“Alan Porter!” he gasped. “Bot' t'umbs up! Is it ye, b'y?”
“Hush!” and a small warning finger was held up.
“Don't fear, b'y, that I'll give it away. Mum's the word wit' me. But I'm dahmned if I t'ought ye could roide like that. It's jus' in the breed, that's what it is; ye take to it as natural as ducks—” Mike had a habit of springing half-finished sentences on his friends. “Yer father could roide afore ye; none better, an' Miss Allis can sit a horse foiner nor any b'y as isn't a top-notcher. But this beats me, t'umbs up, if it doesn't. I onderstand,” he continued, as Allis showed an inclination to travel, “ye don't want the push to get on to ye. They won't, nayther—what did ye say yer name was, sonny?”
“Al Mayne.”
“Ye'r a good b'y, Al. I hope Dixon lets ye roide the Chestnut in the Derby. I'd give wan av me legs—an' I needs 'em bot'—to see ye beat out that gang av highway robbers that got at the mare. They'll not git at the Chestnut, for I'll slape in the stall me self.”
As Allis moved away, Mike stood watching the neat figure.
“That's the game, eh?” he muttered to himself; “the gal don't trust Redpath no more'n I do; palaver don't cut no ice wit' her. The b'y didn't finish on Lucretia, an' that's all there is to it. But how's Alan goin' to turn the trick in a big field of rough ridin' b'ys? If it was the gurl herself” a sudden brilliant idea threw its strong light through Mike's brain pan. He took a dozen quick shuffling steps after Allis, then stopped as suddenly as he had started. “Mother a' Moses! but I believe it's the gurl; that's why the Chestnut galloped as if he had her on his back. Jasus! he had. Ph-e-e-w-w!” he whistled, a look of intense admiration sweeping over his leather-like face. “Bot' t'umbs! if that isn't pluck. There isn't a soul but meself'll git ontil it, an' she all but fooled me.”
XXXII
The news that Lucretia was sick had got about. The Porter's stable traveled out in the betting for the Brooklyn Derby until a backer—if there had been one—could have written his own price, and got it.