“That there Yankee bookmaker gen'leman he's into it too,” added Jeff. “I p'intedly heared 'em both mention his name.”
“I might speak a few words in a kind of a warnin' way to those two,” purred Captain Buck Owings. “I've got a right smart money adventured on this trottin' race myself.” And he turned toward the track.
“Too late for that either, son,” said the old judge, pointing. “Look yonder!”
A joyful rumble was beginning to thunder from the grandstand. The constables had cleared the track, and from up beyond came the glint of the flashing sulky-spokes as the two conspirators wheeled about to score down and be off.
“Then I think maybe I'll have to attend to 'em personally after the race,” said Captain Buck Owings in a resigned tone.
“Son,” counseled Judge Priest, “I'd hate mightily to see you brought up for trial before me for shootin' a rascal—especially after the mischief was done. I'd hate that mightily—I would so.”
“But, Judge,” protested Captain Buck Owings, “I may have to do it! It oughter be done. Nearly everybody here has bet on Minnie May. It's plain robbin' and stealin'!”
“That's so,” assented the judge as Jeff danced a dog of excitement just behind him—“that's so. It's bad enough for those two to be robbin' their own fellow-citizens; but it's mainly the shame on our county fair I'm thinkin' of.” The old judge had been a director and a stockholder of the County Jockey Club for twenty years or more. Until now its record had been clean. “Tryin' to declare the result off afterward wouldn't do much good. It would be the word of three white men against a nigger—and nobody would believe the nigger,” added Captain Buck Owings, finishing the sentence for him.
“And the scandal would remain jest the same,” bemoaned the old judge. “Buck, my son, unless we could do something before the race it looks like it's hopeless. Ah!”
The roar from the grandstand above their heads deepened, then broke up into babblings and exclamations. The two trotters had swung past the mark, but Minnie May had slipped a length ahead at the tape and the judges had sent them back again. There would be a minute or two more of grace anyhow. The eyes of all three followed the nodding heads of the horses back up the stretch. Then Judge Priest, still watching, reached out for Jeff and dragged him round in front of him, dangling in his grip like a hooked black eel.