(52 LIFE WITH TUK TKOITEUS. 



to play the limit. To prove this latter statement, I will cite 

 an instance in his career concerning an occasion when he 

 was interested in a faro game. As he sat behind the dealing- 

 box a tiashil y dressed man came in and said: ' ' Well, I'ncle, 

 what's your limits* Bach looked at him and replied: 

 '■From the green earth to the blue sky above, my split- 

 haired friend frcmi the city," and Bach meant what he said. 

 On another occasion Bach Avas presiding at the lair of the 

 tiger in the far West, when in dropped a miner who had 

 just struck a rich vein of oi-e, and whose x)ockets were tilled 

 with little bags containing gold dnst. The stranger was of 

 the tyj)e of man that one reads abont in novels. He had a 

 fierce moustache, his face wore a stage-villain scowl, and the 

 ends of a con pie of big revoh-ers i)eeped ont coquettishly 

 from his hix^-pockets. He began setting the little bags of 

 gold dust down, and finally centered his affection on the jack. 

 By this time the other players had taken their bets from 

 the lay ont and were watching the stranger. He surronnded 

 the jack with a donblefrow of little canvas bags, pnt two or 

 three more on the corners, and then stopped, still holding 

 a couple of bags in his hand. "Have I got to the limit?" 

 he asked Bach. The old man looked np over his spectacles, 

 with the air of a, college professor, and said in that high, 

 squeaky voice that all the boys know so well: " No, sir, 

 you have not reached the limit; |:>nt down the other two 

 bags, and then junqj on yourself." 



So when Bach started Frank J. in the Hartford race he 

 played him in just the same way. He went out and drove for 

 his own money. He Avon the first heat in 2:23| very 

 handily. In the next heat we saw one of the grandest battles 

 that had come off that year. Fi*ank J. lead all the way to 

 .within fifty yards of the wire, where Rarus closed and beat 

 him out an eyelash in 2:2()|, which was a second and a 

 qnarter faster than he had ever gone before, and i)roved that 

 Bach was right abont his horse, which he had deemed 

 capable of a mile in 2:21. In the next heat Frank J. broke, 

 and Rarns won easily in 2:2.'J. In the fourth heat they 



