Young Wallingford

“You fellows are kidding. You don’t want to make book for me. I’ll take this coin out to the track and get it down at the long odds.”

His display of contemptuous anger decided them.

“I’ll take my share,” asserted Short-Card Larry, he of the quick temper, and among them the four made up the money to cover Wallingford’s bet.

“Here’s the stakes, Blackie,” said Wallingford, passing over the money toward him. “You’re all willing he should hold the money?”

They were. They knew Blackie.

“Moreover,” observed Yap Pickins meaningly, “we’ll keep close to him.”

“Here’s another thousand that you can cover at five to one,” offered Wallingford, counting out the money.

Now they were as eager as he.

“We’ll take you,” said Teller, “but I’ll have to go out and get more mezuma.”

“All right. Bring all you can scrape together and I’ll cover the balance of it at two to one.”

For just one moment they were suspicious.

“Look here,” said Billy Banting, “do you know something about this horse?”

“If I did I wouldn’t tell. Don’t you know that I can get from fifteen to twenty at the track? Why do you suppose I want to make such a sucker bet as this? It’s because I’d rather have your money than anybody else’s; because I want to break you!”

He was fairly trembling with simulated anger now.

“If that’s the case you’ll be accommodated,” said Teller with an oath. “Come on, boys; we’ll bring up a chunk of money that’ll stop all this four-flush conversation.”

Mr. Phelps, having already “produced to his limit,” stayed with Wallingford while the others went out. First of all, they dropped in at a quiet pool-room where they were known, and made inquiries about Whipsaw. They were answered by a laugh, and an offer to “take them on for all they wanted at their own odds,” and, reassured, they scattered, to raise all the money they could. They returned in the course of an hour and counted down a sum larger than Wallingford had thought the four of them could control. He was to find out later that they had not only converted their bank accounts and all their other holdings into currency, but had borrowed all their credit would stand wherever they were known. Wallingford, covering their first five thousand with one, calmly counted out an amount equal to one-half of all the rest they had put down, passed it over to Blackie to hold, then flaunted more money in their faces.

“This is at evens if you can scrape up any more,” he offered sneeringly. “Go soak your jewelry.”

Before making that suggestion he had noted the absence of Larry’s ring and of Billy’s studded watch-charm. Phelps was the only one who still wore anything convertible, a loud cravat-pin, an emerald, set with diamonds.

“Give you two hundred against your pin,” said he to Phelps, and the latter promptly took the bet.

“Are you all in?” asked Wallingford.

They promptly acknowledged that they were “all in.”

“All right, then; we’ll have a drink and go out to the track. You’ll want to see this race, because I win!”

They were naturally contemptuous of this view, even hilariously contemptuous, and they offered to lend Wallingford money enough, after the race, “to sneak out of town and hide.”

While they were taking the parting drink Blackie Daw slipped into Wallingford’s bedroom for just one moment “to get a handkerchief.” There he found, mopping his brow, a short, thick-set chap known as Shorty Hampton, a perfectly reliable and discreet betting commissioner.

“I was just goin’ to duck,” growled Shorty in a gruff whisper. “I’ve got two or three other parties to see. I’ve been suffocating in this damned little room for the last hour, waitin’.”

“All right. Here’s the money,” said Blackie, and handed him half the stakes which had just been intrusted to his care. “Spread this in as many pool-rooms as you can; get it all down on Whipsaw.”

“Three ways?” asked Shorty.

“Straight, every cent of it,” insisted Daw. “No place or show-money for us to-day.”

At the track they saw Beauty Phillips alone in the grand-stand, and joined her. Wallingford introduced Blackie, and they chatted with her a few moments, then Wallingford took him away. He did not care to have Jake Block see them with her until after the fourth race. As they moved off she gave Wallingford a quick, meaning little nod.

True to Pickins’ threat the quartet kept very close indeed to Daw, but, during the finish of the rather exciting third race, Blackie, manœuvering so that Wallingford was just behind him, slipped from his pocket the remaining half of the stake-money.

“Well, boys,” said Wallingford blandly, the money safely tucked away in his own pocket. “I still have a little coin to wager on Whipsaw. Do you want it?”

“No; we’re satisfied,” returned Larry dryly.

“All right, then,” said Wallingford. “I’m going down and get it on the books.”

Harry Phelps sighed.

“It’s too bad to see that easy money going away from us, Pink,” he confessed.

Jake Block spent but little time that afternoon in the grand-stand by the side of Beauty Phillips and her mother. From the beginning of the racing he was first in the stables and then in the paddock with an anxious eye. He was lined up at the fence opposite the barrier for the start of the fateful fourth, and he stood there, after the horses had jumped away, to watch his great little Whipsaw around the course. But Beauty Phillips was not without company. Wallingford sauntered up at the sound of the mounting bell and sat confidently by her.

“Did you get it all down, Jimmy?” she asked.

“Every cent,” said he, wiping his brow nervously. “Did you?”

“Mother and I are broke if Whipsaw don’t win,” she confessed with dry lips. “What do you suppose makes Mr. Block look up here with such a poison face every two or three minutes?”

Wallingford chuckled hugely.

“The odds,” he explained. “I’ve cut them to slivers. I bet all mine and Blackie’s money with the Phelps crowd, then turned around and bet all ours and theirs again. Say, it’s murder if I lose. Not even a fancy murder, either.”

Blackie Daw, attended by three of his guard, came over to join them, Blackie evidencing a strong disposition to linger in the rear, for he was taking a desperate chance with desperate men. If Whipsaw lost he had his course mapped out – down the nearest steps of the grand-stand and out to the carriage-gate as fast as his legs would carry him. There, J. Rufus’ automobile was to be waiting, all cranked up and trembling, ready to dart away the moment Blackie should jump in. Just as Blackie and the others joined Wallingford and Beauty Phillips, Larry Teller came breathlessly up from the betting-shed.

“There’s something doing on that Whipsaw horse,” he declared excitedly. “He opened at twenty to one – and in fifteen minutes of play – either somebody that knows something – or a wagonload of fool-money – had backed him down to evens. Think of it! Evens!”

There was a sudden roar from the crowd, more like a gigantic groan than any other sound. They were off! One horse was left at the post, but it was not Whipsaw. Two others trailed behind. The other five were away, well bunched. At the quarter, three horses drew into the lead, Whipsaw just behind them. At the half, one of the three was dropping back, and Whipsaw slowly overtaking it. Now his nose was at her flanks; now at the saddle; then the jockeys were abreast; then the white jacket and red sleeves of Whipsaw’s rider could be seen to the fore of the opposing jockey, with the two leaders just ahead. At the three-quarters, three horses were neck and neck again, but this time Whipsaw was among them. Down the stretch they came pounding, and then, and not until then, did Whipsaw, a lithe, shining little brown streak, strike into the best stride of which he was capable. A thousand hoarse watchers, as they came to the seven-eighths, roared encouragement to the horses. Whipsaw’s name was much among them, but only in tones of anger. Men and even women ran down to the rail and stood on tiptoe with red faces, shrieking for Fashion to come on, begging and praying Fashion to win, for Fashion carried most of the money; and the shrieking became an agony as the horses flashed under the wire, Whipsaw a good, clean half length in the lead!

As the roaring stopped in one high, abrupt wail, Beauty Phillips, who never knew emotion or excitement, suddenly discovered, to her vast surprise, that she was on her feet! that she was clutching her throat for its hoarseness! that she was dripping with perspiration! that she was faint and weak and giddy! that her blood was pounding and her eyeballs hurt; and that she had been, from the stretch down, jumping violently up and down and shrieking the name of Whipsaw! Whipsaw! Whipsaw! Whipsaw!

A frenzied hand grabbed Blackie Daw by the elbow.

“Duck, for God’s sake, Blackie!” implored the shaking voice of Billy Banting. “Go down to the old joint on Thirty-third Street and wait for us. We’ll split up that stake and all make a get-away.”

“Not on your life!” returned Blacked calmly, and pulled Wallingford around toward him by the shoulder. “I shall have great pleasure in turning over to Mr. Wallingford the combined bets of the Broadway Syndicate against that lovely little record-breaker, Whipsaw.”

“It’s a good horse,” said Wallingford with forced calmness, and then he began to chuckle, his broad shoulders shaking and his breast heaving; “and it was well named. I fawncy the Broadway Syndicate book will now go out of business – and with no chance to welch.”

“All we wise people knew about it,” Blackie condescendingly explained to the quartet. “You see, I am running the National Clockers’ Association.”

Before the voiceless Broadway Syndicate was through gasping over this piece of news, Jake Block came stalking through the grand-stand. Though elated over his victory and flushed with his winnings, he nevertheless had time to cast a bitter scowl in the direction of Beauty Phillips.

“The next time I hand any woman a tip you may cut my arm off!” he declared. “I’m through with you!”

“Who’s that?” asked Larry Teller, glaring after the man who had mentioned the pregnant word “tip.”

“Jake Block, the owner of Whipsaw,” Wallingford was pleased to inform him.

“It’s a frame-up!” shouted Billy Banting.

A strong left hand clutched desperately at Blackie Daw’s coat and tore the top button off, and an equally strong right hand grabbed into Blackie Daw’s inside coat-pocket. It was empty, Pickins found, just as a stronger hand than his own gripped him until he winced with pain.

“What have you done with the stakes?” shrieked Pickins, trying to throw off that grip, but not turning.

“What’s it your business? But, if you want to know, all that stake-money was bet in the shed and in the books about town – on Whipsaw to win!”

The broad-shouldered man who had edged up quite near to them during the race, and who had interfered with Pickins, now stepped in front of the members of the defunct Broadway Syndicate. They only took one good look at him, and then fell back quite clamily. In the broad-shouldered giant they had recognized Harvey Willis, the quite capable Broadway policeman and friend of Wallingford, off for the day in his street clothes.

“Run along, little ones, and play tricks on the ignorant country folks from Harlem and Flatbush,” advised Beauty Phillips as she took Wallingford’s arm and turned away with him. “You’ve been whipsawed!”

She was exceptionally gracious to J. Rufus that evening, but for the first time in many days he was extremely thoughtful. A vague unrest possessed him and it grew as the Beauty became more gracious. He guessed that he could marry her if he wished, but somehow the idea did not please him as it might have done a few weeks earlier. He liked the Beauty perhaps even better than before, but somehow she was not quite the type of woman for him, and he had not realized it until she brought him face to face with the problem.

“By the way,” he said as he bid her good night, “I think I’ll take a little run about the country for a while. I’m a whole lot tired of this man’s town.”

CHAPTER XVII

J. RUFUS SEEKS FOR PROFITABLE INVESTMENT IN THE COUNTRY

A rattling old carryall, drawn by one knobby yellow horse and driven by a decrepit patriarch of sixty, stopped with a groan and a creak and a final rattle at the door of the weather-beaten Atlas Hotel, and a grocery “drummer,” a beardless youth with pink cheeks, jumped hastily out and rushed into the clean but bare little office, followed as hastily by a grizzled veteran of the road who sold dry-goods and notions and wore gaudy young clothes. Wallingford emerged much more slowly, as became his ponderous size. He was dressed in a green summer suit of ineffable fabric, wore green low shoes, green silk hose, a green felt hat, and a green bow tie, below which, in the bosom of his green silk negligee shirt, glowed a huge diamond. Richness and bigness were the very essence of him, and the aged driver, recognizing true worth when he saw it, gave a jerk at his dust-crusted old cap as he addressed him.

“’Tain’t no use to hurry now,” he quavered. “Them other two’ll have the good rooms.”

J. Rufus, from natural impulse, followed in immediately. There was no one behind the little counter, but the young grocery drummer, having hastily inspected the sparse entries of the preceding days, had registered himself for room two.

“There ain’t a single transient in the house, Billy,” he said, turning to the dry-goods and notion salesman, “so I’ll just put you down for number three.”

A buxom young woman came out of the adjoining dining-room, wiping her red hands and arms upon a water-spattered gingham apron.

“Three of us, Molly,” said the older salesman. “Hustle up the dinner,” and out of pure friendliness he started to chuck her under the chin, whereat she wheeled and slapped him a resounding whack and ran away laughing. This vigorous retort, being entirely expected, was passed without comment, and the two commercial travelers took off their coats to “wash up” at the tin basins in the corner. The aged driver, intercepting them to collect, came in to Wallingford, who, noting the custom, had already subscribed his name with a flourish upon the register.

“Two shillin’,” quavered the ancient one at his elbow.

Wallingford gave him twice the amount he asked for, and the old man was galvanized into instant fluttering activity. He darted out of the door with surprising agility, and returned with two pieces of Wallingford’s bright and shining luggage, which he surveyed reverently as he placed them in front of the counter. Two more pieces, equally rich, he brought, and on the third trip the proprietor’s son, a brawny boy of fifteen, clad in hickory shirt, blue overalls and plow shoes, and with his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, helped him in with Wallingford’s big sole-leather dresser trunk.

“Gee!” said the boy to Wallingford, beaming upon this array of expensive baggage. “What do you sell?”

“White elephants, son,” replied Wallingford, so gravely that the boy took two minutes to decide that the rich stranger was “fresh.”

It was not until dinner was called that any one displayed the least interest in the register, and then the proprietor, a tall, cowboy-like man, with drooping mustaches and a weather-browned face, came in with his trousers tucked into his top boots.

“Hello, Joe! Hello, Billy!” he said, nodding to the two traveling men. “How’s business?”

“Rotten!” returned the grocery drummer.

“Fine!” asserted the dry-goods salesman. “Our house hasn’t done so much business in five years.” Sotto voce, he turned to the young drummer. “Never give it away that business is on the bum,” he said out of his years of experience.

The tall proprietor examined the impressively groomed Wallingford and his impressive luggage with some curiosity, and went behind the little counter to inspect the register.

“I’d like two rooms and a bath,” said Wallingford, as the other looked up thoughtfully.

“Two! Two?” repeated Jim Ranger, looking about the room. “Some ladies with you? Mother or sister, maybe?”

“No,” answered Wallingford, smiling. “A bedroom and sitting-room and a bath for myself.”

“Sitting-room?” repeated the proprietor. “You know, you can sit in this office till the ’leven-ten’s in every night, and then the parlor’s – ” He hesitated, and, seeing the unresponsive look upon his guest’s face, he added hastily: “Oh, well, I reckon I can fix it. We can move a bed out of number five, and I’ll have the bath-tub and the water sent up as soon as you need it. This is wash-day, you know, and they’ve got the rinse water in it. I reckon you won’t want it before to-night, though.”

“No,” said J. Rufus quietly, and sighed.

Immediately after lunch, J. Rufus, inquiring again for the proprietor, was told by Molly that he was in the barn, indicating its direction with a vague wave of her thumb. Wallingford went out to the enormous red barn, its timbers as firm as those of the hotel were flimsy, its lines as rigidly perpendicular as those of the hotel were out of plumb, its doors and windows as square-angled as those of the hotel were askew. Across its wide front doors, opening upon the same wide, cracked old stone sidewalk as the hotel, was a big sign kept fresh and bright: “J. H. Ranger, Livery and Sales Stable.” Here Wallingford found the proprietor and the brawny boy in the middle of the wide barn floor, in earnest consultation over the bruised hock of a fine, big, draft horse.

“I’d like to get a good team and a driver for this afternoon,” observed Wallingford.

“You’ve come to the right place,” declared Jim Ranger heartily, and when he straightened up he no longer looked awkward and out of place, as he had in the hotel office, but seemed a graceful part of the surrounding picture. “Bob, get out that little sorrel team and hitch it up to the new buggy for the gentleman,” and as Bob sprang away with alacrity he turned to Wallingford. “They’re not much to look at, that sorrel team,” he explained, “but they can go like a couple of rats, all day, at a good, steady clip, up hill and down.”

“Fine,” said Wallingford, who was somewhat of a connoisseur in horses, and he surveyed the under-sized, lithe-limbed, rough-coated sorrels with approval as they were brought stamping out of their stalls, though, as he climbed into his place, he regretted that they were not more in keeping with the handsome buggy.

“Which way?” asked Bob, as he gathered up the reins.

“The country just outside of town, in all directions,” directed Wallingford briefly.

“All right,” said Bob with a click to the little horses, and clattering out of the door they turned to the right, away from the broad, shady street of old maples, and were almost at once in the country. For a mile or two there were gently undulating farms of rich, black loam, and these Wallingford inspected in careful turn.

“Seems to be good land about here,” he observed.

“Best in the world,” said the youngster. “Was you thinkin’ of buyin’ a farm?”

Wallingford smiled and shook his head.

“I scarcely think so,” he replied.

“’Twouldn’t do you any good if you was,” retorted Bob. “There ain’t a farm hereabouts for sale.”

To prove it, he pointed out the extent of each farm, gave the name of its owner and told how much he was worth, to all of which Wallingford listened most intently.

They had been driving to the east, but, coming to a fork in the road leading to the north, Bob took that turning without instructions, still chattering his local Bradstreet. Along this road was again rich and smiling farm land, but Wallingford, seeming throughout the drive to be eagerly searching for something, evinced a new interest when they came to a grove of slender, straight-trunked trees.

“Old man Mescott gets a hundred gallons of maple syrup out of that grove every spring,” said Bob in answer to a query. “He gets two dollars a gallon, then he stays drunk till plumb the middle of summer. Was you thinkin’ of buyin’ a maple grove?”

Wallingford looked back in thoughtful speculation, but ended by shaking his head, more to himself than to Bob.

They passed through a woods.

“Good timber land, that,” suggested Wallingford.

“Good timber land! I should say it was,” said Bob. “There’s nigh a hundred big walnut trees back in there a ways, to say nothing of all the fine oak an’ hick’ry, but old man Cass won’t touch an ax to nothing but underbrush. He says he’s goin’ to will ’em to his grandchildren, and by the time they grow up it’ll be worth their weight in money. Was you thinkin’ of buyin’ some timber land?”

Wallingford again hesitated over that question, but finally stated that he was not.

“Here’s the north road back into town,” said Bob, as they came to a cross-road, and as they gained the top of the elevation they could look down and see, a mile or so away, the little town, its gray roofs and red chimneys peeping from out its sheltering of green leaves. Just beyond the intersection the side of the hill had been cut away, and clean, loose gravel lay there in a broad mass. Wallingford had Bob halt while he inspected this.

“Good gravel bank,” he commented.

“I reckon it is,” agreed Bob. “They come clear over from Highville and from Appletown and even from Jenkins Corners to get that gravel, and Tom Kerrick dresses his whole family off of that bank. He wouldn’t sell it for any money. Was you thinkin’ of buying a gravel bank, mister?”

Instead of replying Wallingford indicated another broken hillside farther on, where shale rock had slipped loosely down, like a disintegrated slate roof, to a seeping hollow.

“Is that stone good for anything?” he asked.

“Nothing in the world,” replied Bob. “It rots right up. If you was thinkin’ of buyin’ a stone quarry now, there’s a fine one up the north road yonder.”

Wallingford laughed and shook his head.

“I wasn’t thinking of buying a stone quarry,” said he.

Bob Ranger looked shrewdly and yet half-impatiently at the big young man by his side.

“You’re thinkin’ o’ buyin’ somethin’; I know that,” he opined.

Wallingford chuckled and dropped his big, plump hand on the other’s shoulder.

“Elephant hay only,” he kindly explained; “just elephant hay for white elephants,” whereat the inquisitive Bob, mumbling something to himself about “freshness,” relapsed into hurt silence.

In this silence they passed far to the northwest of the town, and a much-gullied highway led them down toward the broader west road. Here again, as they headed straight in to Blakeville with their backs to the descending sun, were gently undulating farm lands, but about half a mile out of town they came to a wide expanse of black swamp, where cat-tails and calamus held sole possession. Before this swamp Wallingford paused in long and thoughtful contemplation.

“Who owns this?” he asked.

“Jonas Bubble,” answered Bob, recovering cheerfully from his late rebuff. “Gosh! He’s the richest man in these parts. Owns three hundred acres of this fine farmin’ land we just passed, owns the mill down yander by the railroad station, has a hide and seed and implement store up-town, and lives in the finest house anywhere around Blakeville; regular city house. That’s it, on ahead. Was you thinkin’ o’ buyin’ some swamp land?”

To this Wallingford made no reply. He was gazing backward over that useless little valley, its black waters now turned velvet crimson as they caught the slant of the reddening sun.

“Here’s Jonas Bubble’s house,” said Bob presently.

It was the first house outside of Blakeville – a big, square, pretentious-looking place, with a two-story porch in front and a quantity of scroll-sawed ornaments on eaves and gables and ridges, on windows and doors and cornices, and with bright brass lightning-rods projecting upward from every prominence. At the gate stood, bare-headed, a dark-haired and strikingly pretty girl, with a rarely olive-tinted complexion, through which, upon her oval cheeks, glowed a clear, roseate under-tint. She was fairly slender, but well rounded, too, and very graceful.

“Hello, Fannie!” called Bob, with a jerk at his flat-brimmed straw hat.

“Hello, Bob!” she replied with equal heartiness, her bright eyes, however, fixed in inquiring curiosity upon the stranger.

“That’s Jonas Bubble’s girl,” explained Bob, as they drove on. “She’s a good looker, but she won’t spoon.”