

III
In John Porter's home horse racing had no debasing effect. If a man couldn't race squarely--run to win every time--he had better quit the game, Porter had always asserted. He raced honestly and bet openly, without cant and without hypocrisy; just as a financier might have traded in stocks in Wall Street; or a farmer might plant his crops and trust to the future and fair weather to yield him a harvest in return.
So much of the racing life was on honor--so much of the working out of it was in the open, where purple-clovered fields gave rest, and health, and strength, that the home atmosphere was impregnated with moral truth, and courage, and frankness, in its influence on the girl's development.
Every twist of her sinewy figure bore mute testimony to this; every glance from her wondrous eyes was an eloquent substantiating argument in favor of the life she affected. John Porter looked down at the small, rather dark, upturned face, and a half-amused smile of content came to his lips. "Did you see Lucretia?" he asked. "Isn't she a beauty? Hasn't Dixon got her in the pink of condition?"
"I saw nothing else, father." She beckoned to him with her eyes, tipped her head forward, and whispered: "Those people behind us have backed Lauzanne. I think they're racing folks."
The father smiled as an uncultured woman's voice from one row back jarred on his ear. Allis noticed the smile and its