"Oh, dash your bet! Blake, I'm no betting man; but you'd better be certain what Ray's doing before you champion him so glibly. Perhaps I know more than you think."
Blake's face clouded a little.
"I don't like your hints, Wilkins. We all know, of course, that Ray has been wild and reckless many a time, but he is disbursing officer of that horse board; he is the man of all others on it to decide what they'll take and what they won't take. Buxton knows mighty little about horses and will vote as Ray does, so that leaves the responsibility with him. He never failed us yet, and, by gad! I don't believe he will now."
"All right! Blake, just you wait. All I've got to say is that if Ray wants to keep his skirts out of the mud he'd better quit the company of that fellow Rallston, and I hear he's with him day and night, and has done no little drinking and card-playing with him already. I don't say gambling, but there's those that do," continued Wilkins, hotly.
"More than that," he went on, after a pause. "When Wayne came through Kansas City, Gleason and Buxton were at the train to meet him, but they didn't know, they said, where Ray was. I heard he was at the hotel sick; been on a tear, I suppose."
"See here, Wilkins, unless you can prove it let up on this sort of talk. Ray told Stannard when he went on this detail that he would touch no card so long as he was disbursing officer, and that he'd let John Barleycorn alone. Now, do you know he has been on any spree?"
"No, I don't know it, Blake, and yet I'm certain of it just from past experience with him."
"By gad! you're as bad as old Backbite himself. Do you remember that time Chip of the artillery was walking down Nassau Street, and a steam-boiler or something burst under the sidewalk and broke his leg? The first thing old Backbite said when he heard of it was, 'H'm! been drinking, I suppose.' Now here's Billings with a despatch. What is it, bully rook?" he hailed, as the adjutant came bounding in.
"Truscott starts to-night, and the horse board will break up next week, so we'll have Jack and Ray with us inside of ten days."
"Precisely. Now, Wilkins, if you want a nice mud-bath for your head, there's an elegant spot back of the stables. Come on, Billings, I'm going to camp."