Kitabı oku: «Checkers: A Hard-luck Story», sayfa 7

The afternoon wore on towards dusk. Sadie went about her household duties, humming softly. Once she thought she heard Pert call, but as the sound was not repeated, she fancied herself mistaken, and sat down to read, happy in the thought that Pert must have fallen asleep. It seemed to be blowing up cooler; the wind had shifted, and a few dark clouds were rolling up from the west, with distant rumbling.

About five o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Barlow drove up in a buggy. Mrs. Barlow got out, and Mr. Barlow drove on toward the store. Sadie saw them and opened the door.

"Is Pert here, Sadie?" was the question which greeted her. "We 've been up to her house, and 'Mandy' said she had come down here."

"Yes; she 's here, Auntie Barlow."

"The poor little thing! My husband only told me the news this afternoon; he 's been down street all morning, and I wanted to see her and comfort her."

"She wasn't feeling well," explained Sadie, "and after dinner I sent her up stairs to sleep. You 'll find her in the bedroom over the parlor. She must be awake by this time."

"Very well; I 'll go up." Mrs. Barlow ascended the stairs.

Sadie went to the window and looked out upon the gathering storm, now vividly foretold by constant flashes of jagged lightning. Suddenly she started, and stood transfixed, as though turned to ice with a chilling horror. There had come to her ears from above an awful cry of bitter anguish, quickly followed by a jarring, muffled sound, as of a falling body.

"Auntie Barlow!" she gasped, regaining her faculties with a superhuman effort, and rushing blindly toward the stairs. Staggering up with the aid of the banister, she reached the landing and entered the room beyond. There, prostrate upon the floor, lay Mrs. Barlow in a deathlike swoon. Upon the bed lay the lifeless body of poor little Pert – her pure, white soul had flown.

There are some who faint at the thought of a thing, but are brave when they meet it face to face. Such a one was Sadie. She realized the situation at a glance; and though the awfulness of it benumbed her, she did, dry-eyed and mechanically, what she knew must be done. Mrs. Barlow she could not lift, but, she sprinkled her face with water, and put a pillow under her head. Then with the ghost of a hope that Pert was but in a stupor, she rushed down the stairs, and out into the street, toward the doctor's, a few doors away. She met him just coming out of his gate. "Come, quick," she said; and as they hurried back she told him in a few words what had happened.

Mrs. Barlow still lay in a state of semi-consciousness, moaning pitifully at intervals. With all her soul in her eyes, Sadie watched the doctor while he felt Pert's wrist and held a glass before her lips for an indication of breathing. But his face gave never a sign of hope, and his eyes, as he looked up, told her all. "She is dead," he said softly. Sadie burst into a fit of uncontrollable weeping. The doctor lifted Mrs. Barlow carefully and deposited her upon a bed in another room.

The sound of voices was heard outside – those of Arthur and Judge Martin talking to Mr. Barlow, who had just driven up and met them as they were coming in. Sadie went slowly down the stairs and opened the door. The sight of her tear-stained face startled them all. "What is it?" they exclaimed simultaneously.

"Oh, Pert – " she began; but burst again into weeping and was unable to continue.

The doctor appeared just behind her, and told the three men what had happened. Mr. Barlow, his face set hard, and a ghastly white under his yellow skin, tottered up the stairs, the doctor following. Judge Martin penned a telegram to Checkers, and dispatched Arthur with it at once.

"Pert is very sick. Come home," it read, and it was signed as though from Mr. Barlow.

Fortunately, Checkers, in Little Rock, had but a few moments to wait for the outgoing train after receiving the message; but every moment of the journey was torture; every delay at way-stations, agony. When, after what seemed to him like years, they at last pulled into Clarksville, he jumped from the moving train to the platform.

Judge Martin had set for himself the unwelcome task of meeting him and breaking the sad news. But his resolution all but failed him when Checkers, grasping both his hands, asked breathlessly, "How is she, sir?" his face upturned with a pleading look, as though upon the answer depended his very life and salvation.

"She is very low, my poor boy," answered the Judge, the tears coming into his eyes; "but you must be brave – "

"My God, my God!" breathed Checkers, raising his hand to his eyes in a dazed way, as though to ward off the blow of the Judge's words, the import of which was all too plain. The Judge laid his hand upon Checkers' shoulder and drew him toward him, protectingly. "Come," he said, gently; "she is at my house."

Checkers started as though from a dream. "At your house," he echoed, "and I have been standing here wasting precious time."

With a sudden bound he jumped to the ground and flew up the street through the darkness, toward the Judge's house, not many yards away. Arthur heard the sound of his footsteps, and silently opened the door. "Upstairs, Checkers," he whispered. Checkers hurried frantically up the stairs, but paused at the threshold, ere he entered the room. There before him, by the light of one dim, flickering candle, sat Sadie, silently weeping. There upon the bed, cold and silent in death, lay the mortal remains of his sweet girl-wife.

With an agonized cry he fell to his knees at the bedside, and taking her cold little hand, he rubbed it and kissed it caressingly. "Pert, my darling," he moaned, "come back to me! Don't leave me, Pert, my precious one – tell me you won't dear – tell me you hear me! – " But only the sound of Sadie's convulsive sobbing answered him as she stumbled from the room.

The long threatened storm now suddenly broke in all its fury. The rain blew fiercely in at a window near him, and drenched him through and through with the flying spray; but he heeded it not. Kneeling at the bedside, his face above the little hand clasped in both of his, he uttered mingled incoherent prayers to Pert to come back, and to God to take him too.

Judge Martin noiselessly entered the room and closed the window. Gently he put a hand under each of Checkers' arms, and raised him up. "Come, my boy," he said kindly, but firmly, "you must not stay here in this condition. Try to bear up. It's an awful blow that has come upon us; but God, in his inscrutable wisdom, has thought it best to take her – "

Again, with a sudden burst of anguish, as though his very heart had broken within him, Checkers threw himself to his knees by the bedside, and burying his face between his outstretched arms, poured out in bitter, choking sobs, his utter hopeless, despairing misery. So terrible a strain, however, brought about, in the end, its own results. Beneficent nature intervened, and toward the morning hours Judge Martin and Arthur gently lifted the grief-stricken boy from the kneeling position in which he had fallen asleep, and put him comfortably upon a bed in another room, without his awakening.

Details of this sort are harrowing at best, but nothing imaginable could have been sadder than was the funeral two days later. The rain, which had never intermitted, fell with dismal hopelessness. Mrs. Barlow had not been able to leave her bed since the shock, and, never strong, her life was now almost despaired of.

Checkers stood uncovered in the down-pouring rain, beside the open grave, his clear-cut face as hard and white as marble. In spite of the draggling wet and clinging mud, the country people were out in force; but their gapes, their nudges and whispers, were as little to him as the falling rain. He was dead to everything but the sense of his utter, hopeless desolation.

What made it all even sadder, if possible, was that a dreadful breach had come between him and Sadie and Arthur.

On the morning following that first awful night, he had suddenly confronted them with the box of powders crushed in his hand, and in his eyes a tragic, questioning look which spoke, while he stood sternly silent.

"Oh, Checkers," cried Sadie, falling to her knees and holding out her hands entreatingly, "forgive us – we did n't know – we didn't know! Forgive us; please forgive us!"

But his face only grew the harder. "Forgive you," he said, as he raised his clenched hand to heaven, invokingly; "may God eternally – " but he faltered, and his voice grew suddenly soft, "forgive you," he added, dropping his arm and lowering his voice contritely. "But I," he began again, in measured passionless words – "I can never forgive you. I never want to see you – either of you – again." And from that hour he never spoke to them, nor looked at them, any more than as though they were not.

The funeral was over. He had come home. The rain had ceased. He sat alone on his doorstep. The minister and some well-meaning but mistaken friends, who had tried to comfort him, were gone. Over the western hills the lowering sun broke through the heavy, moving clouds, painting some a lurid tinge, and lining the heavier ones with silver. Checkers noted it absently. "Another lie nailed," he muttered, as the trite old proverb occurred to him. "My cloud is blacker and heavier than any of those – and silver lining? Humph! Well, silver 's demonetized!" Over his face there flitted the ghost of a smile. A smile, not at the sorry jest, but at the thought that at this hour there should have come to him so whimsical a fancy.

A number of days went by. He simply drifted, doing a few needful duties mechanically; sometimes eating the food which Mandy prepared for him, but oftener going without altogether; sitting, brooding, hours at a time, gazing vacantly into space.

Mrs. Barlow – he learned one day from the doctor, who stopped a moment in passing – had taken a slight turn for the better. Mr. Barlow, the following morning appeared, as Checkers stood meditatively surveying a fine old apple tree, from which a large limb, hanging heavy with fruit, had been blown during the night.

"Thar," snorted the old man as he came up; "thar ye go, with yer dog-durned laziness. If you 'd o' propped that limb weeks ago, as you 'd ought t' done, you 'd o' saved me a couple o' barrels o' apples – Shannons, too. It's high time I was takin' a holt here myself. Git the saw and the grafting-wax." Checkers obeyed, and stood apathetically watching Mr. Barlow minister to the tree's necessity.

"Now," said the old man, when at last he had finished, "come and set in the shade; I want to have a talk with ye;" and he led the way around to the doorstep. Both sat down. The old man drew a plug of "Horseshoe" from his pocket, and cut off a liberal piece, which he chewed into a comfortable consistency before beginning.

"Now, boy," he said, "luck's ben a-comin' mighty hard for you and me these last few weeks, and I ain 't a-sayin' it's over yit for both o' us." Checkers made no response.

The old man chewed ruminatingly, and spat at a "devil's-horse" which sat alertly atop of a shrub near by. "Y' see," he continued, "times is gittin' wuss and wuss; banks failin' everywhar, and nawthin' wuth a cent on th' shillin', 'cept Gov'ment bonds. Corn aint wuth nawthin; farmers is feedin' their wheat to th' hogs, and cotton ye could n't give away." Again there was a silence, and again the "devil's-horse" narrowly escaped a deluge.

"By the way, whar 've ye got them Gov'ment bonds o' yourn?" Checkers came out of his reverie at the question.

"Mr. Bradley 's got them put away in the safe for me at the store," he answered.

"Mm-hmm!" mused the old man; "I was kinder wonderin' whether ye ever give any on 'em away, like ye done th' place here;" and he glanced at Checkers cunningly out of the corner of his eye.

"I never gave them away," said Checkers, drearily, "because there was no occasion for it. What we had we owned together and shared in common, and it makes little difference whether it was in my name or – or any one else's."

"Yes; but it does. It makes a difference in the eye o' the law."

"Well, the law can leave it in its eye, or get it out, if it worries it any."

The old man grinned sardonically on the side of his face away from Checkers. He had never liked our little friend from the time when Checkers had caused him to fall over a rocking-chair in the parlor the night that he and Pert became engaged; and Checkers had fostered this dislike by snubbing and belittling him whenever an opportunity occurred. His entire make-up of sneaking, petty selfishness and greed was abhorrent to one of Checkers' open, generous nature, and it was only for Pert's sake that he had ever consented to have the old man about or notice him at all.

"Wal," said Mr. Barlow, musingly, "that 's one thing I kin see stickin' out; you ain't no kind o' hand to run a place like this – ye 're too tarnal shif'less. Somebody 's got to look after things. Now, my place down below 's all right for raisin' cotton and sich, but it 's onhealthy, mighty. The doctor says it 's livin' down thar gives my wife chills and ager. So, take it all 'round, and bein' 's ye 're fixed so nice up here, but lonesome-like by yerself, I guess me an' wife 'll close up the ole house an' move up here to live."

"Guess again."

"No; I 'low I guessed it right fust time," grinned the old man. "What 's the good in runnin' two houses when we kin all live together in one jist ez well? Wife kin have the parlor bedroom all t' herself, and you kin have the front or back room upstairs, either you like – I ain't pertic'lar on that pint – "

"Now, see here," interrupted Checkers, jumping up with an impatient gesture, "I 've listened to enough of this bloody nonsense. I 'll live here by myself and run this place to suit myself. Now, when you go out, close the gate – I 'm tired of talking, and I want to be left alone."

But the old man never budged; and again the "devil's-horse" braved an unrighteous fate with a stoicism worthy of a better cause.

"Young feller," said Mr. Barlow, after several moments' cogitation, "you ain't never treated me with the perliteness and respect as is due from a boy yer age t' his elders and betters. But I never harbored no grudge, 'cause I knowed it was only a matter o' time when chickens like them 'ud come home to roost."

Checkers had intended to move off and leave him sitting there alone; but he stopped long enough to light a cigarette (a thing which the old man abominated) and listen to this last remark.

"Now it's roostin' time," continued Mr. Barlow with emphasis, "and onless ye come down off'n th' high horse ye 're ridin', ye 're goin' ter hear suthin' drap that 'll kinder put a crimp in that pride o' yourn."

This was a new tone for him to take, and Checkers turned and looked at him surprisedly.

"The fact is," he went on, "you ain't got no head for bizness, and it 's providential things hez come round so 's I kin run this place and make what they is to be made out'n it." He looked up as though he expected to be interrogated.

"What's your lay?" asked Checkers.

"Wal, the situation, ez near ez I kin figger it out, accordin' to law, is this: I owns this ranch."

Checkers stood silent for a moment, and then laughed. "You owns it?" he mimicked; "nit."

"This real estate," began Mr. Barlow dryly, as though repeating a well-conned lesson, "with the house upon it, was owned in fee by Persis Barlow Campbell at the time o' her death. Said Persis Campbell died intestate and without issue, and accordin' to th' laws o' the State of Arkansas all real and personal property standin' in her name, or belongin' to her at th' time o' her death, reverts to her next o' kin, who 's her father. Now, what d 'ye say?"

"It's a lie," exclaimed Checkers, trembling with anger at the thought of so outrageous a thing.

"It 's th' gospel truth," said Mr. Barlow, trying in vain to hide the look of satisfaction which sat upon his face. His words and the tone of his voice carried conviction. This was the final blow; the crowning evil. Checkers staggered under it. The house and the trees floated before his eyes like a stifling vapor, but with a mighty effort he gathered himself together.

"If this is so," he began, his voice hoarse with passion, "it's the most ungodly outrage that ever – I 'm going down to ask Judge Martin if that's the law. But let me tell you," he added, "law or no law, you shall never live in this house while I 'm alive and able to shoot a gun. Do you understand?"

The old man was silent.

"Do you understand?" repeated Checkers, more vehemently.

"Pp-tttt," said the old man, and this time the "devil's-horse" fell a victim to its too great temerity.

X

Sadly enough, it was all too true. Judge Martin, while forced to admit the fact, cursed Mr. Barlow in no measured terms. "The damned old pachyderm!" he exclaimed; "suppose it is the letter of the law, by every sense of equity, justice, and decency, the place belongs to you, and if he tries to take it, damme, I 'll head a movement to tar and feather him."

Checkers went back in utter dejection.

Mandy had a tempting dinner ready, but he barely touched it. All the afternoon he sat under the shade of the trees, thinking deeply. Mr. Barlow he knew too well to believe that he could be dissuaded from any purpose once formed, if he had the law on his side, and there was any question of money in it. He was already miserable; but to be forced to live with the old man, even with the mitigating circumstances of his wife – to have him around all the time – would be wholly unbearable.

Then, too, stronger than this was the feeling that such an invasion of the house would be a profanation. Every ornament, every chair, was standing just as Pert had left it. No vandal hand should move or break them, devoting them to secular use – not if he had power to help it; and he believed he had.

He jumped up and hurried into the house. For two hours he worked in eager haste, opening and closing drawers, and sorting articles into different piles on the floor.

As night approached he entered the Kendall store, and related the whole affair in a quiet tone to Mr. Bradley. That good old soul could hardly contain himself for righteous indignation; but Checkers cut him short by telling him he was in a hurry.

"There 's two things I want to ask of you, Mr. Bradley," said Checkers. "I want that package of bonds you have for me in the safe, and I want you to cash a check for two hundred dollars – it's just the balance I have in the bank here. I 'm going away to-night – for a while, at least."

Mr. Bradley gave him the package, and luckily had enough money on hand to cash his check. "Thank you," said Checkers, "for this and for all your other kindness to me. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, my son, and God bless you!" and Mr. Bradley wrung Checkers' hand, while the tears welled up in his kind old eyes and trickled down his wrinkled cheeks.

Outside, Checkers met Tobe, lumbering along with a pair of mules and a lumber wagon.

"Tobe, you 're the very man I want!" he exclaimed; "come, turn round, and drive up to my place." Tobe proceeded to obey without demur or questioning.

Since last we saw him, Tobe had tried his luck with a fifth "woman," and lived in a two-room shanty on a clearing in the mountains.

Checkers walked ahead until they reached the house. "Drive up as near to the door as you can, Tobe," he said. "I 'll be out in a minute."

Mandy was preparing his supper in the kitchen. "Mandy," said Checkers, "I 'm afraid I 've got bad news for you. I 'm going away to-night, and I may not come back again; so, Mandy, I 'm afraid I won't need you any more."

Mandy's honest black face took on a comically serious look. Her lip hung pendulously, as she slowly shook her gaudily turbaned head. "You aint goin' sho' 'nough, is you, Marse Checkahs?" she asked, for lack of something better to say.

"Yes, Mandy, I'm going to-night," he said, "and before I go I want to lock up this house. So after you 've washed the dishes and put things to rights, you 'd better arrange to go home. And, Mandy, there 's a number of things here I 'll never need, that would make your cabin very comfortable. Tobe is here with his wagon, and I 'll get him to give you a lift with them to-night."

"Thank you, Marse Checkahs, thank you, sah," was all the poor old soul could say.

Two hours later Tobe drove out of the gate with a wagonful of furniture, carpets, bedding, and kitchen utensils, en route for Mandy's cabin. Mandy sat beside him, rocking back and forth, and crooning to herself in a curious mixture of boundless grief and delirious joy.

Tobe returned and piled another wagon-load even higher. This was destined for the cabin in the mountains. Tobe's delight was indescribable, and his efforts to express his thanks were quite as futile as had been those of Mandy. Checkers had allowed the two to take every useful article they chose from all save the parlor and Pert's room. Those rooms remained inviolate.

"I will write to Judge Martin to-night, Tobe," said Checkers, "telling him what I have done for you and Mandy, in case any one should question how you came by all this plunder. This furniture belongs to me," he muttered to himself, "whatever the law may do with the house and ground, for I bought it and paid for it myself, and never gave it to anybody."

"Now, Tobe, one thing more, here 's my trunk; put it on your wagon and drop it off at the station on your way through town. That's it. Good-bye, old fellow; my regards to the madam – I hope she 'll be pleased with my wedding-gift."

Tobe buried Checker's hand in his great horny palm. "Mr. Checkers," he said, and his voice grew husky, "ye 're God's own kind; may He have ye in His keepin'!" and he climbed upon his wagon, and drove slowly out into the night.

Checkers was alone. He went slowly into the house. A clock upon the mantel was chiming ten. There was still two hours before train time. He sat down and wrote a long letter to Judge Martin, sealed and stamped it, and put it in his pocket. His hat and light overcoat lay upon a chair beside him. He arose and put them on. His satchel, cane, and umbrella he then carefully laid on the stoop outside, and stood a while listening in the darkness. Apparently satisfied, he returned, and, taking one last, lingering look around, put out the lights.

For perhaps ten minutes he was busy at something under the stairway. He then silently emerged and locked the door.

The people of Clarksville and that vicinity are given to retiring early. Had they been abroad, or even awake, as late as eleven o'clock that night, they might have seen a startling spectacle in the distance – that of a mass of ruthless, hungry flames devouring a little white dwelling; leaping up in their fierce ecstacy to the heavens, and painting the sky all about a lurid, smoky crimson.

Checkers sat perched upon the fence some distance off. One heel was caught upon the first rail below him. His elbow rested upon his knee, and his upturned palm supported his chin.

The poor little house writhed helpless in the withering grasp of the remorseless flames. "This, then, was the final ending," he thought – "ashes to ashes," literally. This was the awakening from his short dream of bliss. Here he had lived six happy months; then ill-fortune singled him out for a plaything. He laughed a bitter, mirthless laugh.

The night was perfectly still and the myriad sparks from the flames rose straight to heaven. "There 's one good thing about it all," he mused, "and that is that I kept neglecting to insure the house and furniture when I went to Little Rock. That being the case, it 's a wonder I did n't burn out before this. I guess it was coming. I probably got a lead of a couple of days on my luck, and beat it out a length or two."

He looked at his watch. He had still half an hour before train time. The fire was burning lower. Suddenly the whole standing structure fell in with a muffled crash. Again the flames rose high and fierce; but they rapidly died down, and soon there remained of the fair white cottage but a blackened, smouldering ruin.

Checkers climbed down and went over near by. Nothing of value was left. The very foundations were cracked and fallen in; but the sounds of voices on the road now warned him that he must be going.

He turned for an instant in the direction of the Barlow house, and bowed low. "Now, you thieving old highbinder," he said, "take the change;" and, diving into a grove of trees he took a roundabout way through the fields to avoid the gathering crows which, finally aroused, now flocked to the scene of the disaster. Breathless, he arrived on the nick of time. His trunk was thrown aboard the train; he entered the sleeper and was whisked away toward Little Rock.

He went out again and stood upon the platform until the last vestige of Clarksville was passed. He then found a seat in the smoking-room and smoked until almost morning.

"Chicago!" Checkers stood once more upon his native heath. He had come directly from Little Rock, had rented a modest room, and had taken up again the thread of a drifting, devil-may-care existence. Gradually, the constant, active, throbbing pain of his bereavement wore away, and in its stead there came a sullen, morbid sense of the uselessness of all things. He had neither friends nor acquaintances; even Murray Jameson was out of town. He haunted the Fair grounds in the daytime and the theatres at night.

"Excitement and Forgetfulness" – this might have been his watchword.

I feel that if I could have met him at this time instead of almost a year later as I did, I might have brought an active pressure to bear upon him, and saved to him the good that the refining influence of his wife and his Clarksville connections had done him. But, alas! in this busy world there is no such thing as standing still. We either advance or retrograde. The hill is steep to climb, but going down is easy.

Checkers went down; gradually, it is true, but still he went down.

By degrees he met his fellow-roomers in the house – good fellows, all of them, in their way, but worthless. Checkers craved companionship. Often he sat in a poker game all night with them, in some one of their rooms, or "did the Midway" with them, ever "mocking the spirit which could be moved to such a thing," but sometimes finding in it a temporary respite from the bitter, haunting memories of the past.

It would be difficult to follow, and uninteresting to read, the devious windings of Checkers' way during the next few months. Hardened, despondent, and utterly careless; without the restraining influence of worthy friends or home ties to soften and hold him; with money, but no occupation; time, but nothing to do with it – little wonder is it that, after the great White City finally closed its gates, shutting him off from his one simple pleasure, he gradually drifted back to the stirring scenes of his youth – the races and the betting-ring.

The history of every one of the hundreds of thousands of men who have "played the races" may be told in three short words: "They went broke" – sooner or later. Generally sooner than later; but "they went broke."

So it was with Checkers. Good information, careful betting – playing horses for place when he thought they could win; sometimes not risking a cent all day; watching the owners, standing in with the jockeys – all this put him nicely ahead for a while, and staved off the evil day for long. But the eternal law of average will not down, and the percentage in the betting-ring is absurdly against the bettor. A streak of hard luck; a slaughter of the favorites; a plunge; throwing good money after bad; doubling up once or twice; a final coup. Pouf! One afternoon Checkers found himself penniless.

That night he pawned his watch for all it would bring. This put him in funds again, but gave him pause. He decided to stop gambling and go to work. But the morning paper contained a tempting list of entries. It was Saturday, and a short day.

He went to the track as usual, and at the end of the third race was "broke." Then he met Murray Jameson. Both were surprised. Checkers told him his story, and borrowed ten dollars. Murray lost fifty more by playing Checkers' tips, against his own better judgment. Murray was "sore" – Checkers apologetic. This was his first experience as a tout. After that he picked up a precarious living, selling whatever articles of value he possessed, one after another, until he had left but the diamond star he had given Pert as a wedding gift, and a scanty wardrobe.

When necessity caused him to part with the star he forswore the races, and for two full weeks conscientiously sought for legitimate employment. But Chicago was filled with idle hands, which the closing of the Fair months before had left there stranded. Everything was overcrowded. Business was dead, and his search was unavailing. Then he took up "touting" as a profession. He rotated between the various "merry-go-rounds," which were open all seasons of the year. The tout's stock devices – the "bank-roll" game, the "phoney" ticket, the "jockey's cousin" – he worked with better success than most; but, as a rule, his method was simple. He sought the acquaintance of such as he thought might be "persuaded," and by showing confidence where they were doubtful, knowledge where their own was lacking, he usually managed to get some four or five men to make bets during the day. Those who won were grateful, and generally paid him well for his "information." The losers got an explanation of "how it was" and "a sure thing for the next."

One thing, however, must be said for Checkers. He never "touted" a horse unless he thought it had a best chance of winning. That is, if there were five horses in a race, and Checkers had five men "on his string," he never descended to the common practice of getting each one of the five to bet on a different horse, and thus "land a sure winner."

All five were certain to have the same chance, and to stand or fall upon Checkers' judgment.