The Worcester Spy

California Gambler Won His Bet on the Dog Race.

RAN FIRE MARSHAL'S PET

He Was Only a Cur But He Beat the Greyhounds.

"Talking about dogs," said a man from California, "the only dog 'ringer' case that I ever heard of was cut loose out my way," says the Washington Star.

They used to have dog races on Saturday afternoons in Vallejo, an hour's trip up into Solano county from San Francisco, when I hung out there back in the eighties. The mechanics from the Mare Island navy yard across the Napa creek got these dog races up and bet on them. There was a book made on 'em in every booze emporium in Vallejo, and if you've ever seen Vallejo you'll know that there were quite some books writing chances on these sprints. They were free-for-all affairs, over a circular half mile of level road back of Vallejo, and any man that had a dog could enter the mutt. As many as forty or fifty dogs of all breeds or no breed at all often went to the post for these sprints, with about 1000 to 1 about the chances of all of them except two or three practiced runners that were held at prohibitive odds. One of the machinists over at the yard had an Italian greyhound that had walked away with all of the $50 purses the boys could get together. Well, a rank outsider came along one day and just stood this swift running mutt on his head. The dog showed up with Paddy Magee, a saloonkeeper, one Tuesday afternoon. Paddy had been on a trip down to San Francisco, but nobody considered that fact in connection with Magee's dog. Magee said the dog had hoboed into his place just before closing-up time the night before, and he had taken the mutt in out of charity. It surely was the commonest dog that ever hit up a dirt road—tall, lank and yallery black, with a long moth-eaten tail, ears all over its head, and big, clumsy, spraddling paws. Magee took his bum find in the way of a dog out for a walk on the day following the night he said the dog drifted to his place, and he got the hoot all over town, the dog was so common-looking. Paddy had never had a dog before, and he was just shouted at when a couple of days later he announced that he was going to enter his mutt in the handicap race for dogs on the following Saturday. The fellows that he told this to just lay back and hollered. Paddy took their merriment good-naturedly, though, saying that he didn't suppose he had a ghost of a chance to get the purse, but the dog had come his way without being invited, and he intended to have some fun out of it.

"Twenty-three good running dogs went to the post for the handicap, which was a big betting event, most of the Mare Island mechanics taking the usual half-day off to take the races in. There was a howl when Paddy Magee, hanging on to his mutt with a piece of wash-line, turned up. Paddy had previously gone around to five of the books in the Vallejo rum mills and put down a dollar in each of 'em on his dog, the rank outsider at 250 to 1, to win. He was bantered and guyed so much at all these places that he had to treat the whole bunch standing around.

"The Italian greyhound was the favorite in the betting, and there were four or five foxhounds that were well played for place and to show. Each man held his dog at the start, and the Italian greyhound was to let all the rest of the bunch get a start of about a block before being turned loose.

"Well, the crowd had to conclude, when the race was over, that Magee's dog had the dope in him, or something, for the Magee mutt was never headed. In fact, none of the others were within a block of him at the finish. The Magee cur just lay back his ears, ate up the ground, and walked in all alone. It was the biggest dump that had ever hit the dog-racing game in Vallejo and you never saw such an astonished and crestfallen lot of dog-racers in your life as that bunch. Magee chewed the end of his cigar and quietly remarked that he knew a thing or two about dogs himself, and that it had been perfectly plain to him right along that that cur of his had it in him, and then the owner of the Italian greyhound began beefing about the big handicap that had been put on his dog, anyhow.

"'All right,' said Magee, 'I'll go you $200 even that my mutt can put it all over yours from the scratch.'

"The owner of the greyhound just ate this up instanter, and when the two dogs were cooled out they were sent to the post again, Magee's dog just laid his common old yaller-and-lemon ears back and raced the greyhound off its feet from the first jump. The greyhound shot its bolt in the first furlong, mutt laying right alongside, with going like a quarter horse, and Magee's pounds left. When the greyhound began to back up the cur had so much in reserve that he just passed the cracker-jack as if it was tied, and won prancing, with his head up and mouth wide open, 'on the bit,' as we say, by 20 lengths. Magee collected his $200 and went back chewed cigar working contentedly in his mouth. Somebody sprung cry as soon as Paddy's back was turned, but he was hooted down.

" 'That won't do,' the gang said. 'Ringer, nothing. If he'd sprung a bred dog that looked like something on us, it 'ud have been different; but that cur ain't no ringer; he's just a natural four-legged cyclone, and all dog.'

"Strangely enough, Magee's dog disappeared the very next day. Magee made a big show of offering a $200 reward for the return of the sprinter, and small boys scoured the woods for miles around in hopes of finding the dog, all to no avail. The dog seemed just to have been swallowed up. I saw the dog a couple of months later, but I didn't say anything about it to the boys in Vallejo, for I hadn't been mixed up in the dog races and it wasn't anything to me. There was a fire on Kearney street in San Francisco, and I stood on the sidewalk to watch the passing of the fire department. Magee's dog was in advance of the chief fire marshal's buggy, with his head down, and going like blue blazes. The fire marshal's horse was galloping like a thoroughbred under the whip, but he couldn't wear down that dog's lead. After the fire was put out I dropped around to the fire marshal's office. I knew him.

" 'Say,' I remarked to him, 'that dog out in front of your rig today looked to me like a goer, all right. How long have you had him?'

"'Bout four years,' said the fire chief. 'There's not a dog in this state, or on the whole coast, for the matter of that, that can beat that cur on the go. I've stacked him up against every swift proposition in the way of a dog that I could dig out for a bet, and he's just chewed them all up when it came to running. He's as common as dishwater when it gets up to breeding, at that, but I wouldn't part with him for any money. I've loaned him out several times to fellows that wanted to enter him in dog races, but I'm going to stop doing that. I always worry over that dog when he's away from my sight.'

"I ain't a sand-bagger to any particularly large extent, but when I got off the boat at Vallejo that night I walked into Paddy Magee's place. He was alone.

'Paddy,' said I to him, 'just pass up a quart of the gold label. It's on the house, too.'

He looked at me wonderingly.

" 'I'm next about that mutt of yours,' I said. 'But I don't pass it around.'

"Magee grinned vaguely and opened the bottle without saying anything."