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“And when am I to know?”

“You will read of it,” said Dolly, “to-morrow, in the morning papers. It’s all quite correct. My lawyers arranged it.”

“Lawyers!” gasped her husband. “You’re not arranging to lock me in a private madhouse, are you?”

“No,” laughed Dolly; “but when I told them how I intended to invest the money they came near putting me there.”

“Didn’t they want to know how you suddenly got so rich?” asked Carter.

“They did. I told them it came from my husband’s ‘books’! It was a very ‘near’ false-hood.”

“It was worse,” said Carter. “It was a very poor pun.”

As in their honey-moon days they drove proudly to the track, and when Carter had placed Dolly in a box large enough for twenty, he pushed his way into the crowd around the stand of “Sol” Burbank. That veteran of the turf welcomed him gladly.

“Coming to give me my money back?” he called.

“No, to take some away,” said Carter, handing him his six thousand.

Without apparently looking at it, Burbank passed it to his cashier. “King Pepper, twelve to six thousand,” he called.

When King Pepper won, and Carter moved around the ring with eighteen thousand dollars in thousand and five hundred dollar bills in his fist, he found himself beset by a crowd of curious, eager “pikers.” They both impeded his operations and acted as a body-guard. Confederate was an almost prohibitive favorite at one to three, and in placing eighteen thousand that he might win six, Carter found little difficulty. When Confederate won, and he started with his twenty-four thousand to back Red Wing, the crowd now engulfed him. Men and boys who when they wagered five and ten dollars were risking their all, found in the sight of a young man offering bets in hundreds and thousands a thrilling and fascinating spectacle.

To learn what horse he was playing and at what odds, racing touts and runners for other book-makers and individual speculators leaped into the mob that surrounded him, and then, squirming their way out, ran shrieking down the line. In ten minutes, through the bets of Carter and those that backed his luck, the odds against Red Wing were forced down from fifteen to one to even money. His approach was hailed by the book-makers either with jeers or with shouts of welcome. Those who had lost demanded a chance to regain their money. Those with whom he had not bet, found in that fact consolation, and chaffed the losers. Some curtly refused even the smallest part of his money.

“Not with me!” they laughed. From stand to stand the layers of odds taunted him, or each other. “Don’t touch it, it’s tainted!” they shouted. “Look out, Joe, he’s the Jonah man?” Or, “Come at me again!” they called. “And, once more!” they challenged as they reached for a thousand-dollar bill.

And, when in time, each shook his head and grumbled: “That’s all I want,” or looked the other way, the mob around Carter jeered.

“He’s fought ’em to a stand-still!” they shouted jubilantly. In their eyes a man who alone was able and willing to wipe the name of a horse off the blackboards was a hero.

To the horror of Dolly, instead of watching the horses parade past, the crowd gathered in front of her box and pointed and stared at her. From the club-house her men friends and acquaintances invaded it.

“Has Carter gone mad?” they demanded. “He’s dealing out thousand-dollar bills like cigarettes. He’s turned the ring into a wheat Pit!”

When he reached the box a sun-burned man in a sombrero blocked his way.

“I’m the owner of Red Wing,” he explained, “bred him and trained him myself. I know he’ll be lucky if he gets the place. You’re backing him in thousands to WIN. What do you know about him?”

“Know he will win,” said Carter.

The veteran commissioner of the club stand buttonholed him. “Mr. Carter,” he begged, “why don’t you bet through me? I’ll give you as good odds as they will in that ring. You don’t want your clothes torn off you and your money taken from you.”