"'This yellow man'll probably queer me,' I thought at the time, 'but I can't go along playing 1000 to 1 shots like him for favorites. If he peaches—well, there are other States besides Maryland.'
"I was rather surprised that he didn't come back when he got sober. But, nope, he didn't come back at all. I got another stableman and during the following week, the last of the meeting, I pulled off three good painted things with as good as 15 to 1 around two of 'em, without yellow Lem turning up to pester me at all. I thought of him a good deal. Every time I got one of my plugs at the post I stood by to see the yellow man walk into the judges' stand and give me away. I'll bet I lost ten pounds worrying about that darkey and what he might do during that last week in Maryland. I felt as light as a snowball when I got my string out of that State and over at the Alexander Island track, near Washington. When I got 'em all safe over there, says I to myself, 'This yellow ex-man o' mine is probably back in Thompson street, with his carcass full of gin by this time. So I'll just cut out the worry about him.'
"Well, I started in at the preliminary work of pulling off a real swell thing at Alexander Island. It was about as easy to enter a horse down there as it is to go broke up here, and I put the best one of my lot in the overnight races for a week. I entered him as a half-breed from a Warrenton farm—a maiden six-year-old. It went through easy, the overnight entering did, and I began to lay my horse up for a price. The horse had done a mile in 1.40-1/2 and he had the whole bunch down at Alexander Island outclassed by 212 pounds. The plug had belonged to the best of the Western selling-plater division as a three- and four-year-old and he had been in a few stakes at that. I got him as a five-year-old and he surely was a meal-ticket for me. He wasn't painted a bit—you didn't have to dye 'em at Alexander Island. If Hanover had been an outlaw you could have stuck him into any old race down there and they'd never have got next.
"I had a boy along with the string who'd been chased off the Western licensed tracks for funny work, and what that boy didn't know about riding like as if his life depended on his winning, and forty wraps on his mount all the time, wasn't worth knowing. Say, he had six separate and distinct bridle welts on both of his forearms that he got in pulling horses. He was invaluable, that boy. When we were out to win he never made anything but a nose finish of it even if our horse was up against the worst set of outlaw dray-plugs in training. Oh, that boy knew his gait all right! I did the best I could to keep him from going to Joliet for pocketpicking in Chicago a couple o' years ago, but it was no use. He's still doing his bit.
"Well, I had him sail this good nag of mine over the course in seven races the first ten days of the meeting. The horse was a bit too likely looking, and there was only 5 to 1 against him in the first race. He finished fourth. The boys in the ring quoted 8 to 1 around him in No. 2 race, and he finished sixth in a field of seven. And so on. He was in the ruck in most of the races, and he finished the last two of the seven a rank last. By that time you could have written your own ticket if you wanted to play him, which is what I was waiting for. My boy complained that during the last three races he had all colors of trouble in holding the horse in.
"'You'd better open the watermelon quick,' said he to me after the seventh race, 'or I'm liable to lose him and win the next time out.'
"And so I had the pie counter all spread out for his next time out. It was a six-furlong race, which was my horse's distance. Two of the cracks of the outlaw brigade were in the race, and they both opened up at even money. Then one of 'em was played down to 1 to 2 on. It was a twelve-horse race, and my nag opened up the rank outsider with any amount of 100 to 1 quoted around him. I didn't want to be too chesty and spoil my dough, and so I only took $50 worth of it, scattering it around in $10 gobs. I reckoned that $5000 would be a good-enough pulldown on the race, and I didn't want to take any chances on being shut out of the game down at Alexander Island. I put a few of the boys I knew next to what was going to happen, told 'em not to go it too strong or they'd queer me, and they mixed up $5 all over the ring on my 100 to 1 horse, that should have gone to the post at 1 to 100. They broke the price down to 30 to 1, but that didn't make any difference to me, for I had picked up all I wanted of the 100 to 1.
"When they went to the post I picked out a spot on the rail some distance away from the grand stand to watch the race. I felt pretty good. I knew it was going through. My horse had worked the six furlongs in 1:16 flat the afternoon before, and I knew that he was easy money. The only thing I was afraid of was that he would get away from the boy and beat the bunch by eight blocks, thus bringing me into the judges' stand on suspicion. I was thinking of all these things when I heard a voice behind me.
"'Aftuhnoon, Cap,' said the voice. 'How's yo' all tuh-day?'
"I looked around. The voice belonged to Lem, my fired yellow stable man. Lem was sober, and got up as if for a cake-walk. He had business in his eye, too.