"The trainer seeing a chance to make a killing—and we all vowed ourselves to secrecy about the matter—went to old Caspar. He was a nag-patcher, as I say, from the foot-hills, and the way he applied himself to the reduction of Caspar's inflammations, and to the tonicking up in general of the old beast, was a caution to grasshoppers. And it came about that early morning's work of Caspar's that had surprised us so was no flash in the pan at all. The old 'possum had somehow or another recovered his speed all of a sudden, in addition to a willingness to run, in spite of his infirmities. At the end of two weeks Caspar, as fine a bit of patched-work as you ever saw, was ready. The trainer went over to Cincinnati and told the father so.
"'Well,' inquired the priest.
"'He's going to run in a five-furlong dash day after to-morrow,' said the trainer. 'And he'll walk. It is a copper-riveted cinch—er-uh—I mean, that is, Caspar will win, you see. It'll be write your own ticket, too. Any price. In fact when the gang sees his name among the entries, they'll think it's a joke.'
"'My son,' said the father, with a certain twinkle lurking in the corner of his eye, 'gaming is a demoralizing passion. Nevertheless, if this animal, that came into my possession by such odd chance, possesses sufficient speed to—er'——
"'Oh, that's all right, father,' said the trainer and he bolted for it.
"As the trainer had said to the priest, there was an all-around chuckle the following afternoon when the entry sheets were distributed and it was seen that Caspar was in the five-furlong dash the next day. For a wonder, not a word had got out about the patching job that had been in progress on the old horse, nor about his remarkable work. The stable lads and railbirds who were on kept their heads closed and saved their nickels for the day of Caspar's victory.
"Well, to curl this up some, the field that we confidently expected Caspar to beat was made up of nine rattling good sprinters—one of them was so good that his price opened and closed at 4 to 5 on. Caspar was the rank outsider at 150 to 1. We all got on at that figure, the bookies giving us the laugh at first, and only a few of them wise enough to rub when they suspected that there was something doing. The trainers', railbirds', and stable-boys' money that went in forced the old skate's price down to 75 to 1 at post time. A number of us took small chunks of 100 to 1 in the poolrooms in Cincinnati—wired our commissions over. The old horse favored his left forefoot a trifle in walking around to the starting pole, and that worried us a bit, for he'd been all right on his pin the night before. We didn't do any hedging, however, but stood by to see what was going to happen. All of us, of course, had enough down on him to finish third to pull us out in case he couldn't get the big end of the money.
"It was a romp for Caspar. If I'd tell you the real name of the horse you'd remember the race well. Caspar, with a perfect incompetent of a jockey on his back, jumped off in the lead, and was never headed, winning, pulled double and to a walk, by three lengths. The bookies made all colors of a howl over it, but their howls didn't go. They had to cough. It was the biggest killing that bunch of Latonia trainers, including myself, had ever made, and there wasn't a stable boy on the grounds that didn't have money to cremate for months afterward.
"After the race the trainer who had patched old Caspar up for the hogslaughtering—he was close on to $15,000 to the good, and he didn't have me skinned any, at that—hustled over to the priest's house.
"'Father, the plug made monkeys of 'em,' is the way he announced Caspar's victory.