"And they're right," blurted out Porter. "I know what the mare can do;
she can make hacks of that bunch. She was stopped, and interfered with,
and given all the worst of it from start to finish; but my money was
burnt up with the public's. I never pulled a horse in my life, and I'm
too old to begin now."

"I believe that," declared the Steward, emphatically. "I've known you,
John Porter, for forty years, man and boy, and there never was anything
crooked. But we've got to clear this up. Racing isn't what it used to
be--it's on the square now, and we want the public to understand that."

"What does the boy say," asked Porter; "you've had him up?"

"He says the mare was 'helped;' that she ran like a drunken man--swayed
all over the course, and he couldn't pull her together at all."

"Does he mean she was doped?"

"You've guessed it," answered the Steward, laconically.

"That's nonsense, sir; and he knows it. Why, the little mare is as
sweet as a lamb, and as game a beast as ever looked through a bridle.
Somebody got at the boy. I can prove by Dixon that Lucretia never had a
grain of cocaine in her life--never even a bracer of whiskey--she
doesn't need it; and as for the race, I hadn't a cent on Lauzanne."

"But your son"

"He had a small bet; I didn't know that, even, until they were running."