The Land of Strong Men

  CHAPTER IX

  DORGAN

  In due course a small, clean-shaven man who walked with a slight limpsurveyed the big chestnut with a shrewd, bright eye. This was Rennie'sfriend, the ex-jockey.

  "Like his looks, Pete?" Rennie queried.

  Pete, whose surname was Dorgan, nodded. "I like 'em some ways," headmitted. "He's got power to burn, and that'll give him speed--some. Infive miles he'd be runnin' strong, but he might not be fast enough at amile. 'Course, I don't know nothin' about what he'll be up ag'inst. Whattime has this race been run in, other years?" When Angus told him hegrunted. "Good as that? Must be some real horses here. You're sure heain't stolen? I wouldn't want to be mixed up in a deal like that, evenif I am out of the game."

  "He ain't stolen. This old Injun is as straight as you are."

  "Well, I've been called crooked before now," Dorgan grinned. "But if yousay so, Dave, I guess this old boy is all right. You can tell him I'llput the horse in the best shape I can, and maybe I'll ride him. If Idon't, I'll get a boy. But I ain't goin' to live with a bunch of Injunswhile I'm doin' it, and the horse has to be taken out of here." He eyedPaul Sam's primitive stable arrangements with disgust. "He's ruinin' hisfeet."

  Paul Sam made no objection, and the big chestnut which Dorgan christened"Chief," was brought to the Mackay ranch. There he was installed in adisused building which lay behind the other stables and some distancefrom them.

  "The way I get it," said Dorgan, "we better keep this horse under coveras long as we can. From what you say, there ain't been no class to thehay-hounds the Siwashes has started other years, and so an Injun entryis a joke entry. Nobody knows this horse, and seein' him the way he isnow, not many'd pipe what he really is unless they was wised up. But youlet some of these wise local birds lamp him after I've had him a coupleof weeks, and they might smell something. Then I may's well keep darkmyself. Not that I'm ashamed of myself more'n I ought to be, butsomebody might remember me, though I ain't ridden for years. So I'll bean extra hand you've hired, see? Me and Chief will take our work-outs onthe quiet as long as we can."

  So Dorgan gave the horse his exercise on a little prairie a mile back ofthe ranch. As he had predicted, a couple of weeks made a vast differencein his appearance. Groomed till his chestnut coat was gleaming, dappledsatin, his feet trimmed and cleaned and polished and shod by Dorganhimself, fed bright, clean grain and savory mashes and bedded to theknees nightly in sweet straw, Chief tasted for the first time the joysof the equine aristocracy to which he belonged.

  But somehow the rumor that the Indians had a mysterious horse and ridergot going, and one day Dorgan, who had been to town, came to Angus.

  "Say," he said, "do you know a hard-faced bird, near as big as you arebut older and heavier, that looks like a bad actor and likes the juice?He seems to be the king-pin of a bunch of young rye-hounds that thinkthey're sports."

  "Do you mean Blake French?"

  "That's the outfit that owns this Flambeau horse, ain't it?"

  "Yes. What about it?"

  "Nothin' much. He'd have bought me a lot of friendship sealers if I'dlet him. Then there was a feller, name of Garland, that thinks he's awarm member, and claimed he'd seen me ridin' long ago when he was a kid.He might of, at that. They sorter fished around to find out what I wasdoin' here. But they know, all right. If I was crooked I b'lieve I coulddo business with them two."

  "I've never heard that they would do anything crooked. Of course theymight try to find out all they could."

  "If I'd taken all the crooked money I've been offered," said Dorgan,"and got away with it, I wouldn't need to be worryin' about apples andchickens now. I know when a feller's feelin' me out, same as I know whena couple of young burglars is holdin' a pocket open for me to rideinto."

  "But they don't know if Paul Sam's horse can run or not."

  "That's their trouble. But if they can fix somebody, they don't need tocare."

  A couple of days after this, Angus, coming around Chief's quarters fromthe rear, overheard Dorgan earnestly assuring Kathleen French that Chiefwas quarantined for threatened influenza; and further that he was asaddle horse, pure and simple, with no more speed than a cow. With aglance at Angus which was intended to convey grave warning, he beat aretreat.

  "Who is the remarkable liar?" Kathleen asked.

  "Is he that? His name is Pete Dorgan."

  "If you have a deadline on the place you ought to put up a sign," shetold him. "How did I know I was butting in?"

  "How do you know it now?"

  "Because I have average intelligence. I didn't know there was a horsehere at all. I was looking for Jean, and when I saw a perfectlysplendid, strange animal, naturally I stopped to look at him. I also sawa little, flat pigskin saddle, and I saw that the horse was wearingplates. Then this Dorgan appeared and lied straight ahead without theleast provocation, looking me in the face without the quiver of aneyelash. I didn't ask him a single question, I give you my word.

  "There's no special reason why you shouldn't. The horse isn't mine. Butthe fact is, his owner and Dorgan aren't saying anything about him."

  "Angus! he isn't--but no, of course he isn't!"

  "Isn't what?"

  "A ringer. I'm sorry. I know you wouldn't go into anything like that ifyou knew it."

  Angus laughed. "He's no ringer. He belongs to Paul Sam." He told her asmuch as he thought necessary of the animal's history.

  "Thanks for the confidence," she nodded. "I'll say nothing about it. Ifyou had treated me as Dorgan did, I should have felt hurt."

  "He didn't know you. He thinks this horse will give you a race."

  "What, beat Flambeau!" she cried. "Nonsense!"

  "Well, he seems to be a pretty good horse."

  "Then I'll bet you an even hundred now!" she challenged.

  "No, no. I don't want to bet with you."

  "Oh, you needn't have any scruples. The boys take my money--when theycan get it."

  "But I don't think I'll bet at all."

  "Then what on earth are you doing with the horse?" she asked in frankastonishment.

  "He is just stabled here."

  "But I don't see why you won't bet if you think the horse has a goodchance."

  "Because I can't afford to lose."

  "But that makes it all the more exciting."

  "It makes it all the more foolish," Angus told her grimly. "It is allvery well for you; you people can afford to play with money."

  "How do you know we can?"

  "Well, I've always heard so."

  "And therefore it must be so." She switched the grass, looking down."Well, whether it is or not, we're born gamblers--the whole family.Perhaps we can't help it. But sometimes--sometimes I wish it weredifferent. I wish the boys would work as you work; and--and that I werea home girl with a nice big brother."

  "You have enough big brothers," Angus told her. "I think myself it woulddo them no harm to work, but it is none of my business. I did not meanto seem curious about your affairs. Anyway, some day you will bemarrying and leaving them."

  "Perhaps," she admitted. "The chief end of--woman! Oh, I supposeso--some day. Well?"

  "That's all. You will likely marry somebody with plenty of money, andthen you will go away."

  "Do you mean that I shall marry for money?"

  "No, but if your husband has it, it will be no drawback. Lots of theseyoung fellows who go to your ranch are well fixed--or will be whensomebody dies."

  "How nicely you arrange my future. Which one of them am I to marry,please?"

  "Whichever one you love best."

  "What on earth do you know about love, Angus Mackay?"

  "Nothing at all. But that is why people get married, isn't it?"

  "I think I have heard so," she said dryly. "Will that be why you willmarry--some day?"

  "Why else?"

  "Oh, Scotch! A question with a question! Would you marry for any otherreason?"

  "I would not marry a girl because she had money," said Angus, "becausethe mo
ney would not be worth the nuisance of her if I didn't love her."

  Kathleen laughed at this frank statement, and went to find Jean. Angus'reflections as to Kathleen were broken by the reappearance of Dorgan.

  "What did I tell you?" said the little man. "I guess my dope was poor,huh!"

  "Your dope on what?"

  "On what? On them fellers I was talkin' to yesterday. Now here'sFrench's sister comes on the scout. When I seen her she was sure gettin'an eyeful of Chief."

  "She was looking for my sister. She told me how it happened."

  "I'll gamble she did," Dorgan returned skeptically, "and I s'pose youfell for it, like young fellers do. When a crook can't get the real dopeany other way, he plants a woman. That skirt----"

  "Go easy," Angus warned him. "That young lady is a friend of mine."

  "She ain't a friend of mine, and I got my own idea of what she was herefor. If you don't like it I'll keep it to myself."

  "You're barking up the wrong tree," Angus laughed. "She's as straight asthey make them. She says you're a remarkable liar, if you want to know."

  Dorgan grinned. "I said she was wise. Maybe my work was a little raw,but she took me by surprise, and I was just doin' the best I couldoff-hand."

  "You can't keep the horse cached forever."

  "That's all right. There's no use tellin' what you know most times. ThisFlambeau from what I hear will carry a whole bunch of money for themFrenches. They're givin' as good as five to three against the field.That means they got the field sized up, or fixed. But they ain't got aline on Chief, nor they ain't got me fixed, so their calculations hasbeen clean upset. Somebody's been watchin' me exercise, the last day ortwo, but whoever it is ain't had a chance to clock nothin', because theydon't know the distances, and anyway I didn't let him out. They ain'twise to him, but they're wise to me. They dope it out I wouldn't bewastin' time on a horse that hadn't a chance. See what I'm gettin' at? Apill or the needle would put Chief out of the money."

  "Nobody around here would do that," Angus told him.

  "They wouldn't hey?" said Dorgan with sarcasm. "Let me tell you thatright in the bushes is the place they put over stuff they couldn't getby with nowheres else. The things I've seen pulled at these little,local races would chill your blood. There's a bunch of murderers follows'em up that'd hamstring a horse or sandbag an owner for a ten-casenote."

  "But--" Angus began.

  "But--nothing," Dorgan interrupted with contempt. "Don't you s'pose I'vebeen in the game long enough to know it? There'll be a bunch of tinhornsand a wreckin' crew of crooked racin' men with a couple of outlawhorses, all workin' together to skin the suckers. All them Frenches haveto do is to say it's worth fifty to fix any horse. You can maybe tell methings about raisin' alfalfa, but not about racin'. When a woman getsinto the game, it's serious. After this I'm goin' to sleep right here."