_CHAPTER THREE_
It was a room not more than eight feet wide, very long, with the floor,walls, and ceiling of the same narrow, unpainted pine boards; theflooring was worn ragged and the ceiling warped into waves. Across theroom a wide plank with a trapdoor at one end served as a counter, andnow it was littered with yellow telegraph blanks, and others, crumpledup, were scattered about Connor's feet. No sooner had the screen doorsqueaked behind him and shut him fairly into the place than the staccatorattling of the sounder multiplied, and seemed to chatter from the wallbehind him. It left an echoing in the ear of Ben Connor which formedinto the words of his resolution, "I've made my stake and I'm going tobeat it. I'm going to get away where I can forget the worries. To-day Ibeat 'em. Tomorrow the worries will beat me."
That was why he was in Lukin--to forget. And here the world had sneakedup on him and whispered in his ear. Was it fair?
It was a woman who "jerked lightning" for Lukin. With that small fingeron the key she took the pulse of the world.
"Belmont returns--" chattered the sounder.
Connor instinctively covered his ears. Then, feeling that he was actinglike a silly child, he lowered his hands.
Another idea had come to him that this was fate--luck--his luck. Why nottake another chance?
He wavered a moment, fighting the temptation and gloomily studying theback of the operator. The cheapness of her white cotton dress fairlyshouted at him. Also her hair straggled somewhat about the nape of herneck. All this irritated Connor absurdly.
"Fifth race," said the sounder: "Lady Beck, first; Conqueror, second--"
Certainly this was fate tempting tune.
Connor snatched a telegraph blank and scribbled a message to HarrySlocum, his betting commissioner during this unhappy vacation.
"Send dope on Murray handicaps time--trials of Trickster and Caledonian.Hotel Townsend."
This done, having tapped sharply on the counter to call the operator'sattention, he dropped his elbows on the plank and scowled downward inprofound reverie. They were pouring out of Belmont Park, now, many agrim face and many a joyous face. Money had come easy and gone easy. Ah,the reckless bonhomie of that crowd, living for to-day only, because"to-morrow the ponies may have it!" A good day for the bookies if thatold cripple, Lady Beck, had found her running legs. What a trimming theymust have given the wise ones!
At this point another hand came into the circle of his vision and turnedthe telegram about. A pencil flicked across the words, checking themswiftly. Connor was fascinated by that hand, it was so cool, so slenderand deft. He glanced up to her face and saw a resolute chin, a smilingmouth which was truly lovely, and direct eyes as dark as his own. Shecarried her head buoyantly, in a way that made Connor think, with atingle, of some clean-blooded filly at the post.
The girl made his change, and shoving it across, she bent her headtoward the sounder. The characters came through too swiftly for even BenConnor's sharp ear, but the girl, listening, smiled slowly.
"Something about soft pine?" queried Connor.
She brightened at this unexpected meeting-point. Her eyes widened as shestudied him and listened to the message at the same time, and sheaccomplished this double purpose with such calm that Connor felt atrifle abashed. Then the shadow of listening vanished, and sheconcentrated on Connor.
"Soft pine is up," she nodded. "I knew it would climb as soon as oldLucas bought in."
"Speculator in Lukin, is he?"
"No. California. The one whose yacht burned at Honolulu last year. Soldpine like wild fire two months ago; down goes the price. Then he boughta little while ago, and now the pine skyrockets. He can buy a new yachtwith what he makes, I suppose!"
The shade of listening darkened her eyes again. "Listen!" She raised ahushing forefinger that seemed tremulous in rhythm with the ticking.
"Wide brims are in again," exclaimed the operator, "and wide hats areawful on me; isn't that the luck?"
She went back to her key with the message in her hand, and Connor,dropping his elbows on the counter, watched her send it with swiftalmost imperceptible flections of her wrist.
Then she sat again with her hands folded in her lap, listening. Connorturned his head and glanced through the door; by squinting he could lookover the roof just across the street and see the shadowy mountainsbeyond; then he looked back again and watched the girl listening to thevoice of the outer world. The shock of the contrast soothed. He began toforget about Ben Connor and think of her.
The girl turned in her chair and directly faced him, and he saw that shemoved her whole body just as she moved her hand, swiftly, but without ajerk; she considered him gravely.
"Lonely?" she inquired. "Or worried?"
She spoke with such a commonplace intonation that one might have thoughtit her business to attend to loneliness and worries.
"As a matter of fact," answered Ben Connor, instinctively dodging thedirect query, "I've been wondering how they happened to stick anumber-one artist on this wire.
"I'm not kidding," he explained hastily. "You see, I used to jerklightning myself."
For the first time she really smiled, and he discovered what a rarething a smile may be. Up to that point he had thought she lackedsomething, just as the white dress lacked a touch of color.
"Oh," she nodded. "Been off the wire long?"
Ben Connor grinned. It began with his lips; last of all the dull grayeyes lighted.
"Ever since a hot day in July at Aqueduct. The Lorrimer Handicap on the11th of July, to be exact. I tossed up my job the next day."
"I see," she said, becoming aware of him again. "You played Tip-TopSecond."
"The deuce! Were you at Aqueduct that day?"
"I was here--on the wire." He restrained himself with an effort, for aseries of questions was Connor's idea of a dull conversation. He merelyrubbed his knuckles against his chin and looked at her wistfully.
"He nipped King Charles and Miss Lazy at the wire and squeezed home by anose--paid a fat price, I remember," went on the girl. "I suppose youhad something down on him?"
"Did a friend of yours play that race?"
"Oh, no; but I was new to the wire, then, and I used to cut in andlisten to everything that came by."
"I know. It's like having some one whisper secrets in your ear, atfirst, isn't it? But you remember the Lorrimer, eh? That was a race!"
The sounder stopped chattering, and by an alternation in her eyes heknew that up to that moment she had been giving two-thirds of herattention to the voice of the wire and the other fraction to him; butnow she centered upon him, and he wanted to talk. As if, mysteriously,he could share some of the burden of his unrest with the girl. Most ofall he wished to talk because this office had lifted him back to the olddays of "lightning jerking," when he worked for a weekly pay-check. Thesame nervous eagerness which had been his in that time was now in thisgirl, and he responded to it like a call of blood to blood.
"A couple of wise ones took me out to Aqueduct that day: I had all thatwas coming to me for a month in my pocket, and I kept saying to myself:'They think I'll fall for this game and drop my wad; here's where I fool'em!'"
He chuckled as he remembered.
"Go on," said the girl. "You make me feel as if I were about to make aclean-up!"
"Really interested?"
She fixed an eager glance on him, as though she were judging how far shemight let herself go. Suddenly she leaned closer to Connor.
"Interested? I've been taking the world off the wire for six years--andyou've been where things happen."
"That's the way I felt at Aqueduct when I saw the ponies parade past thegrand stand the first time," he nodded. "They came dancing on the bitt,and even I could see that they weren't made for use; legs that neverpulled a wagon, and backs that couldn't weight. Just toys; speedmachines; all heart and fire and springy muscles. It made my pulse jumpto the fever point to watch them light-foot it along the rail with thegroom in front on a clod of a horse. I felt that I'd lived the way that
horse walked--downheaded, and I decided to change."
He stopped short and locked his stubby fingers together, frowning at herso that the lines beside his mouth deepened.
"I seem to be telling you the story of my life," he said. Then he sawthat she was studying him, not with idle curiosity, but rather as oneturns the pages of an absorbing book, never knowing what the next momentwill reveal or where the characters will be taken.
"You want to talk; I want to hear you," she said gravely. "Go ahead.Besides--I don't chatter afterward. They paraded past the grand stand,then what?"
Ben Connor sighed.
"I watched four races. The wise guys with me were betting ten bucks onevery race and losing on red-hot tips; and every time I picked out thehorse that looked good to me, that horse ran in the money. Then theycame out for the Lorrimer. One of my friends was betting on King Charlesand the other on Miss Lazy. Both of them couldn't win, and the chancewas that neither of them would. So I looked over the line as it went bythe stand. King Charles was a little chestnut, one of those long fellowsthat stretch like rubber when they commence running; Miss Lazy was agangling bay. Yes, they were both good horses, but I looked over therest, and pretty soon I saw a rangy chestnut with a white foreleg and amidget of a boy up in the saddle. 'No. 7--Tip-Top Second,' said the wiseguy on my right when I asked him; 'a lame one.' Come to look at himagain, he was doing a catch step with his front feet, but I had an ideathat when he got going he'd forget all about that catch and run like thewind. Understand?"
"Just a hunch," said the girl. "Yes!"
She stepped closer to the counter and leaned across it. Her eyes werebright. Connor knew that she was seeing that picture of the hot day, thecrowd of straw hats stirring wildly, the murmur and cry that went up asthe string of racers jogged past.
"They went to the post," said Connor, "and I got down my bet--a hundreddollars, my whole wad--on Tip-Top Second. The bookie looked just once atme, and I'll never forget how his eyebrows went together. I went back tomy seat."
"You were shaking all over, I guess," suggested the girl, and her handswere quivering.
"I was not," said Ben Connor, "I was cold through and through, and nevermoved my eyes off Tip-Top Second. His jockey had a green jacket with twostripes through it, and the green was easy to watch. I saw the crowd gooff, and I saw Tip-Top left flat-footed at the post."
The girl drew a breath. Connor smiled at her. The hot evening hadflushed his face, but now a small spot of white appeared in eithercheek, and his dull eyes had grown expressionless. She knew what hemeant when he said that he was cold when he saw the string go to thepost.
"It--it must have made you sick!" said the girl.
"Not a bit. I knew the green jacket was going to finish ahead of therest as well as I knew that my name was Ben Connor. I said he was leftat the post. Well, it wasn't exactly that, but when the bunch camestreaking out of the shoot, he was half a dozen lengths behind. It was amile and an eighth race. They went down the back stretch, eight horsesall bunched together, and the green jacket drifting that half dozenlengths to the rear. The wise guys turned and grinned at me; then theyforgot all about me and began to yell for King Charles and Miss Lazy.
"The bunch were going around the turn and the two favorites werefighting it out together. But I had an eye for the green jacket, andhalfway around the turn I saw him move up."
The girl sighed.
"No," Connor continues, "he hadn't won the race yet. And he never shouldhave won it at all, but King Charles was carrying a hundred andthirty-eight pounds, and Miss Lazy a hundred and thirty-three, whileTip-Top Second came in as a fly-weight eighty-seven pounds! No horse inthe world could give that much to him when he was right, but who guessedthat then?
"They swung around the turn and hit the stretch. Tip-Top took the curvelike a cart horse. Then the bunch straightened out, with King Charlesand Miss Lazy fighting each other in front and the rest streaking outbehind like the tail of a flag. They did that first mile in 1.38, butthey broke their hearts doing it, with that weight up.
"They had an eighth to go--one little measly furlong, with Tip-Top inthe ruck, and the crowd screaming for King Charles and Miss Lazy; butjust exactly at the mile post the leaders flattened. I didn't know it,but the man in front of me dropped his glasses and his head. 'Blown!' hesaid, and that was all. It seemed to me that the two in front wererunning as strongly as ever, but Tip-Top was running better. He camestreaking, with the boy flattening out along his neck and the whip goingup and down. But I didn't stir. I couldn't; my blood was turned to icewater.
"Tip-Top walked by the ruck and got his nose on the hip of King Charles.Somebody was yelling behind me in a squeaky voice: 'There is somethingwrong! There's something wrong!' There was, too, and it was theeighty-seven pounds that a fool handicapper had put on Tip-Top. At thesixteenth Miss Lazy threw up her head like a swimmer going down anddropped back, and Tip-Top was on the King's shoulder. Fifty yards to thefinish; twenty-five--then the King staggered as if he'd been hit betweenthe ears, and Tip-Top jumped out to win by a neck.
"There was one big breath of silence in the grand stand--then a groan. Iturned my head and saw the two wise guys looking at me with sick grins.Afterward I collected two thousand bucks from a sicker looking bookie."
He paused and smiled at the girl.
"That was the 11th of July. First real day of my life."
She gathered her mind out of that scene.
"You stepped out of a telegraph office, with your finger on the key allday, every day, and you jumped into two thousand dollars?"
After she had stopped speaking her thoughts went on, written in hereyes.
"You'd like to try it, eh?" said Ben Connor.
"Haven't you had years of happiness out of it?"
He looked at her with a grimace.
"Happiness?" he echoed. "Happiness?"
She stepped back so that she put his deeply-marked face in a betterlight.
"You're a queer one for a winner."
"Sure, the turf is crowded with queer ones like me."
"Winners, all of 'em?"
His eye had been gradually brightening while he talked to her. He feltthat the girl rang true, as men ring true, yet there was nothingmasculine about her.
"You've heard racing called the sport of kings? That's because onlykings can afford to follow the ponies. Kings and Wall Street. But afellow can't squeeze in without capital. I've made a go of it for awhile; pretty soon we all go smash. Sooner or later I'll do whateverybody else does--put up my cash on a sure thing and see my money goup in smoke."
"Then why don't you pull out with what you have?"
"Why does the earth keep running around the sun? Because there's a pull.Once you've followed the ponies you'll keep on following 'em. No hopefor it. Oh, I've seen the boys come up one after another, make theirkillings, hit a streak of bad luck, plunge, and then watch theirsure-thing throw up its tail in the stretch and fade into the ruck."
He was growing excited as he talked; he was beginning to realize that hemust make his break from the turf now or never. And he spoke more tohimself than to the girl.
"We all hang on. We play the game till it breaks us and still we staywith it. Here I am, two thousand miles away from the tracks--and sendingfor dope to make a play! Can you beat that? Well, so-long."
He turned away gloomily.
"Good night, Mr. Connor."
He turned sharply.
"Where'd you get that name?" he asked with a trace of suspicion.
"Off the telegram."
He nodded, but said: "I've an idea I've been chattering to much."
"My name is Ruth Manning," answered the girl. "I don't think you've saidtoo much."
He kept his eyes steadily on her while he shook hands.
"I'm glad I know some one in Lukin," said Connor. "Good night, again."