“And you agreed to this?” queried Vane, in astonishment.
“It was my only way of gettin’ her; an’ I got to have a bit of speed comin’ along in my stable—simply got to! It’s the way I was made. Life ain’t worth gettin’ out of bed for without it. I’ve tried. An’ I’ve tried other strains of blood, but I never won a race with anything but what I got from Luke Dangler.”
“But what about the others, the Willy Horse and Strawberry Lightning? Did you own them on the same conditions?”
“No. I owned the Willy Horse hoof an’ hide, an’ I bred the mare myself. But I had to sell the horse to Luke Dangler for four hundred.”
“Had to is right, mister. Them Danglers an’ old Dave Hinch work together. Dave’s a money-lender—one of the real old-fashioned kind—and a note-shaver. He got hold of some of my paper once. ’Nough said! An’ the Danglers! Say, mister, any man who gets in dead wrong with a Dangler of Goose Crick had best clear out of this section of woods, or he’ll find himself dead in it some day. Yes, mister, they squoze the Willy Horse out of me an’ sold him down in Maryland for three thousand; an’ he was sold in New Orleans a year after that for twenty thousand; an’ when Luke an’ Dave seen that on the sportin’ pages they was mad enough to bite horseshoes. An’ it was for fear of them two old crooks I sold Strawberry Lightnin’. As soon as she won a few races they got after me; an’ they’d of got her, too—or me—if I hadn’t sold her quick acrost the line.”
“What d’you want to know for?” countered Jard.
“I’m going there to-morrow to have a look at this old ruffian Dangler and his horses.”
“Take a few days to think it over,” advised Jard. “If you walk right up to old Luke’s house an’ say you want to look over his horses with the intention of buyin’ one, he’ll size you up for a millionaire an’ act accordin’. So far, except for the few deals he’s made with me, he’s done all his business down in the States. The farther away from home he sells a horse of the old blood the better he’s pleased. Maybe he’s still scart of the law gettin’ him somehow for what his pa did ninety-nine years ago, or maybe it’s nothin’ but the plain hoggishness of his nature, but he keeps mighty quiet an’ secret about his business in this province. He loses money by it, for you can bet he don’t get what he asks down there among them lads, with three or four days of railroadin’ behind him, but ends in takin’ what he can get. Away from his own stampin’ ground, an’ among men maybe as crooked as himself, but with more brains an’ better manners, I guess he gets the light end of the deal every time. So I reckon he’s scart. If he wasn’t he’d show a certified pedigree for the horses he sells, with Willoughby Girl played up big in it—but nothin’ of the kind! If you was to mention that stolen mare to him he’d pertend he didn’t know what you was talkin’ about—but you’d want to get a long ways off from Goose Crick before dark jist the same.”