“I hope to God it's nothin',” said the Trainer; and his voice was quite different from his usual rough tone. Then a sudden suspicion took possession of him. Faust's readiness to lay long odds against the mare had haunted him like a foolish nightmare. Had there been foul play? The mare couldn't have taken a cold—they had been so careful of her; there had been no rain for ten days; she hadn't got wet. No, it couldn't be cold. But she undoubtedly had fever. A sickening conviction came that it was the dreaded influenza.
That morning was the first time she had coughed, so Faust could not have known of her approaching illness, unless he had been the cause of it.
The Trainer pursued his investigation among the stable lads. When he asked Finn if he had noticed anything unusual about the mare, the boy declared most emphatically that he had not. Then, suddenly remembering an incident he had taken at the time to be of little import, he said: “Two mornin's ago when I opened her stall and she poked her head out, I noticed a little scum in her nose; but I thought it was dust. I wiped it out, and there was nuthin' more come that I could see.”
“What's the row?” asked Mike Gaynor, as he joined Dixon.
When the details were explained to him Mike declared, emphatically, that some one had got at the mare. Taking Dixon to one side, he said: “It's that divil on wheels, Shandy; ye can bet yer sweet loife on that. I've been layin' for that crook; he cut Diablo's bridle an' t'rew th' ould man; an' he done this job, too.”
“But how could he get at her?” queried the Trainer. “The stable's been locked; an' Finn and Carter was sleepin' in the saddle room.”
“That divil could go where a sparrer could. How did he git in to cut th' bridle rein—t'rough a manure window no bigger'n your hat. He done that, as I know.”
“Well, if the mare's got it we're in the soup. Have you seen Miss Porter about, Mike?”
“I did a minute ago; I'll pass the word ye want to see her—here she comes now. I'll skip. Damn if I want to see them gray eyes when ye tell about the little mare. It'll just break her heart; that's what it'll do. An' maybe I wouldn't break the back av the devil as put up this dirty job. It isn't Shandy that's as much to blame as the blackguard that worked him.”
Dixon ran over in his mind many contorted ways of breaking the news to Allis, and finished up by blurting out: “The mare's coughin' this mornin', Miss; I hope it ain't nothin', but I'm afraid she's in for a sick spell.”