Jard Hassock and Robert Vane talked horses. Jard now did most of the talking. The glorious pedigree of Willoughby Girl had affected him as the bray of trumpets affects old cavalry horses, as the piping of a high wind in tree tops reawakens life and longing in the arteries of retired mariners dozing in cottage gardens. His memory flashed pictures appealing and glamorous to his mind’s eye, of cheering crowds and white-fenced tracks and satin-coated horses speeding with outstretched necks. His experiences had been entirely with harness racing—but the horses who trot and pace are of the same strains of blood as those who run. He remembered only the tingle and rush of victory. The dust of defeat was forgotten. He lamented Lady Firefly’s extreme youth; and for a moment he considered the advisability of approaching old Luke Dangler in his stronghold on Goose Creek. But only for a moment. He knew Luke. Luke had some promising youngsters in his stable—all presumably of the old blood—but he knew by experience all the drawbacks to doing business with that violent and cunning old crook. He knew that Luke had something better than the little filly Lady Firefly. The fact that Luke had parted with the roan filly, even on the amazing terms which he had forced upon Jard, was proof enough for Jard that he held something better of the old blood in reserve.
Jard was not proud of the terms on which he had gained possession of the roan filly. He was heartily ashamed of them; and he had kept them strictly to himself until, in the excitement produced by the perusal of Willoughby Girl’s pedigree, he showed his copy of the agreement to Robert Vane. He had paid four hundred dollars for Lady Firefly as a foal, and had pledged his word (written and witnessed) that he would not part with her without Luke Dangler’s permission, that Luke was to have one-half of the price if a sale were made, and that if she were bred from while in Jard’s possession Luke was to have a half-interest in all offspring.
“And you agreed to this?” queried Vane, in astonishment.
“It was my only way of gettin’ her; an’ I got to have a bit of speed comin’ along in my stable—simply got to! It’s the way I was made. Life ain’t worth gettin’ out of bed for without it. I’ve tried. An’ I’ve tried other strains of blood, but I never won a race with anything but what I got from Luke Dangler.”
“But what about the others, the Willy Horse and Strawberry Lightning? Did you own them on the same conditions?”
“No. I owned the Willy Horse hoof an’ hide, an’ I bred the mare myself. But I had to sell the horse to Luke Dangler for four hundred.”
“Had to?”
“Had to is right, mister. Them Danglers an’ old Dave Hinch work together. Dave’s a money-lender—one of the real old-fashioned kind—and a note-shaver. He got hold of some of my paper once. ’Nough said! An’ the Danglers! Say, mister, any man who gets in dead wrong with a Dangler of Goose Crick had best clear out of this section of woods, or he’ll find himself dead in it some day. Yes, mister, they squoze the Willy Horse out of me an’ sold him down in Maryland for three thousand; an’ he was sold in New Orleans a year after that for twenty thousand; an’ when Luke an’ Dave seen that on the sportin’ pages they was mad enough to bite horseshoes. An’ it was for fear of them two old crooks I sold Strawberry Lightnin’. As soon as she won a few races they got after me; an’ they’d of got her, too—or me—if I hadn’t sold her quick acrost the line.”
“Where’s this Goose Creek?” asked Vane.
“What d’you want to know for?” countered Jard.