Matt drew in a quick breath and turned his startled eyes on Chub.
"Now what have you got to say?" inquired Chub. "I'm the original, blown-in-the-bottle trouble-maker, but you can bet I haven't gone wrong on this!"
[CHAPTER IX.]
MATT SHOWS HIS COLORS.
Looking down on Matt and Chub from one of the walls were four lines carefully printed on a big white card. It was Matt's work, the printing; and the four lines had been in his room at Uncle Jonas King's in the old house in the Berkshires.
"Let me win if I may when the game's afoot;
Let me master my Fate when I choose her:
Playing square with myself in the fight, my boy,
If I fail let me be a good loser."
From Chub's triumphant face, Matt's eyes wandered to the lines on the card and dwelt there for a time.
"I guess you can't get around that rabbit's foot, Matt," said Chub, "and I guess Major Woolford can't, either. Clip has been settled on for the mile race with Prescott this year same as he was last, but you take it from me the major won't have anything to do with him when I show him that rabbit's foot and tell him where I found it. And maybe," finished Chub, "he'll scratch Dace Perry's entry, too, for it's a dead open-and-shut they were both in this. Perry, though, didn't figure on having your wheel jump across in front of his and cause a smash-up."
Matt, with that rabbit's-foot charm as an eye-opener, saw through the whole dastardly proceeding. Crafty Dace Perry was egging Clipperton on, thus "playing even" with Matt at little cost to himself.