“Do you think I can do it, Mike, among all those jockeys?”
“Sure thing, ye can, A--Al, me b'y; he won't need no ridin' in yer hands; all ye'll have to do is sit still an' keep him straight. He'll win the race in the stretch, an' there won't be many there to bother--they'll all be beat off. Now, it's a good thing that I do know about this, for I'll just kape close to ye an' kape any wan that's likely to spot ye away, if I have to knock him down.”
Mike had worked himself up to a fine frenzy of projected endeavor; he cast about for further services he could render his admired mistress.
“An' ye know Carson the starter; he's jes the loveliest Irishman; there isn't a b'y on earth could git an inch the best av it from him on a start, not if they was to give him gold enough to weigh a horse down. But I'll jes' tip him the wink that ye'r a gurl, and--”
“Mike, what are you saying? Do you mean to ruin everything?”
The rosy hue of eager joyousness that had crept into Gaynor's suntanned face vanished; his jaw drooped, and a pathetic look of sheepish apology followed.
“That's so,” he ejaculated, mournfully; “bot' tumbs up! but it's a pity. Carson's an Irish gintleman, an' if I could till him ye was a gurl, he'd knock the head plumb off any b'y that 'ud bother ye. Ye'd git away well, too.”
Then the girl told Mike all that Shandy and Langdon had said. It only confirmed Mike's opinion that between them they had poisoned Lucretia. He felt that with a little more evidence he would be able to prove both crimes--the one with Diablo and the one with Lucretia.
The Brooklyn Derby was to be run the next day. Allis was glad that it was so near; she dreaded discovery. She was like a hunted hare, dodging everyone she fancied might discover her identity. She would have to run the gauntlet of many eyes while weighing for the race, and at the time of going out; even when she returned, especially if she won. But in the excitement over the race, people would not have time to devote to a strange jockey's visage. She could quite smear her face with dirt, for that seemed a natural condition where boys were riding perhaps several races in one afternoon. The jockey cap with its big peak well pulled down over her head would add materially to her disguise. Mike would fetch and carry for her, so that she would be in evidence for very few minutes at most. Dixon even, opposed to the idea as he had been at first, now assured her quite confidently that nobody would make her out.