Sam Bass Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ll stay with Army,” he said.

    That happened in the fall of ‘74, and I’m proud to say that Army never went to the track again. But the races became the most important thing in Sam’s life. He associated himself with a skinny nigger called Dick, who became his jockey, and a remarkable one. He rode Jenny without saddle or bridle. He used only a hackamore, and slathered the mare’s back and sides with molasses before each race. He stuck to her like a fly, and seemed to communicate with her in a mysterious way that no one, except maybe Sam, understood. It wasn’t long before Dick and Jenny had beaten every fast horse in Denton County and several challengers from other parts.
    By the spring of ‘75 Jenny had become known far and wide as The Denton Mare, and Dick’s unorthodox way of riding her gave rise to tall tales about the animal’s speed and the human fly who urged her to her victories. As the mare’s owner, Sam was regarded as something of a gentleman, and became one of the better-known men in Denton County. Sometimes his winnings were considerable, and even though he presented generous shares of them to the darky and Henry Underwood, who now bragged of being Jenny’s manager, Sam always made at least a small payment on the loan.
    The rest he squandered, like the Prodigal Son in the far country. When the sporting crowd rode into town from the track on Sunday evenings, he made the rounds of all the saloons, usually with Dick and Henry in his train, and bought drinks for all present. When he left one saloon to move to another, many of the drinkers would follow, in hope of picking up another free drink at the next stop. Sam never turned them down, so he became a popular man. But he was popular with trash. Henry Underwood and the darky were pet dog and monkey to him, and most of his crowd were worse. Hard drinkers, gamblers, thieves and such, men who lived by guile and wit. The boy Frank Jackson and Jim Murphy were the only decent people in his company.
    Inevitably there came the day when the owners of other horses and those who bet on the losers ceased to wonder at the speed and consistency of The Denton Mare and began to suspect that she was helped along by some clandestine means. The quarrels began with a mound of dirt in The Denton Mare’s starting chute. Since our racetrack has no turns, a horse’s place in the chutes gives it no advantage or handicap, you see, as it would on an oval track. But some horsemen held a superstitious affection for one chute or another, and out of courtesy their competitors usually didn’t object to their always using their favorites. Sam was one who always used the same chute, and he somehow got the idea that a downhill start would give his mare an advantage over the other horses. So he and Dick built a mound of dirt, about three feet high, in her chute, so Jenny’s first stride or two would be downhill.
    I don’t know whether the mound gave the mare an advantage or not, but the judges allowed it, and the owners of rival horses found it a convenient excuse for their losses. Cries of foul became a part of the regular Sunday doings at the track, and the quarrels and bickerings that started there continued into the carousing in town and became more bitter and dangerous with every glass of whiskey consumed.
    I told Sam that his dirt mound was playing hob with my Sunday nights, and he gave his rivals a headstart of a length or two thereafter. But no pride is larger or more easily injured than that of the owner of a fast horse, and as The Denton Mare continued undefeated the alibis of the losers’ backers became more and more farfetched until one finally accused Sam of outright crime.
    The beaten horse was from out of town, and his owner didn’t know how well Sam was liked in Denton. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have made such a foolish accusation, especially in the Parlor Saloon. Maybe the man knew Sam was in the