“It means that we're goin' to be allowed to win. The other day they laid against her, an' she got beat; to-day they're holdin' her out, so I suppose she'll win, but somebody else gets the benefit.”
“Gad! that Langdon must be a crook,” muttered Porter. “I'm going to speak to my friend Crane about him again. No honest man should have horses in his stable.”
“That they shouldn't,” asserted Dixon. “But we've got our own troubles to-day. From what I see of this thing, I'd rather back the mare at even money than I would if she was ten to one. If I'm any judge we're being buncoed good and plenty.”
“I think you're right Dixon. I'll go back and have a good bet down on her at evens.”
But in five minutes Lucretia's owner was back in the paddock with the cheerful intelligence that the mare was now three to five.
“I wouldn't back 'Salvator' among a lot of cart horses at that price,” commented Dixon; “leave it alone, an' we'll go for the Stake. We're up against it good and hard; somebody seems to know more about our own horse than we do ourselves.”
“I think myself that the gods are angry with us, Dixon,” said Porter moodily; “and the mortals will be furious, too, whichever way the race goes. They've backed the little mare at this short price no doubt, an' if she's beaten they'll howl; if she wins they'll swear my money was on to-day, and that I pulled her in her last race.”
John Porter sat in the Grand Stand with his usual companion, Allis, beside him, as The Dutchman, Lucretia, and the other Eclipse horses passed down the broad spread of the straight Eclipse course to the five-and-a-half furlong post.
Though Porter had missed his betting, he intuitively felt the joy of an anticipated win. Only a true lover of thoroughbreds can know anything of the mad tumult of exultation that vibrates the heart strings as a loved horse comes bravely, gallantly out from the surging throng of his rivals, peerless and king of them all, stretching his tapered neck with eager striving, and goes onward, past the tribunal, first and alone, the leader, the winner, the one to be cheered of the many thousands wrought to frenzy by his conquest.
“Surely Lucretia will win to-day, father—don't you think so?” asked Allis; “I feel that she will.”