62 LIFE WITH THE TROTTEES. 



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 flashily dressed man came in and said: ' ' Well, Uncle, 

 what's your limit?" Bach looked at him and replied: 

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

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

 On another occasion Bach was presiding at the lair of the 

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

 just struck a rich vein of ore, and whose pockets were filled 

 with little bags containing gold dust. The stranger was of 

 the type of man that one reads about in novels. He had a 

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

 ends of a couple of big revolvers peeped out coquettishly 

 from his hip-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 out and were watching the stranger. He surrounded 

 the jack with a double row of little canvas bags, put 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 up 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; put down the other two 

 bags, and then jump 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 won the first heat in 2:23f very 

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

 that had come off that year. Frank J. lead ail the way to 

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

 him out an eyelash in 2:20|, which was a second and a 

 quarter faster than he had ever gone before, and proved that 

 Bach was right about his horse, which he had deemed 

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

 and Rarus won easily in 2:25J. In the fourth heat they 



