"'Can he keep that gait up for the mile?' I asked his owner.
"'He wants four miles,' he replied. 'His roaring is a bluff.'
"'Count me in, then,' said I. 'He'll walk in that race. I'll scratch mine out.'
"We went along the line and looked over the other horses, especially the twelve that were entered for that first race, and, although there were some good-lookers in the bunch, they had been campaigned heavily for months, and were a jaded lot. I scratched my pretty fair horse out of that first race. Then I sold the poorest nag of my three platers to a banker in town for a stylish saddle horse. Got $400 for him. I wanted the money for betting purposes.
"There was a big crowd out at the Fair grounds on the day the racing began. Four books were on, all of them run by representatives of big gambling houses in town. My friend had the Fonso colt taken out of his stall and slowly trotted around the track about three-quarters of an hour before the first race, that in which the horse was entered. The gathering crowd in the stand laughed over the horse's awkward, climbing gait and clumsy appearance. That's what we wanted 'em to do. We wanted the price, or the horse would have been kept in his stall.
"Only seven of the field originally entered for the race went to the post. Now, I didn't have anything to do with conditioning Star Boarder, and I never belonged to the syringe gang, anyhow; I kept strictly away from the paddock and the barns before the race, because I didn't want to see anything. But the way that Fonso colt, with all his clumsiness, held his head up and pranced around as he was going to the post, with a pretty fair boy that I brought along with me from St. Louis on his back, by the way, was certainly great. Dope makes a horse about as perky as three drinks of whisky makes a man who's been off the booze for a long while. The trouble is that the dope doesn't last so long in a horse as it does in a man, and I was pretty anxious for a prompt start, so that the dope in this homely cast-off of mine wouldn't die out.
"The betting on Star Boarder opened at 15, 6, and 3. There was an even-money favorite, a horse that had pulled down a number of mile purses at St. Louis, a 2 to 1 shot, and the others slid up to the nag my friend and I wanted to have win; Star Boarder being the rank outsider at 15 to 1. I put my $400 down on him with the four booked all three ways, $200 to win, $100 for the place, and $100 to show. In the morning my friend handed me $200 of his savings from the circus business to bet. I played his coin $100 to win and $100 a place. I had hardly got the money down before I heard a big whoop of laughter from the stand, and I rushed out to see what was the matter. Star Boarder was running away. There had been a false break, and the fool plug had kept right on going. He had a mouth like forged steel, and the boy couldn't do anything with him. I stood and damned Fonso and all his tribe to the last generation, and I could see my friend in the paddock shaking his fist and grinding his teeth.
"'Oh, well,' said I to myself, 'it's all off, and it serves you bully good and right for not racing your own plugs and letting these con and dope grafts go to the devil.'
"The horse went the full length of the course before he was pulled up, and then he was roaring and wheezing like a sea-lion. The crowd laughed, and the books gave the post-time bettors all the 60 to 1 against Star Boarder that they wanted—which, of course, was none.
"I went back to the paddock then, while the horses were gyrating at the post, and found the brute's owner. I laid him open.