The Trainer did not answer at once; with him at all times questions were things to be pondered over. His knitted brows and air of hesitating abstraction showed plainly that this question of Allis's was one he would prefer to answer days later, if he answered it at all.
“Didn't she stop suddenly?” Allis asked, again.
“I couldn't just see from where I was what happened,” he replied, evasively; “and I haven't asked the boy yet. She may have got shut in. Ah, here he comes now,” as the jockey returned from the weighing scales.
Redpath seemed to think that some explanation was necessary, as he came up to Allis and the Trainer, so he said: “The little mare seemed to have a chance when I turned into the stretch, an' I thought once I was goin' to win; but that big Black just kept galloping, galloping, an' I never could get to his head; I'd a been in the money, though, if somethin' hadn't bumped me; an' then my mount just died away—she just seemed to die away.” He repeated this is a falling decadence, as though it best expressed his reason for finishing in the ruck.
“Well, we're beat, an' that's all there is to it,” declared Dixon, half savagely; then he added, “an' by a cast-off out of your father's stable, too, Miss Allis. If there's any more bad luck owin' John Porter, hanged if I wouldn't like to shoulder it myself, an' give him a breather.” Then, with ponderous gentleness for a big, rough-throwntogether man, he continued: “Don't you fret, Miss; the little mare's all right; she'll pull your father through all this; you just cheer up. I've got to go now an' look after her.”
When the Trainer had gone the jockey turned to Allis, hesitatingly, and said: “Dixon's correct about the little mare; she's all right. I wouldn't speak even afore him, though he's all right too, but” and he looked about carefully to see that nobody was within ear-shot. Two men were talking a little farther out in the paddock, and Redpath, motioning to Allis, stepped close to the stall that was next to the one Lucretia had occupied, “I could a-been in the money.”
The girl started. Crane had said that the jockey had stopped riding.
“Yes, Miss; you mustn't blame me, for I took chances of bein' had up afore the Stewards.”
“You did wrong if you didn't try to win,” exclaimed Allis, angrily.
“I did try to win, but I couldn't. I saw that I'd never catch that big Black; he was going too strong; his long stride was just breaking the little mare's heart. She's the gamest piece of horseflesh—say, Miss Porter, believe me, it just hurt me to take it out of her, keeping up with that long-legged devil. If I could a-headed him once, just got to him once—I tried it when we turned into the straight—he'd have quit. But it was no use—the mare couldn't do it. With him out of the race I'd have won; I could a-been second or third as it was, but it might have done the little mare up so she wouldn't be any good all season. I thought a bit over this when I was galloping. I knew she was in the Brooklyn Derby, an' when I had the others beat at a mile, thinks I, if the public don't get onto it, Mr. Porter can get all his losses back in the Brooklyn Derby. That's why I eased up on the little mare. You don't think I could do anything crooked against you, Miss? Give me the mount in the Derby, an' your father can bet his last dollar 'that Lucretia'll win.”