This was the race as programmed; this was the Pitkin annual clean-up as planned. Imagine, then, Pitkin's sheer, dumb amazement at the spectacle of Shea, going to the bat at the rise of the barrier in order to keep his mount within striking distance of the tail end of the procession! Imagine his wrath as the colt continued to lag in last place, losing ground in spite of the savage punishment administered by Shea. Imagine his sensations when he thought of the Pitkin bank roll, scattered in all the pool rooms between Seattle and San Francisco, tossed to the winds, burned up, gone forever, bet on a colt that would not or could not make a respectable fight for it!
Let us drop the curtain over the rest of the race—Hartshorn won it in a neck-and-neck drive with Calloway just as Shea was flogging the bay colt past the sixteenth pole—and we will lift the curtain again at the point where the judges summoned Pitkin into the stand to ask him for an explanation of Sergeant Smith's pitiful showing.
"Now, sir," said the presiding judge; "we've been pretty lenient with you, Mr. Pitkin. We've overlooked a lot of things that we didn't like—a lot of things. I figured this colt to have a fair chance to win to-day, or be in the money at least. He ran like a cow. How do you account for that?"
"Why, judges," stammered Pitkin, "I—I don't account for it. I can't account for it. The colt's been working good, and—and——"
"And you thought he had a chance, did you?"
"Why sure, judges, and I——"
"Well, then, why did you tell your friends that the colt was only in for a tryout? How about that?"
"I—I didn't want 'em spoiling the price, I mean, judges; I didn't think it was anybody's business."
"Oh, so you bet on him, did you? Let's see the tickets."