Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-02
THEY WERE GOING TO
PLAY MILLER'S MOUNTS

they did that all Of the unwise and mex
perienced ones would be taking Onatas,
from the ground?
Lord of the Vale went to the post at 2
to o. and there was all of the to against
Miller's thing, Onatas. that you could have
had time to ask for while the booking was
well, me to stay off this heard dog
ems of the chaps who were all for the
Miller thing-before the meeting began
as the horses lined up. Il can't take this
1-to-4 price against the Lord mutt. but
none of Onatas to beat him, either. If the
Vale phony don't cop. one of the others ii
nail it. Miller won't get anything, any
way I'll just watch this one"
Then the counterfeit Ito, favorIte am
bled off in front, as usual, staying there
till his feet began to burn him. where upon
little Walter picked his Onatas thing up
and sent him along to an on-the vic
tory. Onatas never fully extended
Am I ever going to get that Miller boy
right?" they walled all over the works
again, and they begged their friends to
kick them, and trudged around in a dazed
state jerking out scraps of sentences about
what they might have done to that 6-to-l
price if they'd had the slightest idea in
the world that
xk
Miller kept right on winning, and the
boys who were going to sit up in the grand
stand and look pretty and enjoy the beau
tiful rest and the sight of the autumn grass
glistenng in the infield and the flashing
of the Jockeys colors in the sunshine-they
went right ahead trying to pick things to
beat Miller's mounts.
"Miller's the one best bet of the meeting,
/ know" one of them said to me, pitifully,
one afternoon when little Walter had
dragged two of the worst horses at Dean
wood triumphantly home, but, say, now,
you wouldn't really expect me to play the
thing q with--me been
fooling around with the old game ever
since the days of Jerome Park? I know
the scheme is TO just spin along with him
and go it blind, but, lookee here, what kind
of "a
Then sped along the Benning Special.
with Miller scheduled to ride Banker.
''Dumperino! the fellows who had been
going to- play Miller howled when they
saw Miller's name attached to Banker.
This is Saturday, you see, and the
bookies want all the coin on this big race,
and they know that the grand stand is
stuffed and damned full of fall guys who'll
take anything that Miller rides-and that's
the answer about his riding Banker. Bank
er, hey? Say, that one couldn't beat my
old aunt over in Montgomery county, ana
she hasn't been off the front porch of her
ldrin lot fourteen years. bdHhel. DAY
I've got an old toothless, blind coon gyp-
she has been fooling around on earth since
before the Black Hawk war-out at my
house. Shes just waiting to die, and She
hasn't enough energy left to snap at the
feas that are left on her. But if She
couldn't get up and beat this Banker crab
doing anything from a hop to a sextet of
fourmie heats, I'd send her to some vivi-
sectng plant and have her submitted to
slow death. Banker, And Miller up on
that one, l guess that isn't a dead-fall
for the fat-conks, They'll be breaking
each others arms in minute to take
Banker. but watch your little friend Ru-
pert with the sunny locks sidestep and
pick any other old thing to copper that
one-watch him.
Whereupon the dead-and- buried Banker,
with the wizardish little Miller sitting UP
somewhere around his ears, waited for the
rest of the field to shoot their little bolts.
and then Miller brought him clomping
along to the string to win right there by
walrus lip.
When that thing happened, the Miller
sidesteppers all but chung to each other
and wept in their veritaoie agony of cha
grin. Why not? 1t wouldn't have been
so hopeless if they hadn't been SO firmly
on record about their determination to
play Miller irrespective of what he rode.
But they had the derision Of their less
sophisticated friends to encounter, and it
is no wonder that many of them simply
could not endure it, and went away from
there as fast they could totter down to-
ward the trolley cars.
And it worked the other way, too, just
as often as not.
l met one horribly enraged man who, as
he strobe along toward the betting ring.
was covering himself with vituperaton
and scorn because he hadn't stuck it out
and played Miller.
you heard me bellerng about how I was
going TO play Miller, didn't your he bawled
at me We'll I'm a iunker. 1 haven't
played him. I've crawfished. I've ducked
I've tagged him. And he's made all but a
bum of me. Now watch me! Nothing but
Miller for the rest OF the meeting! I'm just
going to find out whether I'm man or a
ned mouse! What's Miller riding in this?
price is. I'm going to play that one. Cam
byses, you say? All right. Me for Cam
byses. I'm on my way into the ring to tap
on Cambyses. I'm going to bet the wad on
him and get something. Don't detain me.
I'm busy"
Grief stricken over his neglect of Miller,
he rushed into the ring at a pace to incur
into whom he ran on his way, and he fris.s-
ed himself of every cent he had, except car
fare home, to get down on that next mount
of M;ler's CambYSes.
CambYSeS. however was thinking Of
ships and shoes and sealing wax. and cab
baGeS and all kinds of things. Miller did
the best he knew 20 club that one home,
but the plug didn't have the merchandise.
He finished somewhere back OF that shriv-
eled poplar in the infield when the winning
horse Uoked his nose in front. l met the
Miller apostate. who had come back on his
way to the gate right after that race. He
wasn't fit TO be heard. much less seen.
: IL OF which IS very pathetic, bur there
isn't anything especially new about 1t.