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Ferguson + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A SHATTERED IDOL. + +As he made his way out of the paddock Garrison carefully tilted his +bag of Durham into the curved rice-paper held between nicotine-stained +finger and thumb, then deftly rolled his "smoke" with the thumb and +forefinger, while tying the bag with practised right hand and even +white teeth. Once his reputation had been as spotless as those teeth. + +He smiled cynically as he shouldered his way through the slowly moving +crowd--that kaleidoscope of the humanities which congregate but do not +blend; which coagulate wherever the trial of science, speed, and +stamina serves as an excuse for putting fortune to the test. + +It was a cynical crowd, a quiet crowd, a sullen crowd. Those who had +won, through sheer luck, bottled their joy until they could give it +vent in a safer atmosphere--one not so resentful. For it had been a +hard day for the field. The favorite beaten in the stretch, choked +off, outside the money---- + +Garrison gasped as the rushing simulacra of the Carter Handicap surged +to his beating brain; that brain at bursting pressure. It had recorded +so many things--recorded faithfully so many, many things he would give +anything to forget. + +He was choking, smothering--smothering with shame, hopelessness, +despair. He must get away; get away to breathe, to think; get away out +of it all; get away anywhere--oblivion. + +To the jibes, the sneers flung at him, the innuendos, the open +insults, and worst of all, the sad looks of those few friends who gave +their friendship without conditions, he was not indifferent, though he +seemed so. God knows how he felt it at all. And all the more so +because he had once been so high. Now his fall was so low, so +pitifully low; so contemptible, so complete. + +He knew what the action of the Jockey Club would be. The stewards +would do only one thing. His license would be revoked. To-day had seen +his finish. This, the ten-thousand dollar Carter Handicap, had seen +his final slump to the bottom of the scale. Worse. It had seen him a +pauper, ostracized; an unclean thing in the mouth of friend and foe +alike. The sporting world was through with him at last. And when the +sporting world is through-- + +Again Garrison laughed harshly, puffing at his cigarette, dragging its +fumes into his lungs in a fierce desire to finish his physical +cataclysm with his moral. Yes, it had been his last chance. He, the +popular idol, had been going lower and lower in the scale, but the +sporting world had been loyal, as it always is to "class." He had been +"class," and they had stuck to him. + +Then when he began to go back-- No; worse. Not that. They said he had +gone crooked. That was it. Crooked as Doyers Street, they said; +throwing every race; standing in with his owner to trim the bookies, +and they couldn't stand for that. Sport was sport. But they had been +loyal. They had warned, implored, begged. What was the use soaking a +pile by dirty work? Why not ride straight--ride as he could, as he +did, as it had been bred in him to? Any money, any honor was his. +Instead-- + +Garrison, stung to madness by retrospect, humped his way through the +crowd at the gates of the Aqueduct. There was not a friendly eye in +that crowd. He stuffed his ears with indifference. He would not bear +their remarks as they recognized him. He summoned all his nerve to +look them in the face unflinchingly--that nerve that had been frayed +to ribbons. + +And then he heard quick footsteps behind him; a hand was laid heavily +on his shoulder, and he was twisted about like a chip. It was his +stable owner, his face flushed with passion and drink. Waterbury was +stingy of cash, but not of words. + +"I've looked for you," he whipped out venomously, his large hands +ravenous for something to rend. "Now I've caught you. Who was in with +you on that dirty deal? Answer, you cur! Spit it out before the crowd. +Was it me? Was it me?" he reiterated in a frenzy, taking a step +forward for each word, his bad grammar coming equally to the fore. + +The crowd surged back. Owner and jockey were face to face. "When +thieves fall out!" they thought; and they waited for the fun. +Something was due them. It came in a flash. Waterbury shot out his big +fist, and little Garrison thumped on the turf with a bang, a thin +streamer of blood threading its way down his gray-white face. + +"You miserable little whelp!" howled his owner. "You've dishonored me. +You threw that race, damn you! That's what I get for giving you a +chance when you couldn't get a mount anywhere." His long pent-up venom +was unleashed. "You threw it. You've tried to make me party to your +dirty work--me, me, me!"--he thumped his heaving chest. "But you can't +heap your filth on me. I'm done with you. You're a thief, a cur--" + +"Hold on," cut in Garrison. He had risen slowly, and was dabbing +furtively at his nose with a silk red-and-blue handkerchief--the +Waterbury colors. + +"Just a minute," he added, striving to keep his voice from sliding the +scale. He was horribly calm, but his gray eyes were quivering as was +his lip. "I didn't throw it. I--I didn't throw it. I was sick. I--I've +been sick. I--I----" Then, for he was only a boy with a man's burdens, +his lip began to quiver pitifully; his voice shrilled out and his +words came tumbling forth like lava; striving to make up by passion +and reiteration what they lacked in logic and coherency. "I'm not a +thief. I'm not. I'm honest. I don't know how it happened. Everything +became a blur in the stretch. You--you've called me a liar, Mr. +Waterbury. You've called me a thief. You struck me. I know you can +lick me," he shrilled. "I'm dishonored--down and out. I know you can +lick me, but, by the Lord, you'll do it here and now! You'll fight me. +I don't like you. I never liked you. I don't like your face. I don't +like your hat, and here's your damn colors in your face." He fiercely +crumpled the silk handkerchief and pushed it swiftly into Waterbury's +glowering eye. + +Instantly there was a mix-up. The crowd was blood-hungry. They had +paid for sport of some kind. There would be no crooked work in this +deal. Lustfully they watched. Then the inequality of the boy and the +man was at length borne in on them, and it roused their stagnant sense +of fair play. + +Garrison, a small hell let loose, had risen from the turf for the +third time! His face was a smear of blood, venom, and all the bandit +passions. Waterbury, the gentleman in him soaked by the taint of a +foisted dishonor and his fighting blood roused, waited with clenched +fists. As Garrison hopped in for the fourth time, the older man +feinted quickly, and then swung right and left savagely. + +The blows were caught on the thick arm of a tan box-coat. A big hand +was placed over Waterbury's face and he was given a shove backward. He +staggered for a ridiculously long time, and then, after an unnecessary +waste of minutes, sat down. The tan overcoat stood over him. It was +Jimmy Drake, and the chameleonlike crowd applauded. + +Jimmy was a popular book-maker with educated fists. The crowd surged +closer. It looked as if the fight might change from bantam-heavy to +heavy-heavy. And the odds were on Drake. + +"If yeh want to fight kids," said the book-maker, in his slow, +drawling voice, "wait till they're grown up. Mebbe then yeh'll change +your mind." + +Waterbury was on his feet now. He let loose some vitriolic verbiage, +using Drake as the objective-point. He told him to mind his own +business, or that he would make it hot for him. He told him that +Garrison was a thief and cur; and that he would have no book-maker and +tout-- + +"Hold on," said Drake. "You're gettin' too flossy right there. When +you call me a tout you're exceedin' the speed limit." He had an +uncomfortable steady blue eye and a face like a snow-shovel. "I +stepped in here not to argue morals, but to see fair play. If Billy +Garrison's done dirt--and I admit it looks close like it--I'll bet +that your stable, either trainer or owner, shared the mud-pie, all +right--" + +"I've stood enough of those slurs," cried Waterbury, in a frenzy. "You +lie." + +Instantly Drake's large face stiffened like cement, and his overcoat +was on the ground. + +"That's a fighting word where I come from," he said grimly. + +But before Drake could square the insult a crowd of Waterbury's +friends swirled up in an auto, and half a dozen peacemakers, mutual +acquaintances, together with two somnambulistic policemen, managed to +preserve the remains of the badly shattered peace. Drake sullenly +resumed his coat, and Waterbury was driven off, leaving a back draft +of impolite adjectives and vague threats against everybody. The crowd +drifted away. It was a fitting finish for the scotched Carter +Handicap. + +Meanwhile, Garrison, taking advantage of the switching of the lime- +light from himself to Drake, had dodged to oblivion in the crowd. + +"I guess I don't forget Jimmy Drake," he mused grimly to himself. +"He's straight cotton. The only one who didn't give me the double- +cross out and out. Bud, Bud!" he declared to himself, "this is sure +the wind-up. You've struck bed-rock and the tide's coming in--hard. +You're all to the weeds. Buck up, buck up," he growled savagely, in +fierce contempt. "What're you dripping about?" He had caught a tear +burning its way to his eyes--eyes that had never blinked under +Waterbury's savage blows. "What if you are ruled off! What if you are +called a liar and crook; thrown the game to soak a pile? What if you +couldn't get a clotheshorse to run in a potato-race? Buck up, buck up, +and plug your cotton pipe. They say you're a crook. Well, be one. Show +'em you don't care a damn. You're down and out, anyway. What's +honesty, anyway, but whether you got the goods or ain't? Shake the +bunch. Get out before you're kicked out. Open a pool-room like all the +has-beens and trim the suckers right, left, and down the middle. +Money's the whole thing. Get it. Don't mind how you do, but just get +it. You'll be honest enough for ten men then. Anyway, there's no one +cares a curse how you pan out--" + +He stopped, and his face slowly relaxed. The hard, vindictive look +slowly faded from his narrowed eyes. + +"Sis," he said softly. "Sis--I was going without saying good-by. +Forgive me." + +He swung on his heel, and with hunched shoulders made his way back to +Aqueduct. Waterbury's training-quarters were adjacent, and, after +lurking furtively about like some hunted animal, Garrison summoned all +his nerve and walked boldly in. + +The only stable-boy about was one with a twisted mouth and flaming red +hair, which he was always curling; a remarkably thin youth he was, +addicted to green sweaters and sentimental songs. He was singing one +now in a key entirely original with himself. "Red's" characteristic +was that when happy he wore a face like a tomb-stone. When sad, the +sentimental songs were always in evidence. + +"Hello, Red!" said Garrison gruffly. He had been Red's idol once. He +was quite prepared now, however, to see the other side of the curtain. +He was no longer an idol to any one. + +"Hello!" returned Red non-committally. + +"Where's Crimmins?" + +"In there." Red nodded to the left where were situated the stalls. +"Gettin' Sis ready for the Belmont opening." + +"Riding for him now?" + +"Yeh. Promised a mount in th' next run-off. 'Bout time, I guess." + +There was silence. Garrison pictured to himself the time when he had +won his first mount. How long ago that was! Time is reckoned by +events, not years. How glorious the future had seemed! He slowly +seated himself on a box by the side of Red and laid a hand on the +other's thin leg. + +"Kid," he said, and his voice quivered, "you know I wish you luck. +It's a great game--the greatest game in the world, if you play it +right." He blundered to silence as his own condition surged over him. + +Red was knocking out his shabby heels against the box in an agony of +confusion. Then he grew emboldened by the other's dejected mien. "No, +I'd never throw no race," he said judicially. "It don't pay--" + +"Red," broke in Garrison harshly, "you don't believe I threw that +race? Honest, I'm square. Why, I was up on Sis--Sis whom I love, Red-- +honest, I was sure of the race. Dead sure. I hadn't much money, but I +played every cent I had on her. I lost more than any one. I lost-- +everything. See," he ran on feverishly, glad of the opportunity to +vindicate himself, if only to a stable-boy. "I guess the stewards will +let the race stand, even if Waterbury does kick. Rogue won square +enough." + +"Yeh, because yeh choked Sis off in th' stretch. She could ha' slept +home a winner, an' yeh know it, Billy," said Red, with sullen regret. + +There was a time when he never would have dared to call Garrison by +his Christian name. Disgrace is a great leveler. Red grew more +conscious of his own rectitude. + +"I ain't knockin' yeh, Billy," he continued, speaking slowly, to +lengthen the pleasure of thus monopolizing the pulpit. "What have I to +say? Yeh can ride rings round any jockey in the States--at least, yeh +could." And then, like his kind, Red having nothing to say, proceeded +to say it. + +"But it weren't your first thrown race, Billy. Yeh know that. I know +how yeh doped it out. I know we ain't got much time to make a pile if +we keep at th' game. Makin' weight makes yeh a lunger. We all die of +th' hurry-up stunt. An' yeh're all right to your owner so long's yeh +make good. After that it's twenty-three, forty-six, double time for +yours. I know what th' game is when you've hit th' top of th' pile. +It's a fast mob, an' yeh got to keep up with th' band-wagon. You're +makin' money fast and spendin' it faster. Yeh think it'll never stop +comin' your way. Yeh dip into everythin'. Then yeh wake up some day +without your pants, and yeh breeze about to make th' coin again. +There's a lot of wise eggs handin' out crooked advice--they take the +coin and you th' big stick. Yeh know, neither Crimmins or the Old Man +was in on your deals, but yeh had it all framed up with outside guys. +Yeh bled the field to soak a pile. See, Bill," he finished eloquently, +"it weren't your first race." + +"I know, I know," said Garrison grimly. "Cut it out. You don't +understand, and it's no good talking. When you have reached the top of +the pile, Red, you'll travel with as fast a mob as I did. But I never +threw a race in my life. That's on the level. Somehow I always get +blind dizzy in the stretch, and it passed when I crossed the post. I +never knew when it was coming on. I felt all right other times. I had +to make the coin, as you say, for I lived up to every cent I made. No, +I never threw a race-- Yes, you can smile, Red," he finished savagely. +"Smile if your face wants stretching. But that's straight. Maybe I've +gone back. Maybe I'm all in. Maybe I'm a crook. But there'll come a +time, it may be one year, it may be a hundred, when I'll come back-- +clean. I'll make good, and if you're on the track, Red, I'll show you +that Garrison can ride a harder, straighter race than you or any one. +This isn't my finish. There's a new deal coming to me, and I'm going +to see that I get it." + +Without heeding Red's pessimistic reply. Garrison turned on his heel +and entered the stall where Sis, the Carter Handicap favorite, was +being boxed for the coming Belmont opening. + +Crimmins, the trainer, looked up sharply as Garrison entered. He was a +small, hard man, with a face like an ice-pick and eyes devoid of +pupils, which fact gave him a stony, blank expression. In fact, he had +been likened once, by Jimmy Drake, to a needle with two very sharp +eyes, and the simile was merited. But he was an excellent flesh +handler; and Waterbury, an old ex-bookie, knew what he was about when +he appointed him head of the stable. + +"Hello, Dan!" said Garrison, in the same tone he had used to greet +Red. He and the trainer had been thick, but it was a question whether +that thickness would still be there. Garrison, alone in the world +since he had run away from his home years ago, had no owner as most +jockeys have, and Crimmins had filled the position of mentor. In fact, +he had trained him, though Garrison's riding ability was not a foreign +graft, but had been bred in the bone. + +"Hello!" echoed Crimmins, coming forward. His manner was cordial, and +Garrison's frozen heart warmed. "Of course you'll quit the game," ran +on the trainer, after an exchange of commonalities. "You're queered +for good. You couldn't get a mount anywhere. I ain't saying anything +about your pulling Sis, 'cause there ain't no use now. But you've got +me and Mr. Waterbury in trouble. It looked as if we were in on the +deal. I should be sore on you, Garrison, but I can't be. And why? +Because Dan Crimmins has a heart, and when he likes a man he likes him +even if murder should come 'atween. Dan Crimmins ain't a welcher. +You've done me as dirty a deal as one man could hand another, but +instead of getting hunk, what does Dan Crimmins do? Why, he agitates +his brain thinking of a way for you to make a good living, Bud. That's +Dan Crimmins' way." + +Garrison was silent. He did not try to vindicate himself. He had given +that up as hopeless. He was thinking, oblivious to Crimmins' eulogy. + +"Yeh," continued the upright trainer; "that's Dan Crimmins' way. And +after much agitating of my brain I've hit on a good money-making +scheme for you, Bud." + +"Eh?" asked Garrison. + +"Yeh." And the trainer lowered his voice. "I know a man that's goin' +to buck the pool-rooms in New York. He needs a chap who knows the +ropes--one like you--and I gave him your name. I thought it would come +in handy. I saw your finish a long way off. This fellah's in the +Western Union; an operator with the pool-room lines. You can run the +game. It's easy. See, he holds back the returns, tipping you the +winners, and you skin round and lay the bets before he loosens up on +the returns. It's easy money; easy and sure." + +Again Garrison was silent. But now a smile was on his face. He had +been asking himself what was the use of honesty. + +"What d'you say?" asked Crimmins, his head on one side, his small eyes +calculating. + +The smile was still twisting Garrison's lip. "I was going to light +out, anyway," he answered slowly. "I'll answer you when I say good-by +to Sis." + +"All right. She's over there." + +The handlers fell back in silence as Garrison approached the filly. He +was softly humming the music-hall song, "Good-by, Sis." With all his +faults, the handlers to a man liked Garrison. They knew how he had +professed to love the filly, and now they sensed that he would prefer +to say his farewell without an audience. Sis whinnied as Garrison +raised her small head and looked steadily into her soft, dark eyes. + +"Sis," he said slowly, "it's good-by. We've been pals, you and I; pals +since you were first foaled. You're the only girl I have; the only +sweetheart I have; the only one to say good-by to me. Do you care?" + +The filly nuzzled at his shoulder. "I've done you dirt to-day," +continued the boy a little unsteadily. "It was your race from the +start. You know it; I know it. I can't explain now, Sis, how it came +about. But I didn't go to do it. I didn't, girlie. You understand, +don't you? I'll square that deal some day, Sis. I'll come back and +square it. Don't forget me. I won't forget you--I can't. You don't +think me a crook, Sis? Say you don't. Say it," he pleaded fiercely, +raising her head. + +The filly understood. She lipped his face, whinnying lovingly. In a +moment Garrison's nerve had been swept away, and, arms flung about the +dark, arched neck, he was sobbing his heart out on the glossy coat; +sobbing like a little child. + +How long he stayed there, the filly nuzzling him like a mother, he did +not know. It seemed as if he had reached sanctuary after an aeon of +chaos. He had found love, understanding in a beast of the field. Where +his fellow man had withheld, the filly had given her all and +questioned not. For Sis, by Rex out of Reine, two-year filly, blooded +stock, was a thoroughbred. And a thoroughbred, be he man, beast, or +bird, does not welch on his hand. A stranger only in prosperity; a +chum in adversity. He does not question; he gives. + +"Well," said Crimmins, as Garrison slowly emerged from the stall, "you +take the partin' pretty next your skin. What's your answer to the game +I spoke of? Mulled it over? It don't take much thinking, I guess." He +was paring his mourning fringed nails with great indifference. + +"No, it doesn't take much thinking, Dan," agreed Garrison slowly, his +eyes narrowed. "I'll rot first before I touch it." + +"Yes?" The trainer raised his thick eyebrows and lowered his thin +voice. "Kind of tony, ain't yeh? Beggars can't be choosers." + +"They needn't be crooks, Dan. I know you meant it all right enough," +said Garrison bitterly. "You think I'm crooked, and that I'd take +anything--anything; dirt of any kind, so long's there's money under +it." + +"Aw, sneeze!" said Crimmins savagely. Then he checked himself. "It +ain't my game. I only knew the man. There's nothing in it for me. Suit +yourself;" and he shrugged his shoulders. "It ain't Crimmins' way to +hump his services on any man. Take it or leave it." + +"You wanted me to go crooked, Dan," said Garrison steadily. "Was it +friendship--" + +"Huh! Wanted you to go crooked?" flashed the trainer with a sneer. +"What are y' talking about? Ain't yeh a welcher now? Ain't yeh crooked +--hair, teeth, an' skin?" + +"You mean that, Dan?" Garrison's face was white. "You've trained me, +and yet you, too, believe I was in on those lost races? You know I +lost every cent on Sis--" + +"It ain't one race, it's six," snorted Crimmins. "It's Crimmins' way +to agitate his brain for a friend, but it ain't his way to be a plumb +fool. You can't shoot that bull con into me, Bud. I know you. I give +you an offer, friend and friend. You turn it down and 'cuse me of +making you play crooked. I'm done with you. It ain't Crimmins' way." + +Billy Garrison eyed his former trainer and mentor steadily for a long +time. His lip was quivering. + +"Damn your way!" he said hoarsely at length, and turned on his heel. +His hands were deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched as he swung +out of the stable. He was humming over and over the old music-hall +favorite, "Good-by, Sis"--humming in a desperate effort to keep his +nerve. Billy Garrison had touched bottom in the depths. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE HEAVY HAND OF FATE. + +Garrison left Long Island for New York that night. When you are hard +hit the soul suffers a reflex-action. It recoils to its native soil. +New York was Garrison's home. He was a product of its sporting soil. +He loved the Great White Way. But he had drunk in the smell, the +intoxication of the track with his mother's milk. She had been from +the South; the land of straight women, straight men, straight living, +straight riding. She had brought blood--good, clean blood--to the +Garrison-Loring entente cordiale--a polite definition of a huge +mistake. + +From his mother Garrison had inherited his cool head, steady eye, and +the intuitive hands that could compel horse-flesh like a magnet. From +her he had inherited a peculiar recklessness and swift daring. From +his father--well, Garrison never liked to talk about his father. His +mother was a memory; his father a blank. He was a good-looking, bad- +living sprig of a straight family-tree. He had met his wife at the New +Orleans track, where her father, an amateur horse-owner, had two +entries. And she had loved him. There is good in every one. Perhaps +she had discovered it in Garrison's father where no one else had. + +Her family threw her off--at least, when she came North with her +husband, she gradually dropped out of her home circle; dropped of her +own volition. Perhaps she was afraid that the good she had first +discovered in her husband had been seen through a magnifying-glass. +Her life with Garrison was a constant whirlwind of changing scene and +fortune--the perpetual merry--or sorry--go-round of a book-maker; +going from track to track, and from bad to worse. His friends said he +was unlucky; his enemies, that the only honest thing in him was his +cough. He had incipient consumption. So Mrs. Garrison's life, such as +it was, had been lived in a trunk--when it wasn't held for hotel bills +--but she had lived out her mistake gamely. + +When the boy came--Billy--she thought Heaven had smiled upon her at +last. But it was only hell. Garrison loved his wife, for love is not a +quality possessed only by the virtuous. Sometimes the worst man can +love the most--in his selfish way. And Garrison resented the arrival +of Billy. He resented sharing his wife's affection with the boy. + +In time he came to hate his son. Billy's education was chiefly +constitutional. There wasn't the money to pay for his education for +any length of time. His mother had to fight for it piecemeal. So he +took his education in capsules; receiving a dose in one city and +jumping to another for the next, according as a track opened. + +He knew his father never cared for him, though his mother tried her +best to gloze over the indifference of her husband. But Billy +understood and resented it. He and his mother loved in secret. When +she died, her mistake lived out to the best of her ability, young +Garrison promptly ran away from his circulating home. He knew nothing +of his father's people; nothing of his mother's. He was a young +derelict; his inherent sense of honor and an instinctive desire for +cleanliness kept him off the rocks. + +The years between the time he left home and the period when he won his +first mount on the track, his natural birthright, Billy Garrison often +told himself he would never care to look back upon. He was young, and +he did not know that years of privation, of hardship, of semi- +starvation--but with an insistent ambition goading one on--are not +years to eliminate in retrospect. They are years to reverence. + +He did not know that prosperity, not adversity, is the supreme test. +And when the supreme test came; when the goal was attained, and the +golden sun of wealth, fame, and honor beamed down upon him, little +Billy Garrison was found wanting. He was swamped by the flood. He went +the way of many a better, older, wiser man--the easy, rose-strewn way, +big and broad and scented, that ends in a bottomless abyss filled with +bitter tears and nauseating regrets; the abyss called, "It might have +been." + +Where he had formerly shunned vice by reason of adversity and poverty +making it appear so naked, revolting, unclean, foreign to his state, +prosperity had now decked it out in her most sensuous, alluring +garments. Red's moral diatribe had been correct. Garrison had followed +the band-wagon to the finish, never asking where it might lead; never +caring. He had youth, reputation, money--he could never overdraw that +account. And so the modern pied piper played, and little Garrison +blindly danced to the music with the other fools; danced on and on +until he was swallowed up in the mountain. + +Then he awoke too late, as they all awake; awoke to find that his +vigor had been sapped by early suppers and late breakfasts; his +finances depleted by slow horses and fast women; his nerve frayed to +ribbons by gambling. And then had come that awful morning when he +first commenced to cough. Would he, could he, ever forget it? + +Billy Garrison huddled down now in the roaring train as he thought of +it. It was always before him, a demoniacal obsession--that morning +when he coughed, and a bright speck of arterial blood stood out like a +tardy danger-signal against the white of his handkerchief; it was +leering at him, saying: "I have been here always, but you have chosen +to be blind." + +Consumption--the jockey's Old Man of the Sea--had arrived at last. He +had inherited the seeds from his father; he had assiduously cultivated +them by making weight against all laws of nature; by living against +laws of God and man. Now they had been punished as they always are. +Nature had struck, struck hard. + +That had been the first warning, and Garrison did not heed it. Instead +of quitting the game, taking what little assets he had managed to save +from the holocaust, and living quietly, striving for a cure, he kicked +over the traces. The music of the pied piper was still in his ears; +twisting his brain. He gritted his teeth. He would not give in. He +would show that he was master. He would fight this insidious vitality +vampire; fight and conquer. + +Besides, he had to make money. The thought of going back to a pittance +a year sickened him. That pittance had once been a fortune to him. But +his appetite had not been gorged, satiated; rather, it had the +resilience of crass youth; jumping the higher with every indulgence. +It increased in ratio with his income. He had no one to guide him; no +one to compel advice with a whip, if necessary. He knew it all. So he +kept his curse secret. He would pile up one more fortune, retain it +this time, and then retire. But nature had balked. The account--youth, +reputation, money--was overthrown at last. + +Came a day when in the paddock Dan Crimmins had seen that fleck of +arterial blood on the handkerchief. Then Dan shared the secret. He +commenced to doctor Garrison. Before every race the jockey had a drug. +But despite it he rode worse than an exercise-boy; rode despicably. +The Carter Handicap had finished his deal. And with it Garrison had +lost his reputation. + +He had done many things in his mad years of prosperity--the mistakes, +the faults of youth. But Billy Garrison was right when he said he was +square. He never threw a race in his life. Horseflesh, the "game," was +sacred to him. He had gone wild, but never crooked. But the world now +said otherwise, and it is only the knave, the saint, and the fool who +never heed what the world says. + +And so at twenty-two, when the average young man is leaving college +for the real taste of life, little Garrison had drained it to the +dregs; the lees tasted bitter in his mouth. + +For obvious reasons Garrison had not chosen his usual haven, the +smoking-car, on the train. It was filled to overflowing from the +Aqueduct track, and he knew that his name would be mentioned +frequently and in no complimentary manner. His soul had been stripped +bare, sensitive to a breath. It would writhe under the mild compassion +of a former admirer as much as it would under the open jibes of his +enemies. He had plenty of enemies. Every "is," "has-been," "would-be," +"will-be" has enemies. It is well they have. Nothing is lost in +nature. Enemies make you; not your friends. + +Garrison had selected a car next to the smoker and occupied a seat at +the forward end, his back to the engine. His hands were deep in his +pockets, his shoulders hunched, his eyes staring straight ahead under +the brim of his slouch-hat. His eyes were looking inward, not outward; +they did not see his surroundings; they were looking in on the ruin of +his life. + +The present, the future, did not exist; only the past lived--lived +with all the animalism of a rank growth. He was too far in the depths +to even think of reerecting his life's structure. His cough was +troubling him; his brain throbbing, throbbing. + +Then, imperceptibly, as Garrison's staring, blank eyes slowly turned +from within to without, occasioned by a violent jolt of the train, +something flashed across their retina; they became focused, and a +message was wired to his brain. Instantly his eyes dropped, and he +fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. + +He found he had been staring into a pair of slate-gray eyes; staring +long, rudely, without knowing it. Their owner was occupying a seat +three removed down the aisle. As he was seated with his back to the +engine, he was thus confronting them. + +She was a young girl with indefinite hair, white skin coated with tan, +and a very steady gaze. She would always be remembered for her eyes. +Garrison instantly decided that they were beautiful. He furtively +peered up from under his hat. She was still looking at him fixedly +without the slightest embarrassment. + +Garrison was not susceptible to the eternal feminine. He was old with +a boy's face. Yet he found himself taking snap-shots at the girl +opposite. She was reading now. Unwittingly he tried to criticize every +feature. He could not. It was true that they were far from being +regular; her nose went up like her short upper lip; her chin and under +lip said that she had a temper and a will of her own. He noted also +that she had a mole under her left eye. But one always returned from +the facial peregrinations to her eyes. After a long stare Garrison +caught himself wishing that he could kiss those eyes. That threw him +into a panic. + +"Be sad, be sad," he advised himself gruffly. "What right have you to +think? You're rude to stare, even if she is a queen. She wouldn't wipe +her boots on you." + +Having convinced himself that he should not think, Garrison promptly +proceeded to speculate. How tall was she? He likened her flexible +figure to Sis. Sis was his criterion. Then, for the brain is a queer +actor, playing clown when it should play tragedian, Garrison +discovered that he was wishing that the girl would not be taller than +his own five feet two. + +"As if it mattered a curse," he laughed contemptuously. + +His eyes were transferred to the door. It had opened, and with the +puff of following wind there came a crowd of men, emerging like +specters from the blue haze of the smoker. They had evidently been +"smoked out." Some of them were sober. + +Garrison half-lowered his head as the crowd entered. He did not wish +to be recognized. The men, laughing noisily, crowded into what seats +were unoccupied. There was one man more than the available space, and +he started to occupy the half-vacant seat beside the girl with the +slate-colored eyes. He was slightly more than fat, and the process of +making four feet go into two was well under way when the girl spoke. + +"Pardon me, this seat is reserved." + +"Don't look like it," said Behemoth. + +"But I say it is. Isn't that enough?" + +"Full house; no reserved seats," observed the man placidly, squeezing +in. + +The girl flashed a look at him and then was silent. A spot of red was +showing through the tan on her cheek; Garrison was watching her under +his hat-brim. He saw the spot on her cheeks slowly grow and her eyes +commence to harden. He saw that she was being annoyed surreptitiously +and quietly. Behemoth was a Strephon, and he thought that he had found +his Chloe. + +Garrison pulled his hat well down over his face, rose negligently, and +entered the next car. He waited there a moment and then returned. He +swung down the aisle. As he approached the girl he saw her draw back. +Strephon's foot was deliberately pressing Chloe's. + +Garrison avoided a scene for the girl's sake. He tapped the man on the +shoulder. + +"Pardon me. My seat, if you please. I left it for the smoker." + +The man looked up, met Garrison's cold, steady eyes, rose awkwardly, +muttered something about not knowing it was reserved, and squeezed in +with two of his companions farther down the aisle. + +Garrison sat down without glancing at the girl. He became absorbed in +the morning paper--twelve hours old. + +Silence ensued. The girl had understood the fabrication instantly. She +waited, her antagonism roused, to see whether Garrison would try to +take advantage of his courtesy. When he was entirely oblivious of her +presence she commenced to inspect him covertly out of the corners of +her gray eyes. After five minutes she spoke. + +"Thank you," she said simply. Her voice was soft and throaty. + +Garrison absently raised his hat and was about to resume the defunct +paper when he was interrupted. A hand reached over the back of the +seat, and before he had thought of resistance, he was flung violently +down the aisle. + +He heard a great laugh from the Behemoth's friends. He rose slowly, +his fighting blood up. Then he became aware that his ejector was not +one of the crowd, but a newcomer; a tall man with a fierce white +mustache and imperial; dressed in a frock coat and wide, black slouch +hat. He was talking. + +"How dare you insult my daughter, suh?" he thundered. "By thunder, +suh, I've a good mind to make you smart right proper for your lack of +manners, suh! How dare you, suh? You--you contemptible little--little +snail, suh! Snail, suh!" And quite satisfied at thus selecting the +most fitting word, glaring fiercely and twisting his white mustache +and imperial with a very martial air, he seated himself majestically +by his daughter. + +Garrison recognized him. He was Colonel Desha, of Kentucky, whose +horse, Rogue, had won the Carter Handicap through Garrison's poor +riding of the favorite, Sis. His daughter was expostulating with him, +trying to insert the true version of the affair between her father's +peppery exclamations of "Occupying my seat!" "I saw him raise his hat +to you!" "How dare he?" "Complain to the management against these +outrageous flirts!" Abominable manners!" etc., etc. + +Meanwhile Garrison had silently walked into the smoker. He tried to +dismiss the incident from his mind, but it stuck; stuck as did the +girl's eyes. + +At the next station a newsboy entered the car. Garrison idly bought a +paper. It was full of the Carter Handicap, giving both Crimmins' and +Waterbury's version of the affair. Public opinion, it seemed, was with +them. They had protested the race. It had been thrown, and Garrison's +dishonor now was national. + +There was a column of double-leaded type on the first page, run in +after the making up of the paper's body, and Garrison's bitter eyes +negligently scanned it. But at the first word he straightened up as if +an electric shock had passed through him. + +"Favorite for the Carter Handicap Poisoned," was the great, staring +title. The details were meager; brutally meager. They were to the +effect that some one had gained access to the Waterbury stable and had +fed Sis strychnine. + +Garrison crumpled up the paper and buried his face in his hands, +making no pretense of hiding his misery. She had been more than a +horse to him; she had been everything. + +"Sis--Sis," he whispered over and over again, the tears burning to his +eyes, his throat choking: "I didn't get a chance to square the deal. +Sis--Sis it was good-by--good-by forever." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BEGINNING A NEW LIFE. + +On arriving at the Thirty-fourth Street ferry Garrison idly boarded a +Forty-second Street car, drifting aimlessly with the main body of Long +Island passengers going westward to disintegrate, scatter like the +fragments of a bursting bomb, at Broadway. A vague sense of +proprietorship, the kiss of home, momentarily smoothed out the +wrinkles in his soul as the lights of the Great White Way beamed down +a welcome upon him. Then it was slowly borne in on him that, though +with the crowd, he was not of it. His mother, the great cosmopolitan +city, had repudiated him. For Broadway is a place for presents or +futures; she has no welcome for pasts. With her, charity begins at +home--and stays there. + +Garrison drifted hither and thither with every cross eddy of humanity, +and finally dropped into the steady pulsating, ever-moving tide on the +west curb going south--the ever restless tide that never seems to +reach the open sea. As he passed one well-known café after another his +mind carried him back over the waste stretch of "It might have been" +to the time when he was their central figure. On every block he met +acquaintances who had even toasted him--with his own wine; toasted him +as the kingpin. Now they either nodded absently or became suddenly +vitally interested in a show-window or the new moon. + +All sorts and conditions of men comprised that list of former friends, +and not one now stepped out and wrung his hand; wrung it as they had +only the other day, when they thought he would retrieve his fortunes +by pulling off the Carter Handicap. They did not wring it now, for +there was nothing to wring out of it. Now he was not only hopelessly +down in the muck of poverty, but hopelessly dishonored. And +gentlemanly appearing blackguards, who had left all honesty in the +cradle, now wouldn't for the world be seen talking on Broadway to +little Billy Garrison, the horribly crooked jockey. + +It wouldn't do at all. First, because their own position was so +precarious that a breath would send it tottering. Secondly, because +Billy might happen to inconveniently remember all the sums of money he +had "loaned" them time and again. Actual necessity might tend to waken +his memory. For they had modernized the proverb into: "A friend in +need is a friend to steer clear of." + +A lesson in mankind and the making had been coming to Garrison, and in +that short walk down Broadway he appreciated it to the uttermost. + +"Think I had the mange or the plague," he mused grimly, as a plethoric +ex-alderman passed and absent-mindedly forgot to return his bow--an +alderman who had been tipped by Garrison in his palmy days to a small +fortune. "What if I had thrown the race?" he ran on bitterly. "Many a +jockey has, and has lived to tell it. No, there's more behind it all +than that. I've passed sports who wouldn't turn me down for that. But +I suppose Bender" (the plethoric alderman) "staked a pot on Sis, she +being the favorite and I up. And when he loses he forgets the times I +tipped him to win. Poor old Sis!" he added softly, as the fact of her +poisoning swept over him. "The only thing that cared for me--gone! I'm +down on my luck--hard. And it's not over yet. I feel it in the air. +There's another fall coming to me." + +He shivered through sheer nervous exhaustion, though the night was +warm for mid-April. He rummaged in his pocket. + +"One dollar in bird-seed," he mused grimly, counting the coins under +the violet glare of a neighboring arc light. "All that's between me +and the morgue. Did I ever think it would come to that? Well, I need a +bracer. Here goes ten for a drink. Can only afford bar whisky." + +He was standing on the corner of Twenty-fifth Street, and +unconsciously he turned into the café of the Hoffman House. How well +he knew its every square inch! It was filled with the usual sporting +crowd, and Garrison entered as nonchalantly as if his arrival would +merit the same commotion as in the long ago. He no longer cared. His +depression had dropped from him. The lights, the atmosphere, the +topics of conversation, discussion, caused his blood to flow like lava +through his veins. This was home, and all else was forgotten. He was +not the discarded jockey, but Billy Garrison, whose name on the turf +was one to conjure with. + +And then, even as he had awakened from his dream on Broadway, he now +awoke to an appreciation of the immensity of his fall from grace. He +knew fully two-thirds of those present. Some there were who nodded, +some kindly, some pityingly. Some there were who cut him dead, +deliberately turning their backs or accurately looking through the top +of his hat. + +Billy's square chin went up to a point and his under lip came out. He +would not be driven out. He would show them. He was as honest as any +there; more honest than many; more foolish than all. He ordered a +drink and seated himself by a table, indifferently eyeing the shifting +crowd through the fluttering curtain of tobacco-smoke. + +The staple subject of conversation was the Carter Handicap, and he +sensed rather than noted the glances of the crowd as they shifted +curiously to him and back again. At first he pretended not to notice +them, but after a certain length of time his oblivion was sincere, for +retrospect came and claimed him for its own. + +He was aroused by footsteps behind him; they wavered, stopped, and a +large hand was laid on his shoulder. + +"Hello, kid! You here, too?" + +He looked up quickly, though he knew the voice. It was Jimmy Drake, +and he was looking down at him, a queer gleam in his inscrutable eyes. +Garrison nodded without speaking. He noticed that the book-maker had +not offered to shake hands, and the knowledge stung. The crowd was +watching them curiously, and Drake waved off, with a late sporting +extra he carried, half a dozen invitations to liquidate. + +"Kid," he said, lowering his voice, his hand still on Garrison's +shoulder, "what did you come here for? Why don't you get away? +Waterbury may be here any minute." + +"What's that to me?" spat out Billy venomously. "I'm not afraid of +him. No call to be." + +Drake considered, the queer look still in his eyes. + +"Don't get busty, kid. I don't know how you ever come to do it, but +it's a serious game, a dirty game, and I guess it may mean jail for +you, all right." + +"What do you mean?" Garrison's pinched face had gone slowly white. A +vague premonition of impending further disaster possessed him, +amounting almost to an obsession. "What do you mean, Jimmy?" he +reiterated tensely. + +Drake was silent, still scrutinizing him. + +"Kid," he said finally, "I don't like to think it of you--but I know +what made you do it. You were sore on Waterbury; sore for losing. You +wanted to get hunk on something. But I tell you, kid, there's no deal +too rotten for a man who poisons a horse--" + +"Poisons a horse," echoed Garrison mechanically. "Poisons a horse. +Good Lord, Drake!" he cried fiercely, in a sudden wave of passion and +understanding, jumping from his chair, "you dare to say that I +poisoned Sis! You dare--" + +"No, I don't. The paper does." + +"The paper lies! Lies, do you hear? Let me see it! Let me see it! +Where does it say that? Where, where? Show it to me if you can! Show +it to me--" + +His eyes slowly widened in horror, and his mouth remained agape, as he +hastily scanned the contents of an article in big type on the first +page. Then the extra dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he +mechanically seated himself at the table, his eyes vacant. To his +surprise, he was horribly calm. Simply his nerves had snapped; they +could torture him no longer by stretching. + +"It's not enough to have--have her die, but I must be her poisoner," +he said mechanically. + +"It's all circumstantial evidence, or nearly so," added Drake, +shifting from one foot to the other. "You were the only one who would +have a cause to get square. And Crimmins says he gave you permission +to see her alone. Even the stable-hands say that. It looks bad, kid. +Here, don't take it so hard. Get a cinch on yourself," he added, as he +watched Garrison's blank eyes and quivering face. + +"I'm all right. I'm all right," muttered Billy vaguely, passing a hand +over his throbbing temples. + +Drake was silent, fidgeting uneasily. + +"Kid," he blurted out at length, "it looks as if you were all in. Say, +let me be your bank-roll, won't you? I know you lost every cent on +Sis, no matter what they say. I'll give you a blank check, and you can +fill it out--" + +"No, thanks, Jimmy." + +"Don't be touchy, kid. You'd do the same for me--" + +"I mean it, Drake. I don't want a cent. I'm not hard up. Thanks all +the same." Garrison's rag of honor was fluttering in the wind of his +pride. + +"Well," said Drake, finally and uncomfortably, "if you ever want it, +Billy, you know where to come for it. I want to go down on the books +as your friend, hear? Mind that. So-long." + +"So-long, Jimmy. And I won't forget your stand." + +Garrison continued staring at the floor. This, then, was the reason +why the sporting world had cut him dead; for a horse-poisoner is +ranked in the same category as that assigned to the horse-stealer of +the Western frontier. There, a man's horse is his life; to the turfman +it is his fortune--one and the same. And so Crimmins had testified +that he had permitted him, Garrison, to see Sis alone! + +Yes, the signals were set dead against him. His opinion of Crimmins +had undergone a complete revolution; first engendered by the trainer +offering him a dishonorable opportunity of fleecing the New York pool- +rooms; now culminated by his indirect charge. + +Garrison considered the issue paramount. He was furious, though so +seemingly indifferent. Every ounce of resentment in his nature had +been focused to the burning-point. Now he would not leave New York. +Come what might, he would stand his ground. He would not run away. He +would fight the charge; fight Waterbury, Crimmins--the world, if +necessary. And mingled with the warp and woof of this resolve was +another; one that he determined would comprise the color-scheme of his +future existence; he would ferret out the slayer of Sis; not merely +for his own vindication, but for hers. He regarded her slayer as a +murderer, for to him Sis had been more than human. + +Garrison came to himself by hearing his name mentioned. Behind him two +young men were seated at a table, evidently unaware of his identity, +for they were exchanging their separate views on the running of the +Carter Handicap and the subsequent poisoning of the favorite. + +"And I say," concluded the one whose nasal twang bespoke the New +Englander; "I say that it was a dirty race all through." + +"One paper hints that the stable was in on it; wanted to hit the +bookies hard," put in his companion diffidently. + +"No," argued the wise one, some alcohol and venom in his syllables, +"Waterbury's all right. He's a square sport. I know. I ought to know, +for I've got inside information. A friend of mine has a cousin who's +married to the brother of a friend of Waterbury's aunt's half-sister. +So I ought to know. Take it from me," added this Bureau of Inside +Information, beating the table with an insistent fist; "it was a put- +up job of Garrison's. I'll bet he made a mint on it. All these jockeys +are crooked. I may be from Little Falls, but I know. You can't fool +me. I've been following Garrison's record--" + +"Then what did you bet on him for?" asked his companion mildly. + +"Because I thought he might ride straight for once. And being up on +Sis, I thought he couldn't help but win. And so I plunged--heavy. And +now, by Heck! ten dollars gone, and I'm mad; mad clear through. Sis +was a corker, and ought to have had the race. I read all about her in +the Little Falls /Daily Banner/. I'd just like to lay hands on that +Garrison--a miserable little whelp; that's what he is. He ought to +have poisoned himself instead of the horse. I hope Waterbury'll do him +up. I'll see him about it." + +Garrison slowly rose, his face white, eyes smoldering. The devil was +running riot through him. His resentment had passed from the apathetic +stage to the fighting. So this was the world's opinion of him! Not +only the world, but miserable wastrels of sports who "plunged heavy" +with ten dollars! His name was to be bandied in their unclean mouths! +He, Billy Garrison, former premier jockey, branded as a thing beyond +redemption! He did not care what might happen, but he would kill that +lie here and now. He was glad of the opportunity; hungry to let loose +some of the resentment seething within him. + +The Bureau of Inside Information and his companion looked up as Billy +Garrison stood over them, hands in pockets. Both men had been +drinking. Drake and half the café's occupants had drifted out. + +"Which of you gentlemen just now gave his opinion of Billy Garrison?" +asked the jockey quietly. + +"I did, neighbor. Been roped in, too?" Inside Information splayed out +his legs, and, with a very blasé air, put his thumbs in the armholes +of his execrable vest. He owned a rangy frame and a loose mouth. He +was showing the sights of Gotham to a friend, and was proud of his +knowledge. But he secretly feared New York because he did not know it. + +"Oh, it was you?" snapped Garrison venomously. "Well, I don't know +your name, but mine's Billy Garrison, and you're a liar!" He struck +Inside Information a whack across the face that sent him a tumbled +heap on the floor. + +There is no one so dangerous as a coward. There is nothing so +dangerous as ignorance. The New Englander had heard much of Gotham's +undercurrent and the brawls so prevalent there. He had heard and +feared. He had looked for them, fascination in his fear, but till the +present had never experienced one. He had heard that sporting men +carried guns and were quick to use them; that when the lie was passed +it meant the hospital or the morgue. He was thoroughly ignorant of the +ways of a great city, of the world; incapable of meeting a crisis; of +apportioning it at its true value. And so now he overdid it. + +As Garrison, a contemptuous smile on his face, turned away, and +started to draw a handkerchief from his hip pocket, the New Englander, +thinking a revolver was on its way, scrambled to his feet, wildly +seized the heavy spirit-bottle, and let fly at Garrison's head. There +was whisky, muscle, sinew, and fear behind the shot. + +As Billy turned about to ascertain whether or not his opponent meant +fight by rising from under the table, the heavy bottle landed full on +his temple. He crumpled up like a withered leaf, and went over on the +floor without even a sigh. + +It was two weeks later when Garrison regained full consciousness; +opened his eyes to gaze upon blank walls, blank as the ceiling. He was +in a hospital, but he did not know it. He knew nothing. The past had +become a blank. An acute attack of brain-fever had set in, brought on +by the excitement he had undergone and finished by the smash from the +spirit-bottle. + +There followed many nights when doctors shook their heads and nurses +frowned; nights when it was thought little Billy Garrison would cross +the Great Divide; nights when he sat up in the narrow cot, his hands +clenched as if holding the reins, his eyes flaming as in his feverish +imagination he came down the stretch, fighting for every inch of the +way; crying, pleading, imploring: "Go it, Sis; go it! Take the rail! +Careful, careful! Now--now let her out; let her out! Go, you cripple, +go--" All the jargon of the turf. + +He was a physical, nervous wreck, and the doctors said that he +couldn't last very long, for consumption had him. It was only a matter +of time, unless a miracle happened. The breath of his life was going +through his mouth and nostrils; the breath of his lungs. + +No one knew his name at the hospital, not even himself. There was +nothing to identify him by. For Garrison, after the blow that night, +had managed to crawl out to the sidewalk like a wounded beast striving +to find its lair and fighting to die game. + +There was no one to say him nay, no friend to help him. And hotel +managements are notoriously averse to having murder or assault +committed in their house. So when they saw that Garrison was able to +walk they let him go, and willingly. Then he had collapsed, crumpled +in a heap on the sidewalk. + +A policeman had eventually found him, and with the uncanny acumen of +his ilk had unerringly diagnosed the case as a "drunk." From the +stationhouse to Bellevue, Garrison had gone his weary way, and from +there, when it was finally discovered he was neither drunk nor insane, +to Roosevelt Hospital. And no one knew who or what he was, and no one +cared overmuch. He was simply one of the many unfortunate derelicts of +a great city. + +It was over six months before he left the hospital, cured so far as he +could be. The doctors called his complaint by a learned and +villainously unpronounceable name, which, interpreted by the Bowery, +meant that Billy Garrison "had gone dippy." + +But Garrison had not. His every faculty was as acute as it ever had +been. Simply, Providence had drawn an impenetrable curtain over his +memory, separating the past from the present; the same curtain that +divides our presents from our futures. He had no past. It was a blank, +shot now and then with a vague gleam of things dead and gone. + +This oblivion may have been the manifestation of an all-wise Almighty. +Now, at least, he could not brood over past mistakes, though, +unconsciously, he might have to live them out. Life to him was a new +book, not one mark appeared on its clean pages. He did not even know +his name--nothing. + +From the "W. G." on his linen he understood that those were his +initials, but he could not interpret them; they stood for nothing. He +had no letters, memoranda in his pockets, bearing his name. And so he +took the name of William Good. Perhaps the "William" came to him +instinctively; he had no reason for choosing "Good." + +Garrison left the hospital with his cough, a little money the +superintendent had kindly given to him, and his clothes; that was all. + +Handicapped as he was, harried by futile attempts of memory to fathom +his identity, he was about to renew the battle of life; not as a +veteran, one who has earned promotion, profited by experience, but as +a raw recruit. + +The big city was no longer an old familiar mother, whose every mood +and whimsy he sensed unerringly; now he was a stranger. The streets +meant nothing to him. But when he first turned into old Broadway, a +vague, uneasy feeling stirred within him; it was a memory struggling +like an imprisoned bird to be free. Almost the first person he met was +Jimmy Drake. Garrison was about to pass by, oblivious, when the other +seized him by the arm. + +"Hello, Billy! Where did you drop from--" + +"Pardon me, you have made a mistake." Garrison stared coldly, blankly +at Drake, shook free his arm, and passed on. + +"Gee, what a cut!" mused the book-maker, staring after the rapidly +retreating figure of Garrison. "The frozen mitt for sure. What's +happened now? Where's he been the past six months? Wearing the same +clothes, too! Well, somehow I've queered myself for good. I don't know +what I did or didn't. But I'll keep my eye on him, anyway." To cheer +his philosophy, Drake passed into the Fifth Avenue for a drink. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A READY-MADE HEIR. + +Garrison had flattered himself that he had known adversity in his +time, but in the months succeeding his dismissal from the hospital he +qualified for a post-graduate course in privation. He was cursed with +the curse of the age; it was an age of specialties, and he had none. +His only one, the knowledge of the track, had been buried in him, and +nothing tended to awaken it. + +He had no commercial education; nothing but the /savoir-faire/ which +wealth had given to him, and an inherent breeding inherited from his +mother. By reason of his physique he was disbarred from mere manual +labor, and that haven of the failure--the army. + +So Garrison joined the ranks of the Unemployed Grand Army of the +Republic. He knew what it was to sleep in Madison Square Park with a +newspaper blanket, and to be awakened by the carol of the touring +policemen. He came to know what it meant to stand in the bread-line, +to go the rounds of the homeless "one-night stands." + +He came perilously near reaching the level of the sodden. His morality +had suffered with it all. Where in his former days of hardship he had +health, ambition, a goal to strive for, friends to keep him honest +with himself, now he had nothing. He was alone; no one cared. + +If he had only taken to the track, his passion--legitimate passion-- +for horse-flesh would have pulled him through. But the thought that he +ever could ride never suggested itself to him. + +He had no opportunity of inhaling the track's atmosphere. Sometimes he +wondered idly why he liked to stop and caress every stray horse. He +could not know that those same hands had once coaxed thoroughbreds +down the stretch to victory. His haunts necessarily kept him from +meeting with those whom he had once known. The few he did happen to +meet he cut unconsciously as he had once cut Jimmy Drake. + +And so day by day Garrison's morality suffered. It is so easy for the +well-fed to be honest. But when there is the hunger cancer gnawing at +one's vitals, not for one day, but for many, then honesty and +dishonesty cease to be concrete realities. It is not a question of +piling up luxuries, but of supplying mere necessity. + +And day by day as the hunger cancer gnawed at Garrison's vitals it +encroached on his original stock of honesty. He fought every minute of +the day, but he grimly foresaw that there would come a time when he +would steal the first time opportunity afforded. + +Day by day he saw the depletion of his honor. He was not a moralist, a +saint, a sinner. Need sweeps all theories aside; in need's fierce +crucible they are transmuted to concrete realities. Those who have +never known what it is to be thrown with Garrison's handicap on the +charity of a great city will not understand. But those who have ever +tasted the bitter crust of adversity will. And it is the old blatant +advice from the Seats of the Mighty: "Get a job." The old answer from +the hopeless undercurrent: "How?" + +There came a day when the question of honesty or dishonesty was put up +to Garrison in a way he had not foreseen. The line was drawn +distinctly; there was no easy slipping over it by degrees, unnoticed. + +The toilet facilities of municipal lodging-houses are severely crude +and primitive. For the sake of sanitation, the whilom lodger's clothes +are put in a net and fumigated in a germ-destroying temperature. The +men congregate together in one long room, in various stages of pre- +Adamite costumes, and the shower is turned upon them in numerical +rotation. + +This public washing was one of the many drawbacks to public charity +which Garrison shivered at. As the warm weather set in he accordingly +took full advantage of the free baths at the Battery. On his second +day's dip, as he was leaving, a man whom he had noticed intently +scanning the bathers tapped him on the arm. + +He was shaped like an olive, with a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a +clever, clean-shaven mouth. He was well-dressed, and was continually +probing with a quill tooth-pick at his gold-filled front teeth, +evidently desirous of excavating some of the precious metal. + +"My name's Snark--Theobald D. Snark," he said shortly, thrusting a +card into Garrison's passive hand. "I am an eminent lawyer, and would +be obliged if you would favor me with a five minutes' interview in my +office--American Tract Building." + +"Don't know you," said Garrison blandly. + +"You'll like me when you do," supplemented the eminent lawyer coolly. +"Merely a matter of business, you understand. You look as if a little +business wouldn't hurt you." + +"Feel worse," added Billy mildly, inspecting his crumpled outfit. + +He was very hungry. He caught eagerly at this quondam opening. Perhaps +it would be the means of starting him in some legitimate business. +Then a wild idea came to him, and slowly floated away again as he +remembered that Mr. Snark had agreed that he did not know him. But +while it lasted, the idea had been a thrilling one for a penniless, +homeless wanderer. It had been: Supposing this lawyer knew him? Knew +his real identity, and had tracked him down for clamoring relatives +and a weeping father and mother? For to Garrison his parents might +have been criminals or millionaires so far as he remembered. + +The journey to Nassau Street was completed in silence, Mr. Snark +centering all his faculties on his teeth, and Garrison on the probable +outcome of this chance meeting. + +The eminent lawyer's office was in a corner of the fifth shelf of the +American Tract Building bookcase. It was unoccupied, Mr. Snark being +so intelligent as to be able to dispense with the services of office- +boy and stenographer; it was small but cozy. Offices in that building +can be rented for fifteen dollars per month. + +After the eminent lawyer had fortified himself from a certain black +bottle labeled "Poison: external use only," which sat beside the soap- +dish in the little towel-cabinet, he assumed a very preoccupied and +highly official mien at his roller-top desk, where he became vitally +interested in a batch of letters, presumably that morning's mail, but +which in reality bore dates ranging back to the past year. + +Then the eminent lawyer delved importantly into an empty letter-file; +emerged after ten minutes' study in order to give Blackstone a few +thoroughly familiar turns, opened the window further to cool his +fevered brain, lit a highly athletic cigar, crossed his legs, and was +at last at leisure to talk business with Garrison, who had almost +fallen asleep during the business rush. + +"What's your name?" he asked peremptorily. + +Ordinarily Garrison would have begged him to go to a climate where +thermometers are not in demand, but now he was hungry, and wanted a +job, so he answered obediently: "William Good." + +"Good, William," said the eminent lawyer, smiling at himself in the +little mirror of the towel-cabinet. He understood that he possessed a +thin vein of humor. Necessary quality for an eminent lawyer. "And no +occupation, I presume, and no likelihood of one, eh?" + +Garrison nodded. + +"Well"--and Mr. Snark made a temple of worship from his fat fingers, +his cigar at right angles, his shrewd gray eyes on the ceiling--"I +have a position which I think you can fill. To make a long story +short, I have a client, a very wealthy gentleman of Cottonton, +Virginia; name of Calvert--Major Henry Clay Calvert. Dare say you've +heard of the Virginia Calverts," he added, waving the rank incense +from the athletic cigar. + +He had only heard of the family a week or two ago, but already he +persuaded himself that their reputation was national, and that his +business relations with them dated back to the Settlement days. + +Garrison found occasion to say he'd never heard of them, and the +eminent lawyer replied patronizingly that "we all can't be well- +connected, you know." Then he went on with his short story, which, +like all short stories, was a very long one. + +"Now it appears that Major Calvert has a nephew somewhere whom he has +never seen, and whom he wishes to recognize; in short, make him his +heir. He has advertised widely for him during the past few months, and +has employed a lawyer in almost every city to assist in this hunt for +a needle in a haystack. This nephew's name is Dagget--William C. +Dagget. His mother was a half-sister of Major Calvert's. The search +for this nephew has been going on for almost a year--since Major +Calvert heard of his brother-in-law's death--but the nephew has not +been found." + +The eminent lawyer cleared his throat eloquently and relighted the +athletic cigar, which had found occasion to go out. + +"It will be a very fine thing for this nephew," he added +speculatively. "Very fine, indeed. Major Calvert has no children, and, +as I say, the nephew will be his heir--if found. Also the lawyer who +discovers the absent youth will receive ten thousand dollars. Ten +thousand dollars is not a sum to be sneezed at, Mr. Good. Not to be +sneezed at, sir. Not to be sneezed at," thundered the eminent lawyer +forensically. + +Garrison agreed. He would never think of sneezing at it, even if he +was subject to that form of recreation. But what had that to do with +him? + +The eminent lawyer attentively scrutinized the blue streamer from his +cigar. + +"Well, I've found him at last. You are he, Mr. Good. Mr. Good, my +heartiest congratulations, sir." And Mr. Snark insisted upon shaking +the bewildered Garrison impressively by the hand. + +Garrison's head swam. Then his wild dream had come true! His identity +had been at last discovered! He was not the offspring of some +criminal, but the scion of a noble Virginia house! But Mr. Snark was +talking again. + +"You see," he began slowly, focusing an attentive eye on Garrison's +face, noting its every light and shade, "this nice old gentleman and +his wife are hard up for a nephew. You and I are hard up for money. +Why not effect a combination? Eh, why not? It would be sinful to waste +such an opportunity of doing good. In you I give them a nice, +respectable nephew, who is tired of reaping his wild oats. You are +probably much better than the original. We are all satisfied. I do +everybody a good turn by the exercise of a little judgment." + +Garrison's dream crumbled to ashes. + +"Oh!" he said blankly, "you--you mean to palm me off as the nephew?" + +"Exactly, my son, the long-lost nephew. You are fitted for the role. +They haven't ever seen the original, and then, by chance, you have a +birthmark, shaped like a spur, beneath your right collar-bone. Oh, +yes, I marked it while you were bathing. I've hunted the baths in the +chance of finding a duplicate, for I could not afford to run the risks +of advertising. + +"It seems this nephew has a similar mark, his mother having mentioned +it once in a letter to her brother, and it is the only means of +identification. Luck is with us, Mr. Good, and of course you will take +full advantage of it. As a side bonus you can pay me twenty-five +thousand or so when you come into the estate on your uncle's death." + +The eminent lawyer, his calculating eye still on Garrison, then +proceeded with much forensic ability and virile imagination to lay the +full beauties of the "cinch" before him. + +"But supposing the real nephew shows up?" asked Garrison hesitatingly, +after half an hour's discussion. + +"Impossible. I am fully convinced he's dead. Possession is nine points +of the law, my son. If he should happen to turn up, which he won't, +why, you have only to brand him as a fraud. I'm a kind-hearted man, +and I merely wish Major Calvert to have the pleasure of killing fatted +calf for one instead of a burial. I'm sure the real nephew is dead. +Anyway, the search will be given up when you are found." + +"But about identification?" + +"Oh, the mark's enough, quite enough. You've never met your kin, but +you can have very sweet, childish recollections of having heard your +mother speak of them. I know enough of old Calvert to post you on the +family. You've lived North all your life. We'll fix up a nice +respectable series of events regarding how you came to be away in +China somewhere, and thus missed seeing the advertisement. + +"We'll let my discovery of you stand as it is, only we'll substitute +the swimming-pool of the New York Athletic Club in lieu of the +Battery. The Battery wouldn't sound good form. Romanticism always +makes truth more palatable. Trust me to work things to a highly +artistic and flawless finish. I can procure any number of witnesses-- +at so much per head--who have time and again distinctly heard your +childish prattle regarding dear Uncle and Aunty Calvert. + +"I'll wire on that long-lost nephew has been found, and you can +proceed to lie right down in your ready-made bed of roses. There won't +be any thorns. Bit of a step up from municipal lodging-houses, eh?" + +Garrison clenched his hands. His honor was in the last ditch. The +great question had come; not in the guise of a loaf of bread, but +this. How long his honor put up a fight he did not know, but the +eminent lawyer was apparently satisfied regarding the outcome, for he +proceeded very leisurely to read the morning paper, leaving Garrison +to his thoughts. + +And what thoughts they were! What excuses he made to himself--poor +hostages to a fast-crumbling honor! Only the exercise of a little +subterfuge and all this horrible present would be a past. No more +sleeping in the parks, no more of the hunger cancer. He would have a +name, friends, kin, a future. Something to live for. Some one to care +for; some one to care for him. And he would be all that a nephew +should be; all that, and more. He would make all returns in his power. + +He had even reached the point when he saw in the future himself +confessing the deception; saw himself forgiven and being loved for +himself alone. And he would confess it all--his share, but not +Snark's. All he wanted was a start in life. A name to keep clean; +traditions to uphold, for he had none of his own. All this he would +gain for a little subterfuge. And perhaps, as Snark had acutely +pointed out, he might be a better nephew than the original. He would +be. + +When a man begins to compromise with dishonesty, there is only one +outcome. Garrison's rag of honor was hauled down. He agreed to the +deception. He would play the role of William C. Dagget, the lost +nephew. + +When he made his intention known, the eminent lawyer nodded as if to +say that Garrison wasted an unnecessary amount of time over a very +childish problem, and then he proceeded to go into the finer points of +the game, building up a life history, supplying dates, etc. Then he +sent a wire to Major Calvert. Afterward he took Garrison to his first +respectable lunch in months and bought him an outfit of clothes. On +their return to the corner nook, fifth shelf of the bookcase, a reply +was awaiting them from Major Calvert. The long-lost nephew, in company +with Mr. Snark, was to start the next day for Cottonton, Virginia. The +telegram was warm, and commended the eminent lawyer's ability. + +"Son," said the eminent lawyer dreamily, carefully placing the +momentous wire in his pocket, "a good deed never goes unrewarded. +Always remember that. There is nothing like the old biblical behest: +'Let us pray.' You for your bed of roses; me for--for----" +mechanically he went to the small towel-cabinet and gravely pointed +the unfinished observation with the black bottle labeled "Poison." + +"To the long-lost nephew, Mr. William C. Dagget. To the bed of roses. +And to the eminent lawyer, Theobald D. Snark, Esq., who has mended a +poor fortune with a better brain. Gentlemen," he concluded +grandiloquently, slowly surveying the little room as if it were an +overcrowded Colosseum--"gentlemen, with your permission, together with +that of the immortal Mr. Swiveller, we will proceed to drown it in the +rosy. Drown it in the rosy, gentlemen." And so saying, Mr. Snark +gravely tilted the black bottle ceilingward. + +The following evening, as the shadows were lengthening, Garrison and +the eminent lawyer pulled into the neat little station of Cottonton. +The good-by to Gotham had been said. It had not been difficult for +Garrison to say good-by. He was bidding farewell to a life and a city +that had been detestable in the short year he had known it. The +lifetime spent in it had been forgotten. But with it all he had said +good-by to honor. On the long train trip he had been smothering his +conscience, feebly awakened by the approaching meeting, the touch of +new clothes, and the prospect of a consistently full stomach. He even +forgot to cough once or twice. + +But the conscience was only feebly awakened. The eminent lawyer had +judged his client right. For as one is never miserly until one has +acquired wealth, so Garrison was loath to vacate the bed of roses now +that he had felt how exceedingly pleasant it was. To go back to rags +and the hunger cancer and homelessness would be hard; very hard even +if honor stood at the other end. + +"There they are--the major and his wife," whispered Snark, gripping +his arm and nodding out of the window to where a tall, clean-shaven, +white-haired man and a lady who looked the thoroughbred stood +anxiously scanning the windows of the cars. Drawn up at the curb +behind them was a smart two-seated phaeton, with a pair of clean- +limbed bays. The driver was not a negro, as is usually the case in the +South, but a tight-faced little man, who looked the typical London +cockney that he was. + +Garrison never remembered how he got through his introduction to his +"uncle" and "aunt." His home-coming was a dream. The sense of shame +was choking him as Major Calvert seized both hands in a stone-crushed +grip and looked down upon him, steadily, kindly, for a long time. + +And then Mrs. Calvert, a dear, middle-aged lady, had her arms about +Garrison's neck and was saying over and over again in the impulsive +Southern fashion: "I'm so glad to see you, dear. You've your mother's +own eyes. You know she and I were chums." + +Garrison had choked, and if the eminent lawyer's wonderful vocabulary +and eloquent manner had not just then intervened, Garrison then and +there would have wilted and confessed everything. If only, he told +himself fiercely, Major Calvert and his wife had not been so +courteous, so trustful, so simple, so transparently honorable, +incapable of crediting a dishonorable action to another, then perhaps +it would not have been so difficult. + +The ride behind the spanking bays was all a dream; all a dream as they +drove up the long, white, wide Logan Pike under the nodding trees and +the soft evening sun. Everything was peaceful--the blue sky, the +waving corn-fields, the magnolia, the songs of the homing birds. The +air tasted rich as with great breaths he drew it into his lungs. It +gave him hope. With this air to aid him he might successfully grapple +with consumption. + +Garrison was in the rear seat of the phaeton with Mrs. Calvert, +mechanically answering questions, giving chapters of his fictitious +life, while she regarded him steadily with her grave blue eyes. Mr. +Snark and the major were in the middle seat, and the eminent lawyer +was talking a veritable blue streak, occasionally flinging over his +shoulder a bolstering remark in answer to one of Mrs. Calvert's +questions, as his quick ear detected a preoccupation in Garrison's +tones, and he sensed that there might be a sudden collapse to their +rising fortunes. He was in a very good humor, for, besides the ten +thousand, and the bonus he would receive from Garrison on the major's +death, he had accepted an invitation to stay the week end at Calvert +House. + +Garrison's inattention was suddenly swept away by the clatter of hoofs +audible above the noise contributed by the bays. A horse, which +Garrison instinctively, and to his own surprise, judged to be a two- +year-old filly, was approaching at a hard gallop down the broad pike. +Her rider was a young girl, hatless, who now let loose a boyish shout +and waved a gauntleted hand. Mrs. Calvert, smilingly, returned the +hail. + +"A neighbor and a lifelong friend of ours," she said, turning to +Garrison. "I want you to be very good friends, you and Sue. She is a +very lovely girl, and I know you will like her. I want you to. She has +been expecting your coming. I am sure she is anxious to see what you +look like." + +Garrison made some absent-minded, commonplace answer. His eyes were +kindling strangely as he watched the oncoming filly. His blood was +surging through him. Unconsciously, his hands became ravenous for the +reins. A vague memory was stirring within him. And then the girl had +swung her mount beside the carriage, and Major Calvert, with all the +ceremonious courtesy of the South, had introduced her. + +She was a slim girl, with a wealth of indefinite hair, now gold, now +bronze, and she regarded Garrison with a pair of very steady gray +eyes. Beautiful eyes they were; and, as she pulled off her gauntlet +and bent down a slim hand from the saddle, he looked up into them. It +seemed as if he looked into them for ages. Where had he seen them +before? In a dream? And her name was Desha. Where had he heard that +name? Memory was struggling furiously to tear away the curtain that +hid the past. + +"I'm right glad to see you," said the girl, finally, a slow blush +coming to the tan of her cheek. She slowly drew away her hand, as, +apparently, Garrison had appropriated it forever. + +"The honor is mine," returned Garrison mechanically, as he replaced +his hat. Where had he heard that throaty voice? + + + +CHAPTER V. + +ALSO A READY-MADE HUSBAND. + +A week had passed--a week of new life for Garrison, such as he had +never dreamed of living. Even in the heyday of his fame, forgotten by +him, unlimited wealth had never brought the peace and content of +Calvert House. It seemed as if his niche had long been vacant in the +household, awaiting his occupancy, and at times he had difficulty in +realizing that he had won it through deception, not by right of blood. + +The prognostications of the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, to the effect +that everything would be surprisingly easy, were fully realized. To +the major and his wife the birthmark of the spur was convincing proof; +and, if more were needed, the thorough coaching of Snark was +sufficient. + +More than that, a week had not passed before it was made patently +apparent to Garrison, much to his surprise and no little dismay, that +he was liked for himself alone. The major was a father to him, Mrs. +Calvert a mother in every sense of the word. He had seen Sue Desha +twice since his "home-coming," for the Calvert and Desha estates +joined. + +Old Colonel Desha had eyed Garrison somewhat queerly on being first +introduced, but he had a poor memory for faces, and was unable to +connect the newly discovered nephew of his neighbor and friend with +little Billy Garrison, the one-time premiere jockey, whom he had +frequently seen ride. + +The week's stay at Calvert House had already begun to show its +beneficial effect upon Garrison. The regular living, clean air, +together with the services of the family doctor, were fighting the +consumption germs with no little success. For it had not taken the +keen eye of the major nor the loving one of the wife very long to +discover that the tuberculosis germ was clutching at Garrison's lungs. + +"You've gone the pace, young man," said the venerable family doctor, +tapping his patient with the stethoscope. "Gone the pace, and now +nature is clamoring for her long-deferred payment." + +The major was present, and Garrison felt the hot blood surge to his +face, as the former's eyes were riveted upon him. + +"Youth is a prodigal spendthrift," put in the major sadly. "But isn't +it hereditary, doctor? Perhaps the seed was cultivated, not sown, eh?" + +"Assiduously cultivated," replied Doctor Blandly dryly. "You'll have +to get back to first principles, my boy. You've made an oven out of +your lungs by cigarette smoke. You inhale? Of course. Quite the +correct thing. Have you ever blown tobacco smoke through a +handkerchief? Yes? Well, it leaves a dark-brown stain, doesn't it? +That's what your lungs are like--coated with nicotine. Your wind is +gone. That is why cigarettes are so injurious. Not because, as some +people tell you, they are made of inferior tobacco, but because you +inhale them. That's where the danger is. Smoke a pipe or cigar, if +smoke you must; those you don't inhale. Keep your lungs for what God +intended them for--fresh air. Then, your vitality is nearly bankrupt. +You've made an old curiosity-shop out of your stomach. You require +regular sleep--tons of it----" + +"But I'm never sleepy," argued Garrison, feeling very much like a +schoolboy catechised by his master. "When I wake in the morning, I +awake instantly, every faculty alert--" + +"Naturally," grunted the old doctor. "Don't you know that is proof +positive that you have lived on stimulants? It is artificial. You +should be drowsy. I'll wager the first thing you do mornings is to +roll a smoke; eh? Exactly. Smoke on an empty stomach! That's got to be +stopped. It's the simple life for you. Plenty of exercise in the open +air; live, bathe, in sunshine. It is the essence of life. I think, +major, we can cure this young prodigal of yours. But he must obey me-- +implicitly." + +Subsequently, Major Calvert had, for him, a serious conversation with +Garrison. + +"I believe in youth having its fling," he said kindly, in conclusion; +"but I don't believe in flinging so far that you cannot retrench +safely. From Doctor Blandly's statements, you seem to have come mighty +near exceeding the speed limit, my boy." + +He bent his white brows and regarded Garrison steadily out of his keen +eyes, in which lurked a fund of potential understanding. + +"But sorrow," he continued, "acts on different natures in different +ways. Your mother's death must have been a great blow to you. It was +to me." He looked fixedly at his nails. "I understand fully what it +must mean to be thrown adrift on the world at the age you were. I +don't wish you ever to think that we knew of your condition at the +time. We didn't--not for a moment. I did not learn of your mother's +death until long afterward, and only of your father's by sheer +accident. But we have already discussed these subjects, and I am only +touching on them now because I want you, as you know, to be as good a +man as your mother was a woman; not a man like your father was. You +want to forget that past life of yours, my boy, for you are to be my +heir; to be worthy of the name of Calvert, as I feel confident you +will. You have your mother's blood. When your health is improved, we +will discuss more serious questions, regarding your future, your +career; also--your marriage." He came over and laid a kindly hand on +Garrison's shoulder. + +And Garrison had been silent. He was in a mental and moral fog. He +guessed that his supposed father had not been all that a man should +be. The eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, had said as much. He knew himself +that he was nothing that a man should be. His conscience was fully +awakened by now. Every worthy ounce of blood he possessed cried out +for him to go; to leave Calvert House before it was too late; before +the old major and his wife grew to love him as there seemed danger of +them doing. + +He was commencing to see his deception in its true light; the crime he +was daily, hourly, committing against his host and hostess; against +all decency. He had no longer a prop to support him with specious +argument, for the eminent lawyer had returned to New York, carrying +with him his initial proceeds of the rank fraud--Major Calvert's check +for ten thousand dollars. + +Garrison was face to face with himself; he was beginning to see his +dishonesty in all its hideous nakedness. And yet he stayed at Calvert +House; stayed on the crater of a volcano, fearing every stranger who +passed, fearing to meet every neighbor; fearing that his deception +must become known, though reason told him such fear was absurd. He +stayed at Calvert House, braving the abhorrence of his better self; +stayed not through any appreciation of the Calvert flesh-pots, nor +because of any monetary benefits, present or future. He lived in the +present, for the hour, oblivious to everything. + +For Garrison had fallen in love with his next-door neighbor, Sue +Desha. Though he did not know his past life, it was the first time he +had understood to the full the meaning of the ubiquitous, potential +verb "to love." And, instead of bringing peace and content--the whole +gamut of the virtues--hell awoke in little Billy Garrison's soul. + +The second time he had seen her was the day following his arrival, and +when he had started on Doctor Blandly's open-air treatment. + +"I'll have a partner over to put you through your paces in tennis," +Mrs. Calvert had said, a quiet twinkle in her eye. And shortly +afterward, as Garrison was aimlessly batting the balls about, feeling +very much like an overgrown schoolboy, Sue Desha, tennis-racket in +hand, had come up the drive. + +She was bareheaded, dressed in a blue sailor costume, her sleeves +rolled high on her firm, tanned arms. She looked very businesslike, +and was, as Garrison very soon discovered. + +Three sets were played in profound silence, or, rather, the girl made +a spectacle out of Garrison. Her services were diabolically +unanswerable; her net and back court game would have merited the +earnest attention of an expert, and Garrison hardly knew where a +racket began or ended. + +At the finish he was covered with perspiration and confusion, while +his opponent, apparently, had not begun to warm up. By mutual consent, +they occupied a seat underneath a spreading magnolia-tree, and then +the girl insisted upon Garrison resuming his coat. They were like two +children. + +"You'll get cold; you're not strong," said the girl finally, with the +manner of a very old and experienced mother. She was four years +younger than Garrison. "Put it on; you're not strong. That's right. +Always obey." + +"I am strong," persisted Garrison, flushing. He felt very like a +schoolboy. + +The girl eyed him critically, calmly. + +"Oh, but you're not; not a little bit. Do you know you're very--very-- +rickety? Very rickety, indeed." + +Garrison eyed his flannels in visible perturbation. They flapped about +his thin, wiry shanks most disagreeably. He was painfully conscious of +his elbows, of his thin chest. Painfully conscious that the girl was +physical perfection, he was a parody of manhood. He looked up, with a +smile, and met the girl's frank eyes. + +"I think rickety is just the word," he agreed, spanning a wrist with a +finger and thumb. + +"You cannot play tennis, can you?" asked the girl dryly. "Not a +little, tiny bit." + +"No; not a little bit." + +"Golf?" Head on one side. + +"Not guilty." + +"Swim?" + +"Gloriously. Like a stone." + +"Run?" Head on the other side. + +"If there's any one after me." + +"Ride? Every one rides down this-away, you know." + +A sudden vague passion mouthed at Garrison's heart. "Ride?" he echoed, +eyes far away. "I--I think so." + +"Only think so! Humph!" She swung a restless foot. "Can't you do +anything?" + +"Well," critically. "I think I can eat, and sleep----" + +"And talk nonsense. Let me see your hand." She took it imperiously, +palm up, in her lap, and examined it critically, as if it were the paw +of some animal. "My! it's as small as a woman's!" she exclaimed, in +dismay. "Why, you could wear my glove, I believe." There was one part +disdain to three parts amusement, ridicule, in her throaty voice. + +"It is small," admitted Garrison, eyeing it ruefully. "I wish I had +thought of asking mother to give me a bigger one. Is it a crime?" + +"No; a calamity." Her foot was going restlessly. "I like your eyes," +she said calmly, at length. + +Garrison bowed. He was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He had never +met a girl like this. Nothing seemed sacred to her. She was as frank +as the wind, or sun. + +"You know," she continued, her great eyes half-closed, "I was awfully +anxious to see you when I heard you were coming home----" + +"Why?" + +She turned and faced him, her grey eyes opened wide. "Why? Isn't one +always interested in one's future husband?" + +It was Garrison who was confused. Something caught at his throat. He +stammered, but words would not come. He laughed nervously. + +"Didn't you know we were engaged?" asked the girl, with childlike +simplicity and astonishment. "Oh, yes. How superb!" + +"Engaged? Why--why----" + +"Of course. Before we were born. Your uncle and aunt and my parents +had it all framed up. I thought you knew. A cut-and-dried affair. Are +you not just wild with delight?" + +"But--but," expostulated Garrison, his face white, "supposing the real +me--I mean, supposing I had not come home? Supposing I had been dead?" + +"Why, then," she replied calmly, "then, I suppose, I would have a +chance of marrying some one I really loved. But what is the use of +supposing? Here you are, turned up at the last minute, like a bad +penny, and here I am, very much alive. Ergo, our relatives' wishes +respectfully fulfilled, and--connubial misery /ad libitum/. /Mes +condolences/. If you feel half as bad as I do, I really feel sorry for +you. But, frankly, I think the joke is decidedly on me." + +Garrison was silent, staring with hard eyes at the ground. He could +not begin to analyze his thoughts. + +"You are not complimentary, at all events," he said quietly at length. + +"So every one tells me," she sighed. + +"I did not know of this arrangement," he added, looking up, a queer +smile twisting his lips. + +"And now you are lonesomely miserable, like I am," she rejoined, +crossing a restless leg. "No doubt you left your ideal in New York. +Perhaps you are married already. Are you?" she cried eagerly, seizing +his arm. + +"No such good luck--for you," he added, under his breath. + +"I thought so," she sighed resignedly. "Of course no one would have +you. It's hopeless." + +"It's not," he argued sharply, his pride, anger in revolt. He, who had +no right to any claim. "We're not compelled to marry each other. It's +a free country. It is ridiculous, preposterous." + +"Oh, don't get so fussy!" she interrupted petulantly. "Don't you think +I've tried to kick over the traces? And I've had more time to think of +it than you--all my life. It is a family institution. Your uncle +pledged his nephew, if he should have one, and my parents pledged me. +We are hostages to their friendship. They wished to show how much they +cared for one another by making us supremely miserable for life. Of +course, I spent my life in arranging how you should look, if you ever +came home--which I devoutly hoped you wouldn't. It wouldn't be so +difficult, you see, if you happened to match my ideals. Then it would +be a real love-feast, with parents' blessings and property thrown in +to boot." + +"And then I turned up--a little, under-sized, nothingless pea, instead +of the regular patented, double-action, stalwart Adonis of your +imagination," added Garrison dryly. + +"How well you describe yourself!" said the girl admiringly. + +"It must be horrible!" he condoled half-cynically. + +"And of course you, too, were horribly disappointed?" she added, after +a moment's pause, tapping her oxford with tennis-racket. + +Garrison turned and deliberately looked into her gray eyes. + +"Yes; I am--horribly," he lied calmly. "My ideal is the dark, quiet +girl of the clinging type." + +"She wouldn't have much to cling to," sniffed the girl. "We'll be +miserable together, then. Do you know, I almost hate you! I think I +do. I'm quite sure I do." + +Garrison eyed her in silence, the smile on his lips. She returned the +look, her face flushed. + +"Miss Desha--" + +'You'll have to call me Sue. You're Billy; I'm Sue. That's one of the +minor penalties. Our prenatal engagement affords us this charming +familiarity," she interrupted scathingly. + +"Sue, then. Sue," continued Garrison quietly, "from your type, I +thought you fashioned of better material. Now, don't explode--yet a +while. I mean property and parents' blessing should not weigh a curse +with you. Yes; I said curse--damn, if you wish. If you loved, this +burlesque engagement should not stand in your way. You would elope +with the man you love, and let property and parents' blessings----" + +"That would be a good way for you to get out of the muddle unscathed, +wouldn't it?" she flashed in. "How chivalrous! Why don't you elope +with some one--the dark, clinging girl--and let me free? You want me +to suffer, not yourself. Just like you Yankees--cold-blooded icicles!" + +Garrison considered. "I never thought of that, honestly!" he said, +with a laugh. "I would elope quick enough, if I had only myself to +consider." + +"Then your dark, clinging girl is lacking in the very virtues you find +so woefully missing in me. She won't take a risk. I cannot say I blame +her," she added, scanning the brooding Garrison. + +He laughed good-humoredly. "How you must detest me! But cheer up, my +sister in misery! You will marry the man you love, all right. Never +fear." + +"Will I?" she asked enigmatically. Her eyes were half-shut, watching +Garrison's profile. "Will I, soothsayer?" + +He nodded comprehensively, bitterly. + +"You will. One of the equations of the problem will be eliminated, and +thus will be found the answer." + +"Which?" she asked softly, heel tapping gravel. + +"The unnecessary one, of course. Isn't it always the unnecessary one?" + +"You mean," she said slowly, "that you will go away?" + +Garrison nodded. + +"Of course," she added, after a pause, "the dark, clinging girl is +waiting?" + +"Of course," he bantered. + +"It must be nice to be loved like that." Her eyes were wide and far +away. "To have one renounce relatives, position, wealth--all, for +love. It must be very nice, indeed." + +Still, Garrison was silent. He had cause to be. + +"Do you think it is right, fair," continued the girl slowly, her brow +wrinkled speculatively, "to break your uncle's and aunt's hearts for +the sake of a girl? You know how they have longed for your home- +coming. How much you mean to them! You are all they have. Don't you +think you are selfish--very selfish?" + +"I believe the Bible says to leave all and cleave unto your wife," +returned Garrison. + +"Yes. But not your intended wife." + +"But, you see, she is of the cleaving type." + +"And why this hurry? Aren't you depriving your uncle and aunt +unnecessarily early?" + +"But it is the only answer, as you pointed out. You then would be +free." + +He did not know why he was indulging in this repartee. Perhaps because +the situation was so novel, so untenable. But a strange, new force was +working in him that day, imparting a peculiar twist to his humor. He +was hating himself. He was hopeless, cynical, bitter. + +If he could have laid hands upon that eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, he +would have wrung his accomplished neck to the best of his ability. He, +Snark, must have known about this prenatal engagement. And his +bitterness, his hopelessness, were all the more real, for already he +knew that he cared, and cared a great deal, for this curious girl with +the steady gray eyes and wealth of indefinite hair; cared more than he +would confess even to himself. It seemed as if he always had cared; as +if he had always been looking into the depths of those great gray +eyes. They were part of a dream, the focusing-point of the misty past +--forever out of focus. + +The girl had been considering his answer, and now she spoke. + +"Of course," she said gravely, "you are not sincere when you say your +primal reason for leaving would be in order to set me free. Of course +you are not sincere." + +"Is insincerity necessarily added to my numerous physical +infirmities?" he bantered. + +"Not necessarily. But there is always the love to make a virtue of +necessity--especially when there's some one waiting on necessity." + +"But did I say that would be my primal reason for leaving--setting you +free? I thought I merely stated it as one of the following blessings +attendant on virtue." + +"Equivocation means that you were not sincere. Why don't you go, +then?" + +"Eh?" Garrison looked up sharply at the tone of her voice. + +"Why don't you go? Hurry up! Reward the clinging girl and set me +free." + +"Is there such a hurry? Won't you let me ferret out a pair of pajamas, +to say nothing of good-bys?" + +"How silly you are!" she said coldly, rising. "The question, then, +rests entirely with you. Whenever you make up your mind to go--" + +"Couldn't we let it hang fire indefinitely? Perhaps you could learn to +love me. Then there would be no need to go." Garrison smiled +deliberately up into her eyes, the devil working in him. + +Miss Desha returned his look steadily. "And the other girl--the +clinging one?" she asked calmly. + +"Oh, she could wait. If we didn't hit it off, I could fall back on +her. I would hate to be an old bachelor." + +"No; I don't think it would be quite a success," said the girl +critically. "You see, I think you are the most detestable person I +ever met. I really pity the other girl. It's better to be an old +bachelor than to be a young--cad." + +Garrison rose slowly. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +"YOU'RE BILLY GARRISON." + +"And what is a cad?" he asked abstractedly. + +"One who shames his birth and position by his breeding." + +"And no question of dishonesty enters into it?" He could not say why +he asked. "It is not, then, a matter of moral ethics, but of mere-- +well----" + +"Sensitiveness," she finished dryly. "I really think I prefer rank +dishonesty, if it is offset by courtesy and good breeding. You see, I +am not at all moral." + +Here Mrs. Calvert made her appearance, with a book and sunshade. She +was a woman whom a sunshade completed. + +"I hope you two have not been quarreling," she observed. "It is too +nice a day for that. I was watching the slaughter of the innocents on +the tennis-court. Really, you play a wretched game, William." + +"So I have been informed," replied Garrison. "It is quite a relief to +have so many people agree with me for once." + +"In this instance you can believe them," commented the girl. She +turned to Mrs. Calvert. "Whose ravings are you going to listen to +now?" she asked, taking the book Mrs. Calvert carried. + +"A matter of duty," laughed the older woman. "No; it's not a novel. It +came this morning. The major wishes me to assimilate it and impart to +him its nutritive elements--if it contains any. He is so miserably +busy--doing nothing, as usual. But it is a labor of love. If we women +are denied children, we must interest ourselves in other things." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the girl, with interest; "it's the years record of the +track!" She was thumbing over the leaves. "I'd love to read it! May I +when you've done? Thank you. Why, here's Sysonby, Gold Heels, The +Picket--dear old Picket! Kentucky's pride! And here's Sis. Remember +Sis? The Carter Handicap--" + +She broke off suddenly and turned to the silent Garrison. "Did you go +much to the track up North?" She was looking straight at him. + +"I--I--that is--why, yes, of course," he murmured vaguely. "May I see +it?" + +He took the book from her unwilling hand. A full-page photograph of +Sis was confronting him. He studied it long and carefully, passing a +troubled hand nervously over his forehead. + +"I--I think I've seen her," he said, at length, looking up vacantly. +"Somehow, she seems familiar." + +Again he fell to studying the graceful lines of the thoroughbred, +oblivious of his audience. + +"She is a Southern horse," commented Mrs. Calvert. "Rather she was. Of +course you-all heard of her poisoning? It never said whether she +recovered. Do you know?" + +Garrison glanced up quickly, and met Sue Desha's unwavering stare. + +"Why, I believe I did hear that she was poisoned, or something to that +effect, now that you mention it." His eyes were still vacant. + +"You look as if you had seen a ghost," laughed Sue, her eyes on the +magnolia-tree. + +He laughed somewhat nervously. "I--I've been thinking." + +"Is the major going in for the Carter this year?" asked the girl, +turning to Mrs. Calvert. "Who will he run--Dixie?" + +"I think so. She is the logical choice." Mrs. Calvert was nervously +prodding the gravel with her sunshade. "Sometimes I wish he would give +up all ideas of it." + +"I think father is responsible for that. Since Rogue won the last +Carter, father is horse-mad, and has infected all his neighbors." + +"Then it will be friend against friend," laughed Mrs. Calvert. "For, +of course, the colonel will run Rogue again this year--" + +'I--I don't think so." The girl's face was sober. "That is," she added +hastily, "I don't know. Father is still in New York. I think his +initial success has spoiled him. Really, he is nothing more than a big +child." She laughed affectedly. Mrs. Calvert's quiet, keen eyes were +on her. + +"Racing can be carried to excess, like everything," said the older +woman, at length. "I suppose the colonel will bring home with him this +Mr. Waterbury you were speaking of?" + +The girl nodded. There was silence, each member of the trio evidently +engrossed with thoughts that were of moment. + +Mrs. Calvert was idly thumbing over the race-track annual. "Here is a +page torn out," she observed absently. "I wonder what it was? A thing +like that always piques my curiosity. I suppose the major wanted it +for reference. But then he hasn't seen the book yet. I wonder who +wanted it? Let me--yes, it's ended here. Oh, it must have been the +photograph and record of that jockey, Billy Garrison! Remember him? +What a brilliant career he had! One never hears of him nowadays. I +wonder what became of him?" + +"Billy Garrison?" echoed Garrison slowly, "Why--I--I think I've heard +of him--" + +He was cut short by a laugh from the girl. "Oh, you're good! Why, his +name used to be a household word. You should have heard it. But, then, +I don't suppose you ever went to the track. Those who do don't +forget." + +Mrs. Calvert walked slowly away. "Of course you'll stay for lunch, +Sue," she called back. "And a canter might get up an appetite. +William, I meant to tell you before this that the major has reserved a +horse for your use. He is mild and thoroughly broken. Crimmins will +show him to you in the stable. You must learn to ride. You'll find +riding-clothes in your room, I think. I recommend an excellent teacher +in Sue. Good-by, and don't get thrown." + +"Are you willing?" asked the girl curiously. + +Garrison's heart was pounding strangely. His mouth was dry. "Yes, +yes," he said eagerly. + +The tight-faced cockney, Crimmins, was in the stable when Garrison, in +riding-breeches, puttee leggings, etc., entered. Four names were +whirling over and over in his brain ever since they had been first +mentioned. Four names--Sis, Waterbury, Garrison, and Crimmins. He did +not know whey they should keep recurring with such maddening +persistency. And yet how familiar they all seemed! + +Crimmins eyed him askance as he entered. + +"Goin' for a canter, sir? Ho, yuss; this 'ere is the 'orse the master +said as 'ow you were to ride, sir. It don't matter which side yeh get +on. 'E's as stiddy-goin' as a alarum clock. Ho, yuss. I calls 'im +Waterbury Watch--partly because I 'appen to 'ave a brother wot's +trainer for Mr. Waterbury, the turfman, sir." + +Crimmins shifted his cud with great satisfaction at this uninterrupted +flow of loquacity and brilliant humor. Garrison was looking the animal +over instinctively, his hands running from hock to withers and back +again. + +"How old is he?" he asked absently. + +"Three years, sir. Ho, yuss. Thoroughbred. Cast-off from the Duryea +stable. By Sysonby out of Hamburg Belle. Won the Brighton Beach +overnight sweepstakes in nineteen an' four. Ho, yuss. Just a little +off his oats, but a bloomin' good 'orse." + +Garrison turned, speaking mechanically. "I wonder do you think I'm a +fool! Sysonby himself won the Brighton sweepstakes in nineteen-four. +It was the beginning of his racing career, and an easy win. This +animal here is a plug; an out-and-out plug of the first water. He +never saw Hamburg Belle or Sysonby--they never mated. This plug's a +seven-year-old, and he couldn't do seven furlongs in seven weeks. He +never was class, and never could be. I don't want to ride a cow, I +want a horse. Give me that two-year-old black filly with the big +shoulders. Whose is she?" + +Crimmins shifted the cud again to hide his astonishment at Garrison's +sudden /savoir-faire/. + +"She's wicked, sir. Bought for the missus, but she ain't broken yet." + +"She hasn't been handled right. Her mouth's hard, but her temper's +even. I'll ride her," said Garrison shortly. + +"Have to wear blinkers, sir." + +"No, I won't. Saddle her. Hurry up. Shorten the stirrup. There, that's +right. Stand clear." + +Crimmins eyed Garrison narrowly as he mounted. He was quite prepared +to run with a clothes-basket to pick up the remains. But Garrison was +up like a feather, high on the filly's neck, his shoulders hunched. +The minute he felt the saddle between his knees he was at home again +after a long, long absence. He had come into his birthright. + +The filly quivered for a moment, laid back her ears, and then was off. + +"Cripes!" ejaculated the veracious Crimmins, as wide-eyed he watched +the filly fling gravel down the drove, " 'e's got a seat like Billy +Garrison himself. 'E can ride, that kid. An' 'e knows 'orse-flesh. +Blimy if 'e don't! If Garrison weren't down an' out I'd be ready to +tyke my Alfred David it were 'is bloomin' self. An' I thought 'e was a +dub! Ho, yuss--me!" + +Moralizing on the deceptiveness of appearances, Crimmins fortified +himself with another slab of cut-plug. + +Miss Desha, up on a big bay gelding with white stockings, was waiting +on the Logan Pike, where the driveway of Calvert House swept into it. + +"Do you know that you're riding Midge, and that she's a hard case?" +she said ironically, as they cantered off together. "I'll bet you're +thrown. Is she the horse the major reserved for you? Surely not." + +"No," said Garrison plaintively, "they picked me out a cow--a nice, +amiable cow; speedy as a traction-engine, and with as much action. +This is a little better." + +The girl was silent, eyeing him steadily through narrowed lids. + +"You've never ridden before?" + +"Um-m-m," said Garrison; "why, yes, I suppose so." He laughed in +sudden joy. "It feels so good," he confided. + +"You remind me of a person in a dream," she said, after a little, +still watching him closely. "Nothing seems real to you--your past, I +mean. You only think you have done this and that." + +He was silent, biting his lip. + +"Come on, I'll race you," she cried suddenly. "To that big poplar down +there. See it? About two furlongs. I'll give you twenty yards' start. +Don't fall off." + +"I gave, never took, handicaps." The words came involuntarily to +Garrison's surprise. "Come on; even up," he added hurriedly. "Ready?" + +"Yes. Let her out." + +The big bay gelding was off first, with the long, heart-breaking +stride that eats up the ground. The girl's laugh floated back +tantalizingly over her shoulder. Garrison hunched in the saddle, a +smile on his lips. He knew the quality of the flesh under him, and +that it would not be absent at the call. + +"Tote in behind, girlie. He got the jump on you. That's it. Nip his +heels." The seconds flew by like the trees; the big poplar rushed up. +"Now, now. Make a breeze, make a breeze," sang out Garrison at the +quarter minute; and like a long, black streak of smoke the filly +hunched past the gelding, leaving it as if anchored. It was the old +Garrison finish which had been track-famous once upon a time, and as +Garrison eased up his hard-driven mount a queer feeling of exultation +swelled his heart; a feeling which he could not quite understand. + +"Could I have been a jockey once?" he kept asking himself over and +over. "I wonder could I have been! I wonder!" + +The next moment the gelding had ranged up alongside. + +"I'll bet that was close to twenty-four, the track record," said +Garrison unconsciously. "Pretty fair for dead and lumpy going, eh? +Midge is a comer, all right. Good weight-carrying sprinter. I fancy +that gelding. Properly ridden he would have given me a hard ride. We +were even up on weight." + +"And so you think I cannot ride properly!" added the girl quietly, +arranging her wind-blown hair. + +"Oh, yes. But women can't really ride class, you know. It isn't in +them." + +She laughed a little. "I'm satisfied now. You know I was at the Carter +Handicap last year." + +"Yes?" said Garrison, unmoved. He met her eyes fairly. + +"Yes, you know Rogue, father's horse, won. They say Sis, the favorite, +had the race, but was pulled in the stretch." She was smiling a +little. + +"Indeed?" murmured Garrison, with but indifferent interest. + +She glanced at him sharply, then fell to pleating the gelding's mane. +"Um-m-m," she added softly. "Billy Garrison, you know, rode Sis." + +"Oh, did he?" + +"Yes. And, do you know, his seat was identical with yours?" She turned +and eyed him steadily. + +"I'm flattered." + +"Yes," she continued dreamily, the smile at her lips; "it's funny, of +course, but Billy Garrison used to be my hero. We silly girls all have +one." + +"Oh, well," observed Garrison, "I dare say any number of girls loved +Billy Garrison. Popular idol, you know----" + +"I dare say," she echoed dryly. "Possibly the dark, clinging kind." + +He eyed her wonderingly, but she was looking very innocently at the +peregrinating chipmunk. + +"And it was so funny," she ran on, as if she had not heard his +observation nor made one herself. "Coming home in the train from the +Aqueduct the evening of the handicap, father left me for a moment to +go into the smoking-car. And who do you think should be sitting +opposite me, two seats ahead, but-- Who do you think?" Again she +turned and held his eyes. + +"Why--some long-lost girl-chum, I suppose," said Garrison candidly. + +She laughed; a laugh that died and was reborn and died again in a +throaty gurgle. "Why, no, it was Billy Garrison himself. And I was +being annoyed by a beast of a man, when Mr. Garrison got up, ordered +the beast out of the seat beside me, and occupied it himself, saying +it was his. It was done so beautifully. And he did not try to take +advantage of his courtesy in the least. And then guess what happened." +Still her eyes held his. + +"Why," answered Garrison vaguely, "er--let me see. It seems as if I +had heard of that before somewhere. Let me see. Probably it got into +the papers-- No, I cannot remember. It has gone. I have forgotten. And +what did happen next?" + +"Why, father returned, saw Mr. Garrison raise his hat in answer to my +thanks, and, thinking he had tried to scrape an acquaintance with me, +threw him out of the seat. He did not recognize him." + +"That must have been a little bit tough on Garrison, eh?" laughed +Garrison idly. "Now that you mention it, it seems as if I had heard +it." + +"I've always wanted to apologize to Mr. Garrison, though I do not know +him--he does not know me," said the girl softly, pleating the +gelding's mane at a great rate. "It was all a mistake, of course. I +wonder--I wonder if--if he held it against me!" + +"Oh, very likely he's forgotten all about it long ago," said Garrison +cheerfully. + +She bit her lip and was silent. "I wonder," she resumed, at length, +"if he would like me to apologize and thank him--" She broke off, +glancing at him shyly. + +"Oh, well, you never met him again, did you?" asked Garrison. "So what +does it matter? Merely an incident." + +They rode a furlong in absolute silence. Again the girl was the first +to speak. "It is queer," she moralized, "how fate weaves our lives. +They run along in threads, are interwoven for a time with others, +dropped, and then interwoven again. And what a pattern they make!" + +"Meaning?" he asked absently. + +She tapped her lips with the palm of her little gauntlet. + +"That I think you are absurd." + +"I?" He started. "How? Why? I don't understand. What have I done now?" + +"Nothing. That's just it." + +"I don't understand." + +"No? Um-m-m, of course it is your secret. I am not trying to force a +confidence. You have your own reasons for not wishing your uncle and +aunt to know. But I never believed that Garrison threw the Carter +Handicap. Never, never, never. I--I thought you could trust me. That +is all." + +"I don't understand a word--not a syllable," said Garrison restlessly. +"What is it all about?" + +The girl laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Oh, nothing at all. The +return of a prodigal. Only I have a good memory for faces. You have +changed, but not very much. I only had to see you ride to be certain. +But I suspected from the start. You see, I admit frankly that you once +were my hero. There is only one Billy Garrison." + +"I don't see the moral to the parable." He shook his head hopelessly. + +"No?" She flushed and bit her lip. "William C. Dagget, you're Billy +Garrison, and you know it!" she said sharply, turning and facing him. +"Don't try to deny it. You are, are, are! I know it. You took that +name because you didn't wish your relatives to know who you were. Why +don't you 'fess up? What is the use of concealing it? You've nothing +to be ashamed of. You should be proud of your record. I'm proud of it. +Proud--that--that--well, that I rode a race with you to-day. You're +hiding your identity; afraid of what your uncle and aunt might say-- +afraid of that Carter Handicap affair. As if we didn't know you always +rode as straight as a string." Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes +flashing. + +Garrison eyed her steadily. His face was white, his breath coming hot +and hard. Something was beating--beating in his brain as if striving +to jam through. Finally he shook his head. + +"No, you're wrong. It's a case of mistaken identity. I am not +Garrison." + +Her gray eyes bored into his. "You really mean that--Billy?" + +"I do." + +"On your word of honor? By everything you hold most sacred? Take your +time in answering." + +"It wouldn't matter if I waited till the resurrection. I can't change +myself. I'm not Garrison. Faith of a gentleman, I'm not. Honestly, +Sue." He laughed a little nervously. + +Again her gray eyes searched his. She sighed. "Of course I take your +word." + +She fumbled in her bosom and brought forth a piece of paper, carefully +smoothing out its crumpled surface. Without a word she handed it to +Garrison, and he spread it out on his filly's mane. It was a +photograph of a jockey--Billy Garrison. The face was more youthful, +care-free. Otherwise it was a fair likeness. + +"You'll admit it looks somewhat like you," said Sue, with great +dryness. + +Garrison studied it long and carefully. "Yes--I do," he murmured, in a +perplexed tone. "A double. Funny, isn't it? Where did you get it?" She +laughed a little, flushing. + +"I was silly enough to think you were one and the same, and that you +wished to conceal your identity from your relatives. So I made +occasion to steal it from the book your aunt was about to read. +Remember? It was the leaf she thought the major had abstracted." + +"I must thank you for your kindness, even though it went astray. May I +have it?" + +"Ye-es. And you are sure you are not the original?" + +"I haven't the slightest recollection of being Billy Garrison," +reiterated Billy Garrison, wearily and truthfully. + +The ride home was mostly one of silence. Both were thinking. As they +came within sight of Calvert House the girl turned to him: + +"There is one thing you can do--ride. Like glory. Where did you more +than learn?" + +"Must have been born with me." + +"What's bred in the bone will come out in the blood," she quoted +enigmatically. She was smiling in a way that made Garrison vaguely +uncomfortable. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SNARK SHOWS HIS FANGS. + +Alone in his room that night Garrison endeavored to focus the stray +thoughts, suspicions that the day's events had set running through his +brain. All Sue Desha had said, and had meant without saying, had been +photographed on the sensitized plate of his memory--that plate on +which the negatives of the past were but filmy shadows. Now, of them +all, the same Garrison was on the sky-line of his imagination. + +Could it be possible that Billy Garrison and he were one and the same? +And then that incident of the train. Surely he had heard it before, +somewhere in the misty long ago. It seemed, too, as if it had occurred +coincidently with the moment he had first looked into those gray eyes. +He laughed nervously to himself. + +"If I was Garrison, whoever he was, I wonder what kind of a person I +was! They speak of him as if he had been some one-- And then Mrs. +Calvert said he had disappeared. Perhaps I am Garrison." + +Nervously he brought forth the page from the race-track annual Sue had +given him, and studied it intently. "Yes, it does look like me. But it +may be only a double; a coincidence." He racked his brain for a stray +gleam of retrospect, but it was not forthcoming. "It's no use," he +sighed wearily, "my life began when I left the hospital. And if I was +Garrison, surely I would have been recognized by some one in New York. + +"Hold on," he added eagerly, "I remember the first day I was out a man +caught me by the arm on Broadway and said: 'Hello, Billy!' Let me +think. This Garrison's name was Billy. The initials on my underwear +were W. G.--might be William Garrison instead of the William Good I +took. But if so, how did I come to be in the hospital without a friend +in the world? The doctors knew nothing of me. Haven't I any parents or +relatives--real relatives, not the ones I am imposing on?" + +He sat on the bed endeavoring to recall some of his past life; even +the faintest gleam. Then absently he turned over the photograph he +held. On the reserve side of the leaf was the record of Billy +Garrison. Garrison studied it eagerly. + +"Born in eighty-two. Just my age, I guess--though I can't swear how +old I am, for I don't know. Stable-boy for James R. Keene. Contract +bought by Henry Waterbury. Highest price ever paid for bought-up +contract. H'm! Garrison was worth something. First win on the +Gravesend track when seventeen. A native of New York City. H'm! Rode +two Suburban winners; two Brooklyn Handicaps; Carter Handicap; the +Grand Prix, France; the Metropolitan Handicap; the English Derby-- Oh, +shucks! I never did all those things; never in God's world," he +grunted wearily. "I wouldn't be here if I had. It's all a mistake. I +knew it was. Sue was kidding me. And yet--they say the real Billy +Garrison has disappeared. That's funny, too." + +He took a few restless paces about the room. "I'll go down and pump +the major," he decided finally. "Maybe unconsciously he'll help me to +remember. I'm in a fog. He ought to know Garrison. If I am Billy +Garrison--then by my present rank deception I've queered a good +record. But I know I'm not. I'm a nobody. A dishonest nobody to boot." + +Major Calvert was seated by his desk in the great old-fashioned +library, intently scanning various racing-sheets and the multitudinous +data of the track. A greater part of his time went to the cultivation +of his one hobby--the track and horses--for by reason of his financial +standing, having large cotton and real-estate holdings in the State, +he could afford to use business as a pastime. + +He spent his mornings and afternoons either in his stables or at the +extensive training-quarters of his stud, where he was as indefatigable +a rail-bird as any pristine stable-boy. + +A friendly rivalry had long existed between his neighbor and friend, +Colonel Desha, and himself in the matter of horse-flesh. The colonel +was from Kentucky--Kentucky origin--and his boast was that his native +State could not be surpassed either in regard to the quality of its +horses or women. And, though chivalrous, the colonel always mentioned +"women" last. + +"Just look at Rogue and my daughter, Sue, suh," he was wont to say +with pardonable pride. "Thoroughbreds both, suh." + +It was a matter of record that the colonel, though less financially +able, was a better judge of horses than his friend and rival, the +major, and at the various county meets it was Major Calvert who always +ran second to Colonel Desha's first. + +The colonel's faith in Rogue had been vindicated at the last Carter +Handicap, and his owner was now stimulating his ambition for higher +flights. And thus far, the major, despite all his expenditures and +lavish care, could only show one county win for his stable. His +friend's success had aroused him, and deep down in his secret heart he +vowed he would carry off the next prize Colonel Desha entered for, +even if it was one of the classic handicaps itself. + +Dixie, a three-year-old filly whom he had recently purchased, showed +unmistakable evidences of winning class in her try-outs, and her owner +watched her like a hawk, satisfaction in his heart, biding the time +when he might at last show Kentucky that her sister State, Virginia, +could breed a horse or two. + +"I'll keep Dixie's class a secret," he was wont to chuckle to himself, +as, perched on the rail in all sorts of weather, he clicked off her +time. "I think it is the Carter my learned friend will endeavor to +capture again. I'm sure Dixie can give Rogue five seconds in seven +furlongs--and a beating. That is, of course," he always concluded, +with good-humored vexation, "providing the colonel doesn't pick up in +New York an animal that can give Dixie ten seconds. He has a knack of +going from better to best." + +Now Major Calvert glanced up with a smile as Garrison entered. + +"I thought you were in bed, boy. Leave late hours to age. You're +looking better these days. I think Doctor Blandly's open-air physic is +first-rate, eh? By the way, Crimmins tells me you were out on Midge +to-day, and that you ride--well, like Billy Garrison himself. Of +course he always exaggerates, but you didn't say you could ride at +all. Midge is a hard animal." He eyed Garrison with some curiosity. +"Where did you learn to ride? I thought you had had no time nor means +for it." + +"Oh, I merely know a horse's tail from his head," laughed Garrison +indifferently. "Speaking of Garrison, did you ever see him ride, +major?" + +"How many times have I asked you to say uncle, not major?" reproved +Major Calvert. "Don't you feel as if you were my nephew, eh? If +there's anything I've left undone--" + +"You've been more than kind," blurted out Garrison uncomfortably. +"More than good--uncle." He was hating himself. He could not meet the +major's kindly eyes. + +"Tut, tut, my boy, no fine speeches. Apropos of this Garrison, why are +you so interested in him? Wish to emulate him, eh? Yes, I've seen him +ride, but only once, when he was a bit of a lad. I fancy Colonel Desha +is the one to give you his merits. You know Garrison's old owner, Mr. +Waterbury, is returning with the colonel. He will be his guest for a +week or so." + +"Oh," said Garrison slowly. "And who is this Garrison riding for now?" + +"I don't know. I haven't followed him. It seems as if I heard there +was some disagreement or other between him and Mr. Waterbury; over +that Carter Handicap, I think. By the way, if you take an interest in +horses, and Crimmins tells me you have an eye for class, you rascal, +come out to the track with me to-morrow. I've got a filly which I +think will give the colonel's Rogue a hard drive. You know, if the +colonel enters for the next Carter, I intend to contest it with him-- +and win." He chuckled. + +"Then you don't know anything about this Garrison?" persisted Garrison +slowly. + +"Nothing more than I've said. He was a first-class boy in his time. A +boy I'd like to have seen astride of Dixie. Such stars come up quickly +and disappear as suddenly. The life's against them, unless they +possess a hard head. But Mr. Waterbury, when he arrives, can, I dare +say, give you all the information you wish. By the way," he added, a +twinkle in his eye, "what do you think of the colonel's other +thoroughbred? I mean Miss Desha?" + +Garrison felt the hot blood mounting to his face. "I--I--that is, I--I +like her. Very much indeed." He laughed awkwardly, his eyes on the +parquet floor. + +"I knew you would, boy. There's good blood in that girl--the best in +the States. Perhaps a little odd, eh? But, remember, straight speech +means a straight mind. You see, the families have always been all in +all to each other; the colonel is a school-chum of mine--we're never +out of school in this world--and my wife was a nursery-chum of Sue's +mother--she was killed on the hunting-field ten years ago. Your aunt +and I have always regarded the girl as our own. God somehow neglected +to give us a chick--probably we would have neglected Him for it. We +love children. So we've cottoned all the more to Sue." + +"I understand that Sue and I are intended for each other," observed +Garrison, a half-cynical smile at his lips. + +"God bless my soul! How did you guess?" + +"Why, she said so." + +Major Calvert chuckled. "God bless my soul again! That's Sue all over. +She'd ask the devil himself for a glass of water if she was in the hot +place, and insist upon having ice in it. 'Pon my soul she would. And +what does she think of you? Likes you, eh?" + +"No, she doesn't," replied Garrison quietly. + +"Tell you as much, eh?" + +"Yes." + +Again Major Calvert chuckled. "Well, she told me different. Oh, yes, +she did, you rascal. And I know Sue better than you do. Family wishes +wouldn't weigh with her a particle if she didn't like the man. No, +they wouldn't. She isn't the kind to give her hand where her heart +isn't. She likes you. It remains with you to make her love you." + +"And that's impossible," added Garrison grimly to himself. "If she +only knew! Love? Lord!" + +"Wait a minute," said the major, as Garrison prepared to leave. +"Here's a letter that came for you to-day. It got mixed up in my mail +by accident." He opened the desk-drawer and handed a square envelope +to Garrison, who took it mechanically. "No doubt you've a good many +friends up North," added the major kindly. "Have 'em down here for as +long as they can stay. Calvert House is open night and day. I do not +want you to think that because you are here you have to give up old +friends. I'm generous enough to share you with them, but--no +elopements, mind." + +"I think it's merely a business letter," replied Garrison +indifferently, hiding his burning curiosity. He did not know who his +correspondent could possibly be. Something impelled him to wait until +he was alone in his room before opening it. It was from the eminent +lawyer, Theobald D. Snark. + + "BELOVED IMPOSTOR: '/Ars longa, vita brevis/,' as the philosopher + has truly said, which in the English signifies that I cannot + afford to wait for the demise of the reverend and guileless major + before I garner the second fruits of my intelligence. Ten thousand + is a mere pittance in New York--one's appetite develops with + cultivation, and mine has been starved for years--and I find I + require an income. Fifty a week or thereabouts will come in handy + for the present. I know you have access to the major's pocketbook, + it being situated on the same side as his heart, and I will expect + a draft by following mail. He will be glad to indulge the sporting + blood of youth. If I cannot share the bed of roses, I can at least + fatten on the smell. I would have to be compelled to tell the + major what a rank fraud and unsurpassed liar his supposed nephew + is. So good a liar that he even imposed upon me. Of course I + thought you were the real nephew, and it horrifies me to know that + you are a fraud. But, remember, silence is golden. If you feel any + inclination of getting fussy, remember that I am a lawyer, and + that I can prove I took your claim in good faith. Also, the + Southerners are notoriously hot-tempered, deplorably addicted to + firearms, and I don't think you would look a pretty sight if you + happened to get shot full of buttonholes." + +The letter was unsigned, typewritten, and on plain paper. But Garrison +knew whom it was from. It was the eminent lawyer's way not to place +damaging evidence in the hands of a prospective enemy. + +"This means blackmail," commented Garrison, carefully replacing the +letter in its envelope. "And it serves me right. I wonder do I look +silly. I must; for people take me for a fool." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE COLONEL'S CONFESSION. + +Garrison did not sleep that night. His position was clearly credited +and debited in the ledger of life. He saw it; saw that the balance was +against him. He must go--but he could not, would not. He decided to +take the cowardly, half-way measure. He had not the courage for +renunciation. He would stay until this pot of contumacious fact came +to the boil, overflowed, and scalded him out. + +He was not afraid of the eminent Mr. Snark. Possession is in reality +ten-tenths of the law. The lawyer had cleverly proven his--Garrison's +--claim. He would be still more clever if he could disprove it. A lie +can never be branded truth by a liar. How could he disprove it? How +could his shoddy word weigh against Garrison's, fashioned from the +whole cloth and with loyalty, love on Garrison's side? + +No, the letter was only a bluff. Snark would not run the risk of +publicly smirching himself--for who would believe his protestations of +innocency?--losing his license at the bar together with the certainty +of a small fortune, for the sake of over-working a tool that might +snap in his hand or cut both ways. So Garrison decided to disregard +the letter. + +But with Waterbury it was a different proposition. Garrison was +unaware what his own relations had been with his former owner, but +even if they had been the most cordial, which from Major Calvert's +accounts they had not been, that fact would not prevent Waterbury +divulging the rank fraud Garrison was perpetrating. + +The race-track annual had said Billy Garrison had followed the ponies +since boyhood. Waterbury would know his ancestry, if any one would. It +was only a matter of time until exposure came, but still Garrison +determined to procrastinate as long as possible. He clung fiercely, +with the fierce tenacity of despair, to his present life. He could not +renounce it all--not yet. + +Two hopes, secreted in his inner consciousness, supported indecision. +One: Perhaps Waterbury might not recognize him, or perhaps he could +safely keep out of his way. The second: Perhaps he himself was not +Billy Garrison at all; for coincidence only said that he was, and a +very small modicum of coincidence at that. This fact, if true, would +cry his present panic groundless. + +On the head of conscience, Garrison did not touch. He smothered it. +All that he forced himself to sense was that he was "living like a +white man for once"; loving as he never thought he could love. + +The reverse, unsightly side of the picture he would not so much as +glance at. Time enough when he was again flung out on that merciless, +unrecognizing world he had come to loathe; loathe and dread. When that +time came it would taste exceeding bitter in his mouth. All the more +reason, then, to let the present furnish sweet food for retrospect; +food that would offset the aloes of retribution. Thus Garrison +philosophized. + +And, though but vaguely aware of the fact, this philosophy of +procrastination (but another form of selfishness) was the spawn of a +supposition; the supposition that his love for Sue Desha was not +returned; that it was hopeless, absurd. He was not injuring her. He +was the moth, she the flame. He did not realize that the moth can +extinguish the candle. + +He had learned some of life's lessons, though the most difficult had +been forgotten, but he had yet to understand the mighty force of love; +that it contains no stagnant quality. Love, reciprocal love, uplifts. +But there must be that reciprocal condition to cling to. For love is +not selfishness on a grand scale, but a glorified pride. And the fine +differentiation between these two words is the line separating the +love that fouls from the love that cleanses. + +And even as Garrison was fighting out the night with his sleepless +thoughts, Sue Desha was in the same restless condition. Mr. Waterbury +had arrived. His generous snores could be heard stalking down the +corridor from the guest-chamber. He was of the abdominal variety of +the animal species, eating and sleeping his way through life, +oblivious of all obstacles. + +Waterbury's ancestry was open to doubt. It was very vague; as vague as +his features. It could not be said that he was brought up by his hair +because he hadn't any to speak of. But the golden flood of money he +commanded could not wash out certain gutter marks in his speech, +person, and manner. That such an inmate should eat above the salt in +Colonel Desha's home was a painful acknowledgment of the weight of +necessity. + +What the necessity was, Sue sensed but vaguely. It was there, +nevertheless, almost amounting to an obsession. For when the Desha and +Waterbury type commingle there is but the one interpretation. Need of +money or clemency in the one case; need of social introduction or +elevation through kinship in the other. + +The latter was Waterbury's case. But he also loved Sue--in his own +way. He had met her first at the Carter Handicap, and, as he confided +to himself: "She was a spanking filly, of good stock, and with good +straight legs." + +His sincere desire to "butt into the Desha family" he kept for the +moment to himself. But as a preliminary maneuver he had intimated that +a visit to the Desha home would not come in amiss. And the old +colonel, for reasons he knew and Waterbury knew, thought it would be +wisest to accede. + +Perhaps now the colonel was considering those reasons. His room was +next that of his daughter, and in her listening wakefulness she had +heard him turn restlessly in bed. Insomnia loves company as does +misery. Presently the colonel arose, and the strong smell of Virginia +tobacco and the monotonous pad, pad of list slippers made themselves +apparent. + +Sue threw on a dressing-gown and entered her father's room. He was in +a light green bathrobe, his white hair tousled like sea-foam as he +passed and repassed his gaunt fingers through it. + +"I can't sleep," said the girl simply. She cuddled in a big armchair, +her feet tucked under her. + +He put a hand on her shoulder. "I can't, either," he said, and laughed +a little, as if incapable of understanding the reason. "I think late +eating doesn't agree with me. It must have been the deviled crab." + +"Mr. Waterbury?" suggested Sue. + +"Eh?" Then Colonel Desha frowned, coughed, and finally laughed. "Still +a child, I see," he added, with a deprecating shake of the head. "Will +you ever grow up?" + +"Yes--when you recognize that I have." She pressed her cheek against +the hand on her shoulder. + +Sue practically managed the entire house, looking after the servants, +expenses, and all, but the colonel always referred to her as "my +little girl." He was under the amiable delusion that time had left her +at the ten-mile mark, never to return. + +This was one of but many defects in his vision. He was oblivious of +materialistic facts. He was innocent of the ways of finance. He had +come of a prodigal race of spenders, not accumulators. Away back +somewhere in the line there must have existed what New Englanders term +a "good provider," but that virtue had not descended from father to +son. The original vast Desha estates decreased with every generation, +seldom a descendant making even a spasmodic effort to replenish them. +There was always a mortgage or sale in progress. Sometimes a lucrative +as well as love-marriage temporarily increased the primal funds, but +more often the opposite was the case. + +The Deshas, like all true Southerners, believed that love was the only +excuse for marriage; just as most Northerners believe that labor is +the only excuse for living. And so the colonel, with no business +incentive, acumen, or adaptability, and with the inherited handicap of +a luxurious living standard, made a brave onslaught on his patrimony. + +What the original estate was, or to what extent the colonel had +encroached upon it, Sue never rightly knew. She had been brought up in +the old faith that a Southerner is lord of the soil, but as she +developed, the fact was forced home upon her that her father was not +materialistic, and that ways and means were. + +Twice yearly their Kentucky estate yielded an income. As soon as she +understood affairs, Sue took a stand which could not be shaken, even +if the easy-going mooning colonel had exerted himself to that extent. +She insisted upon using one-half the yearly income for household +expenses; the other the colonel could fritter away as he chose upon +his racing-stable and his secondary hobby--an utterly absurd stamp +collection. + +Only each household knows how it meets the necessity of living. It is +generally the mother and daughter, if there be one, who comprise the +inner finance committee. Men are only Napoleons of finance when the +market is strong and steady. When it becomes panicky and fluctuates +and resolves itself into small unheroic deals, woman gets the job. For +the world is principally a place where men work for the pleasures and +woman has to cringe for the scraps. It may seem unchivalrous, but true +nevertheless. + +Only Sue knew how she compelled one dollar to bravely do the duty of +two. Appearances are never so deceitful as in the household where want +is apparently scorned. Sue was of the breed who, if necessary, could +raise absolute pauperism to the peerage. And if ever a month came in +which she would lie awake nights, developing the further elasticity of +currency, certainly her neighbors knew aught of it, and her father +least of all. + +The colonel recommenced his pacing. Sue, hands clasped around knees, +watched him with steady, unwinking eyes. + +"It's not the deviled crab, daddy," she said quietly, at length. "It's +something else. 'Fess up. You're in trouble. I feel it. Sit down there +and let me go halves on it. Sit down." + +Colonel Desha vaguely passed a hand through his hair, then, +mechanically yielding to the superior strength and self-control of his +daughter, eased himself into an opposite armchair. + +"Oh, no, you're quite wrong, quite wrong," he reiterated absently. +"I'm only tired. Only tired, girlie. That's all. Been very busy, you +know." And he ran on feverishly, talking about Waterbury, weights, +jockeys, mounts--all the jargon of the turf. The dam of his mind had +given way, and a flood of thoughts, hopes, fears came rioting forth +unchecked, unthinkingly. + +His eyes were vacant, a frown dividing his white brows, the thin hand +on the table closing and relaxing. He was not talking to his daughter, +but to his conscience. It was the old threadbare, tattered tale--spawn +of the Goddess fortune; a thing of misbegotten hopes and desires. + +The colonel, swollen with the winning of the Carter Handicap, had +conceived the idea that he was possessor of a God-given knowledge of +the "game." And there had been many to sustain that belief. Now, the +colonel might know a horse, but he did not know the law of averages, +of chance, nor did he even know how his fellow man's heart is +fashioned. Nor that track fortunes are only made by bookies or +exceptionally wealthy or brainy owners; that a plunger comes out on +top once in a million times. That the track, to live, must bleed +"suckers" by the thousand, and that he, Colonel Desha, was one of the +bled. + +He was on the wrong side of the table. The Metropolitan, Brooklyn, +Suburban, Brighton, Futurity, and a few minor meets served to swamp +the colonel. What Waterbury had to do with the case was not clear. The +colonel had taken his advice time and time again only to lose. But the +Kentucky estate had been sold, and Mr. Waterbury held the mortgage of +the Desha home. And then, his mind emptied of its poison, the colonel +slowly came to himself. + +"What--what have I been saying?" he cried tensely. He attempted a +laugh, a denial; caught his daughter's eyes, looked into them, and +then buried his face in his quivering hands. + +Sue knelt down and raised his head. + +"Daddy, is that--all?" she asked steadily. + +He did not answer. Then, man as he was, the blood came sweeping to +face and neck. + +"I mean," added the girl quietly, her eyes, steady but very kind, +holding his, "I had word from the National this morning saying that +our account, the--the balance, was overdrawn--" + +"Yes--I drew against it," whispered Colonel Desha. He would not meet +her eyes; he who had looked every man in the face. The fire caught him +again. "I had to, girlie, I had to," he cried over and over again. "I +intended telling you. We'll make it up a hundred times over. It was my +only chance. It's all up on the books--up on The Rogue. He'll win the +Carter as sure as there's a God in heaven. It's a ten-thousand stake, +and I've had twenty on him--the balance--your balance, girlie. I can +pay off Waterbury--" The fire died away as quickly. Somehow in the +stillness of the room, against the look in the girl's eyes, words +seemed so pitifully futile, so blatant, so utterly trivial. + +Sue's face was averted, eyes on floor, hands tensely clasping those of +her father. Absolute stillness held the room. The colonel was staring +at the girl's bent head. + +"It's--it's all right, girlie. All right, don't fret," he murmured +thickly. "The Rogue will win--bound to win. You don't understand-- +you're only a girl--only a child----" + +"Of course, Daddy," agreed Sue slowly, wide-eyed. "I'm only a child. I +don't understand." + +But she understood more than her father. She was thinking of Billy +Garrison. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A BREATH OF THE OLD LIFE. + +Major Calvert's really interested desire to see his pseudo nephew +astride a mount afforded Garrison the legitimate opportunity of +keeping clear of Mr. Waterbury for the next few days. The track was +situated some three miles from Calvert House--a modern racing-stable +in every sense of the word--and early the next morning Garrison +started forth, accompanied by the indefatigable major. + +Curiosity was stirring in the latter's heart. He had long been +searching for a fitting rider for the erratic and sensitive Dixie-- +whimsical and uncertain of taste as any woman--and though he could not +bring himself to believe in Crimmins' eulogy of Garrison's riding +ability, he was anxious to ascertain how far the trainer had erred. + +Crimmins was not given to airing his abortive sense of humor overmuch, +and he was a sound judge of horse and man. If he was right--but the +major had to laugh at such a possibility. Garrison to ride like that! +He who had confessed he had never thrown a leg over a horse before! By +a freak of nature he might possess the instinct but not the ability. + +Perhaps he even might possess the qualifications of an exercise-boy; +he had the build--a stripling who possessed both sinew and muscle, but +who looked fatty tissue. But the major well knew that it is one thing +to qualify as an exercise-boy and quite another to toe the mark as a +jockey. For the former it is only necessary to have good hands, a good +seat in the saddle, and to implicitly obey a trainer's instructions. +No initiative is required. But it is absolutely essential that a boy +should own all these adjuncts and many others--quickness of +perception, unlimited daring, and alertness to make a jockey. No truer +summing up of the necessary qualifications is there than the old and +famous "Father Bill" Daly's doggerel and appended note: + + "Just a tinge of wickedness, + With a touch of devil-may-care; + Just a bit of bone and meat, + With plenty of nerve to dare. + And, on top of all things--he must be a tough kid." + +And "Father Bill" Daly ought to know above all others, for he has +trained more famous jockeys than any other man in America. + +There are two essential points in the training of race-horses--secrecy +and ability. Crimmins possessed both, but the scheduled situation of +the Calvert stables rendered the secret "trying out" of racers before +track entry unnecessary. It is only fair to state that if Major +Calvert had left his trainer to his own judgment his stable would have +made a better showing than it had. But the major's disposition and +unlimited time caused him more often than not to follow the racing +paraphrase: "Dubs butt in where trainers fear to tread." + +He was so enthusiastic and ignorant over horses that he insisted upon +campaigns that had only the merit of good intentions to recommend +them. Some highly paid trainers throw up their positions when their +millionaire owners assume the role of dictator, but Crimmins very +seldom lost his temper. The major was so boyishly good-hearted and +bull-headed that Crimmins had come to view his master's racing +aspirations almost as an expensive joke. + +However, it seemed that the Carter Handicap and the winning by his +very good friend and neighbor, Colonel Desha, had stuck firmly in +Major Calvert's craw. He promised to faithfully follow his trainer's +directions and leave for the nonce the preparatory training entirely +in his hands. + +It was decided now that Garrison should try out the fast black filly +Dixie, just beginning training for the Carter. She had a hundred and +twenty-five pounds of grossness to boil down before making track +weight, but the opening spring handicap was five months off, and +Crimmins believed in the "slow and sure" adage. Major Calvert, his old +weather-beaten duster fluttering in the wind, took his accustomed +perch on the rail, while Garrison prepared to get into racing-togs. + +The blood was pounding in Garrison's heart as he lightly swung up on +the sleek black filly. The old, nameless longing, the insistent +thought that he had done all this before--to the roar of thousands of +voices--possessed him. + +Instinctively he understood his mount; her defects, her virtues. +Instinctively he sensed that she was not a "whip horse." A touch of +the whalebone and she would balk--stop dead in her stride. He had +known such horses before, generally fillies. + +As soon as Garrison's feet touched stirrups all the condensed, +colossal knowledge of track and horse-flesh, gleaned by the sweating +labor of years, came tingling to his finger-tips. Judgment, instinct, +daring, nerve, were all his; at his beck and call; serving their +master. He felt every inch the veteran he was--though he knew it not. +It was not a freak of nature. He had worked, worked hard for +knowledge, and it would not be denied. He felt as he used to feel +before he had "gone back." + +Garrison took Dixie over the seven furlongs twice, and in a manner, +despite her grossness, the mare had never been taken before. She ran +as easily, as relentlessly, without a hitch or break, as fine-spun +silk slips through a shuttle. She was high-strung, sensitive to a +degree, but Garrison understood her, and she answered his knowledge +loyally. + +It was impressive riding to those who knew the filly's irritability, +uncertainty. Clean-cut veteran horsemanship, with horse and rider as +one; a mechanically precise pace, heart-breaking for a following +field. The major slowly climbed off the rail, mechanically eyeing his +watch. He was unusually quiet, but there was a light in his eyes that +forecasted disaster for his very good friend and neighbor, Colonel +Desha, and The Rogue. It is even greater satisfaction, did we but +acknowledge it, to turn the tables on a friend than on a foe. + +"Boy," he said impressively, laying a hand on Garrison's shoulder and +another on Dixie's flank, "I've been looking for some one to ride +Dixie in the Carter--some one who could ride; ride and understand. +I've found that some one in my nephew. You'll ride her--ride as no one +else can. God knows how you learned the game--I don't. But know it you +do. Nor do I pretend to know how you understand the filly. I don't +understand it at all. It must be a freak of nature." + +"Ho, yuss!" added Crimmins quietly, his eye on the silent Garrison. +"Ho, yuss! It must be a miracle. But I tell you, major, it ain't no +miracle. It ain't. That boy 'as earned 'is class. 'E could understand +any 'orse. 'E's earned 'is class. It don't come to a chap in the +night. 'E's got to slave f'r it--slave 'ard. Ho, yuss! Your neffy can +ride, an' 'e can s'y wot 'e likes, but if 'e ain't modeled on Billy +Garrison 'isself, then I'm a bloomin' bean-eating Dutchman! 'E's th' +top spit of Garrison--th' top spit of 'im, or may I never drink agyn!" + +There was sincerity, good feeling, and force behind the declaration, +and the major eyed Garrison intently and with some curiosity. + +"Come, haven't you ridden before, eh?" he asked good-humoredly. "It's +no disgrace, boy. Is it hard-won science, as Crimmins says, or merely +an unbelievable and curious freak of nature, eh?" + +Garrison looked the major in the eye. His heart was pounding. + +"If I've ever ridden a mount before--I've never known it," he said, +with conviction and truth. + +Crimmins shook his head in hopeless despair. The major was too +enthusiastic to quibble over how the knowledge was gained. It was +there in overflowing abundance. That was enough. Besides, his nephew's +word was his bond. He would as soon think of doubting the Bible. + +For the succeeding days Garrison and the major haunted the track. It +was decided that the former should wear his uncle's colors in the +Carter, and he threw himself into the training of Dixie with all his +painstaking energy and knowledge. + +He proved a valuable adjunct to Crimmins; rank was waived in the +stables, and a sincere regard sprang up between master and man, based +on the fundamental qualities of real manhood and a mutual passion for +horse-flesh. And if the acid little cockney suspected that Garrison +had ever carried a jockey's license or been track-bred, he respected +the other's silence, and refrained from broaching the question again. + +Meanwhile, to all appearances, things were running in the harmonious +groove over at the Desha home. Since the night of Mr. Waterbury's +arrival Sue had not mentioned the subject of the overdrawn balance, +and the colonel had not. If the girl thought her father guilty of a +slight breach of honor, no hint of it was conveyed either in speech or +manner. + +She was broad-minded--the breadth and depth of perfect health and a +clean heart. If she set up a high standard for herself, it was not to +measure others by. The judgment of man entered into no part of her +character; least of all, the judgment of a parent. + +As for the colonel, it was apparent that he was not on speaking terms +with his conscience. It made itself apparent in countless foolish +little ways; in countless little means of placating his daughter--a +favorite book, a song, a new saddle. These votive offerings were +tendered in subdued silence fitting to the occasion, but Sue always +lauded them to the skies. Nor would she let him see that she +understood the contrition working in him. To Colonel Desha she was no +longer "my little girl," but "my daughter." Very often we only +recognize another's right and might by being in the wrong and weak +ourselves. + +Every spare minute of his day--and he had many--the colonel spent in +his stables superintending the training of The Rogue. He was +infinitely worse than a mother with her first child. If the latter +acts as if she invented maternity, one would have thought the colonel +had fashioned the gelding as the horse of Troy was fashioned. + +The Rogue's success meant everything to him--everything in the world. +He would be obliged to win. Colonel Desha was not one who believed in +publishing a daily "agony column." He could hold his troubles as he +could his drink--like a gentleman. He had not intended that Sue should +be party to them, but that night of the confession they had caught him +unawares. And he played the host to Mr. Waterbury as only a Southern +gentleman can. + +That the turfman had motives other than mere friendship and regard +when proffering his advice and financial assistance, the colonel never +suspected. It was a further manifestation of his childish streak and +his ignorance of his fellow man. His great fault was in estimating his +neighbor by his own moral code. It had never occurred to him that +Waterbury loved Sue, and that he had forced his assistance while +helping to create the necessity for that assistance, merely as a means +of lending some authority to his suit. But Waterbury possessed many +likable qualities; he had stood friend to Colonel Desha, whatever his +motives, and the latter honored him on his own valuation. + +Fear never would have given the turfman the entrée to the Desha home; +only friendship. Down South hospitality is sacred. When one has +succeeded in entering a household he is called kin. A mutual trust and +bond of honor exist between host and guest. The mere formula; "So-and- +So is my guest," is a clean bill of moral health. Therefore, in +whatever light Sue may have regarded Mr. Waterbury, her treatment of +him was uniformly courteous and kindly. + +Necessarily they saw much of each other. The morning rides, formerly +with Garrison, were now taken with Mr. Waterbury. This was owing +partly to the former's close application to the track, partly to the +courtesy due guest from hostess whose father is busily engaged, and in +the main to a concrete determination on Sue's part. This intimacy with +Sue Desha was destined to work a change in Waterbury. + +He had come unworthy to the Desha home. He acknowledged that to +himself. Come with the purpose of compelling his suit, if necessary. +His love had been the product of his animalistic nature. It was a +purely sensual appeal. He had never known the true interpretation of +love; never experienced the society of a womanly woman. But it is in +every nature to respond to the highest touch; to the appeal of honor. +When trust is reposed, fidelity answers. It did its best to answer in +Waterbury's case. His better self was slowly awakening. + +Those days were wonderful, new, happy days for Waterbury. He was +received on the footing of guest, good comrade. He was fighting to +cross the line, searching for the courage necessary--he who had +watched without the flicker of an eyelash a fortune lost by an inch of +horse-flesh. And if the girl knew, she gave no sign. + +As for Garrison, despite his earnest attention to the track, those +were unhappy days for him. He thought that he had voluntarily given up +Sue's society; given it up for the sake of saving his skin; for the +fear of meeting Waterbury. Time and time again he determined to face +the turfman and learn the worst. Cowardice always stepped in. +Presently Waterbury would leave for the North, and things then would +be as they had been. + +He hated himself for his cowardice; for his compromise with self- +respect. It was not that he valued Sue's regard so lightly. Rather he +feared to lose the little he had by daring all. He did not know that +Sue had given him up. Did not know that she was hurt, mortally hurt; +that her renunciation had not been necessary; that he had not given +her the opportunity. He had stayed away, and she wondered. There could +be but the one answer. He must hate this tie between them; this +parent-fostered engagement. He was thinking of the girl he had left up +North. Perhaps it was better for her, she argued, that she had +determined upon renunciation. + +Obviously Major Calvert and his wife noticed the breach in the +Garrison-Desha entente cordiale. They credited it to some childish +quarrel. They were wise in their generation. Old heads only muddle +young hearts. To confer the dignity of age upon the differences of +youth but serves to turn a mole-hill into a mountain. + +But one memorable evening, when the boyish and enthusiastic major and +Garrison returned from an all-day session at the track, they found +Mrs. Calvert in a very quiet and serious mood, which all the major's +cajolery could not penetrate. And after dinner she and the major had a +peace conference in the library, at the termination of which the +doughty major's feathers were considerably agitated. + +Mrs. Calvert's good nature was not the good nature of the faint- +hearted or weak-kneed. She was never at loss for words, nor the spirit +to back them when she considered conditions demanded them. +Subsequently, when his wife retired, the major, very red in the face, +called Garrison into the room. + +"Eh, demmit, boy," he began, fussing up and down, "I've noticed, of +course, that you and Sue don't pull in the same boat. Now, I thought +it was due to a little tiff, as soon straightened as tangled, when +pride once stopped goading you on. But your aunt, boy, has other ideas +on the subject which she had been kindly imparting to me. And it seems +that I'm entirely to blame. She says that I've caused you to neglect +Sue for Dixie. Eh, boy, is that so?" He paused, eyeing Garrison in +distress. + +"No, it is not," said Garrison heavily. "It is entirely my fault." + +The major heartily sighed his relief. + +"Eh, demmit, I said as much to your aunt, but she knows I'm an old +sinner, and she has her doubts. I told her if you could neglect Sue +for Dixie your love wasn't worth a rap. I knew there was something +back of it. Well, you must go over to-night and straighten it out. +These little tiffs have to be killed early--like spring chickens. Sue +has her dander up, I tell you. She met your aunt to-day. Said flatly +that she had broken the engagement; that it was final--" + +"Oh, she did?" was all Garrison could find to interrupt with. + +"Eh, demmit; pride, boy, pride," said the major confidently. "Now, run +along over and apologize; scratch humble gravel--clear down to China, +if necessary. And mind you do it right proper. Some people apologize +by saying: 'If I've said anything I'm sorry for, I'm glad of it.' Eh, +demmit, remember never to compete for the right with a woman. Women +are always right. Man shouldn't be his own press-agent. It's woman's +position--and delight. She values man on her own valuation--not his. +Women are illogical--that's why they marry us." + +The major concluded his advice by giving Garrison a hearty thump on +the back. Then he prepared to charge his wife's boudoir; to resume the +peace conference with right on his side for the nonce. + +Garrison slowly made his way down-stairs. His face was set. He knew +his love for Sue was hopeless; an absurdity, a crime. But why had she +broken the engagement? Had Waterbury said anything? He would go over +and face Waterbury; face him and be done with it. He was reckless, +desperate. As he descended the wide veranda steps a man stepped from +behind a magnolia-tree shadowing the broad walk. A clear three-quarter +moon was riding in the heavens, and it picked out Garrison's thin set +face. + +The man swung up, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hello, Bud!" + +It was Dan Crimmins. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +"THEN I WAS NOT HONEST." + +Garrison eyed him coldly, and was about to pass when Crimmins barred +his way. + +"I suppose when you gets up in the world, it ain't your way to know +folks you knew before, is it?" he asked gently. "But Dan Crimmins has +a heart, an' it ain't his way to shake friends, even if they has +money. It ain't Crimmins' way." + +"Take your hand off my shoulder," said Garrison steadily. + +The other's black brows met, but he smiled genially. + +"It don't go, Bud. No, no." He shook his head. "Try that on those who +don't know you. I know you. You're Billy Garrison; I'm Dan Crimmins. +Now, if you want me to blow in an' tell the major who you are, just +say so. I'm obligin'. It's Crimmins' way. But if you want to help an +old friend who's down an' out, just say so. I'm waitin'." + +Garrison eyed him. Crimmins? Crimmins? The name was part of his dream. +What had he been to this man? What did this man know? + +"Take a walk down the pike," suggested the other easily. "It ain't +often you have the pleasure of seein' an old friend, an' the +excitement is a little too much for you. I know how it is," he added +sympathetically. He was closely watching Garrison's face. + +Garrison mechanically agreed, wondering. + +"It's this way," began Crimmins, once the shelter of the pike was +gained. "I'm Billy Crimmins' brother--the chap who trains for Major +Calvert. Now, I was down an' out--I guess you know why--an' so I wrote +him askin' for a little help. An' he wouldn't give it. He's what you +might call a lovin', confidin', tender young brother. But he mentioned +in his letter that Bob Waterbury was here, and he asked why I had left +his service. Some things don't get into the papers down here, an' it's +just as well. You know why I left Waterbury. Waterbury----!" + +Here Crimmins carefully selected a variety of adjectives with which to +decorate the turfman. He also spoke freely about the other's +ancestors, and concluded with voicing certain dark convictions +regarding Mr. Waterbury's future. + +Garrison listened blankly. "What's all this to me?" he asked sharply. +"I don't know you nor Mr. Waterbury." + +"Hell you don't!" rapped out Crimmins. "Quit that game. I may have +done things against you, but I've paid for them. You can't touch me on +that count, but I can touch you, for I know you ain't the major's +nephew--no more than the Sheik of Umpooba. I'm ashamed of you. Tryin' +on a game like that with your old trainer, who knows you--" + +Garrison caught him fiercely by the arm. His old trainer! Then he was +Billy Garrison. Memory was fighting furiously. He was on fire. "Billy +Garrison, Billy Garrison, Billy Garrison," he repeated over and over, +shaking Crimmins like a reed. "Go on, go on, go on," he panted. "Tell +me what you know about me. Go on, go on. Am I Garrison? Am I? Am I?" + +Then, holding the other as in a vise, the thoughts that had been +writhing in his mind for so long came hurtling forth. At last here was +some one who knew him. His old trainer. What better friend could he +need? + +He panted in his frenzy. The words came tripping over one another, +smothering, choking. And Crimmins with set face listened; listened as +Garrison went over past events; events since that memorable morning he +had awakened in the hospital with the world a blank and the past a +blur. He told all--all; like a little child babbling at his mother's +knee. + +"Why did I leave the track? Why? Why?" he finished in a whirlwind of +passion. "What happened? Tell me. Say I'm honest. Say it, Crimmins; +say it. Help me to get back. I can ride--ride like glory. I'll win for +you--anything. Anything to get me out of this hell of deceit, +nonentity namelessness. Help me to square myself. I'll make a name +nobody'll be ashamed of--" His words faded away. Passion left him weak +and quivering. + +Crimmins judicially cleared his throat. There was a queer light in his +eyes. + +"It ain't Dan Crimmins' way to go back on a friend," he began, laying +a hand on Garrison's shoulder. "You don't remember nothing, all on +account of that bingle you got on the head. But it was Crimmins that +made you, Bud. Sweated over you like a father. It was Crimmins who got +you out of many a tight place, when you wouldn't listen to his advice. +I ain't saying it wasn't right to skip out after you'd thrown every +race and the Carter; after poisoning Sis--" + +"Then--I--was--not--honest?" asked Garrison. He was horribly quiet. + +"Emphatic'ly no," said Crimmins sadly. He shook his head. "And you +don't remember how you came to Dan Crimmins the night you skipped out +and you says: 'Dan, Dan, my only friend, tried and true, I'm broke.' +Just like that you says it. And Dan says, without waitin' for you to +ask; he says: 'Billy, you and me have been pals for fifteen years; +pals man and boy. A friend is a friend, and a man who's broke don't +want sympathy--he needs money. Here's three thousand dollars--all I've +got. I was going to buy a home for the old mother, but friendship in +need comes before all. It's yours. Take it. Don't say a word. Crimmins +has a heart, and it's Dan Crimmins' way. He may suffer for it, but +it's his way.' That's what he says." + +"Go on," whispered Garrison. His eyes were very wide and vacant. + +Crimmins spat carefully, as if to stimulate his imagination. + +"No, no, you don't remember," he mused sadly. "Now you're tooting +along with the high rollers. But I ain't kickin'. It's Crimmins' way +never to give his hand in the dark, but when he does give it--for +life, my boy, for life. But I was thinkin' of the wife and kids you +left up in Long Island; left to face the music. Of course I stood +their friend as best I could--" + +"Then--I'm married?" asked Garrison slowly. He laughed--a laugh that +caused the righteous Crimmins to wince. The latter carefully wiped his +eyes with a handkerchief that had once been white. + +"Boy, boy!" he said, in great agony of mind. "To think you've gone and +forgot the sacred bond of matrimony! I thought at least you would have +remembered that. But I says to your wife, I says: 'Billy will come +back. He ain't the kind to leave you an' the kids go to the poorhouse, +all for the want of a little gumption. He'll come back and face the +charges--" + +"What charges?" Garrison did not recognize his own voice. + +"Why, poisoning Sis. It's a jail offense," exclaimed Crimmins. + +"Indeed," commented Garrison. + +Again he laughed and again the righteous Crimmins winced. Garrison's +gray eyes had the glint of sun shining on ice. His mouth looked as it +had many a time when he fought neck-and-neck down the stretch, +snatching victory by sheer, condensed, bulldog grit. Crimmins knew of +old what that mouth portended, and he spoke hurriedly. + +"Don't do anything rash, Bud. Bygones is bygones, and, as the Bible +says: 'Circumstances alters cases,' and--" + +"Then this is how I stand," cut in Garrison steadily, unheeding the +advice. He counted the dishonorable tally on his fingers. "I'm a +horse-poisoner, a thief, a welcher. I've deserted my wife and family. +I owe you--how much?" + +"Five thousand," said Crimmins deprecatingly, adding on the two just +to show he had no hard feelings. + +"Good," said Garrison. He bit his knuckles; bit until the blood came. +"Good," he said again. He was silent. + +"I ain't in a hurry," put in Crimmins magnanimously. "But you can pay +it easy. The major--" + +"Is a gentleman," finished Garrison, eyes narrowed. "A gentleman whom +I've wronged--treated like--" He clenched his hands. Words were of no +avail. + +"That's all right," argued the other persuasively. "What's the use of +gettin' flossy over it now? Ain't you known all along, when you put +the game up on him, that you wasn't his nephew; that you were doin' +him dirt?" + +"Shut up," blazed Garrison savagely. "I know--what I've done. Fouled +those I'm not fit to grovel to. I thought I was honest--in a way. Now +I know I'm the scum I am--" + +"You don't mean to say you're goin' to welch again?" asked the +horrified Crimmins. "Goin' to tell the major--" + +"Just that, Crimmins. Tell them what I am. Tell Waterbury, and face +that charge for poisoning his horse. I may have been what you say, but +I'm not that now. I'm not," he reiterated passionately, daring +contradiction. "I've sneaked long enough. Now I'm done with it--" + +"See here," inserted Crimmins, dangerously reasonable, "your little +white-washing game may be all right to you, but where does Dan +Crimmins come in and sit down? It ain't his way to be left standing. +You splittin' to the major and Waterbury? They'll mash your face off! +And where's my five thousand, eh? Where is it if you throw over the +bank?" + +"Damn your five thousand!" shrilled Garrison, passion throwing him. +"What's your debt to what I owe? What's money? You say you're my +friend. You say you have been. Yet you come here to blackmail me--yes, +that's the word I used, and the one I mean. Blackmail. You want me to +continue living a lie so that I may stop your mouth with money. You +say I'm married. But do you wish me to go back to my wife and +children, to try to square myself before God and them? Do you wish me +to face Waterbury, and take what's coming to me? No, you don't, you +don't. You lie if you say you do. It's yourself--yourself you're +thinking of. I'm to be your jackal. That's your friendship, but I say +if that's friendship, Crimmins, then to the devil with it, and may God +send me hatred instead!" He choked with the sheer smother of his +passion. + +Crimmins was breathing heavily. Then passion marked him for the thing +he was. Garrison saw confronting him not the unctuous, plausible +friend, but a hunted animal, with fear and venom showing in his +narrowed eyes. And, curiously enough, he noticed for the first time +that the prison pallor was strong on Crimmins' face, and that the hair +above his outstanding ears was clipped to the roots. + +Then Crimmins spoke; through his teeth, and very slowly: "So you'll go +to Waterbury, eh?" And he nodded the words home. "You--little cur, you +--you little misbegotten bottle of bile! What are you and your +hypocrisies to me? You don't know me, you don't know me." He laughed, +and Garrison felt repulsion fingering his heart. Then the former +trainer shot out a clawing, ravenous hand. "I want that money--want it +quick!" he spat, taking a step forward. "You want hatred, eh? Well, +hatred you'll have, boy. Hatred that I've always given you, you +miserable, puling, lily-livered spawn of a--" + +Garrison blotted out the insult to his mother's memory with his +knuckles. "And that's for your friendship," he said, smashing home a +right cross. + +Crimmins arose very slowly from the white road, and even thought of +flicking some of the fine dust from his coat. He was smiling. The moon +was very bright. Crimmins glanced up and down the deserted pike. From +the distant town a bell chimed the hour of eight. He had twenty pounds +the better of the weights, but he was taking no chances. For Garrison, +all his wealth of hard-earned fistic education roused, was waiting; +waiting with the infinite patience of the wounded cougar. + +Crimmins looked up and down the road again. Then he came in, a black- +jack clenched until the veins in his hand ridged out purple and taut +as did those in his neck. A muscle was beating in his wooden cheek. He +struck savagely. Garrison side-stepped, and his fist clacked under +Crimmins' chin. Neither spoke. Again Crimmins came in. + +A great splatter of hoof-beats came from down the pike, sounding like +the vomitings of a Gatling gun. A horse streaked its way toward them. +Crimmins darted into the underbrush bordering the pike. The horse came +fast. It flashed past Garrison. Its rider was swaying in the saddle; +swaying with white, tense face and sawing hands. The eyes were fixed +straight ahead, vacant. A broken saddle-girth flapped raggedly. +Garrison recognized the fact that it was a runaway, with Sue Desha up. + +Another horse followed, throwing space furiously. It was a big bay +gelding. As it drew abreast of Garrison, standing motionless in the +white road, it shied. Its rider rocketed over its head, thudded on the +ground, heaved once or twice, and then lay very still. The horse swept +on. As it passed, Garrison swung beside it, caught its pace for an +instant, and then eased himself into the saddle. Then he bent over and +rode as only he could ride. It was a runaway handicap. Sue's life was +the stake, and the odds were against him. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +SUE DECLARES HER LOVE. + +It was Waterbury who was lying unconscious on the lonely Logan Pike; +Waterbury who had been thrown as the bay gelding strove desperately to +overhaul the flying runaway filly. + +Sue had gone for an evening ride. She wished to be alone. It had been +impossible to lose the ubiquitous Mr. Waterbury, but this evening The +Rogue had evinced premonitory symptoms of a distemper, and the greatly +exercised colonel had induced the turfman to ride over and have a look +at him. This left Sue absolutely unfettered, the first occasion in a +week. + +She was of the kind who fought out trouble silently, but not placidly. +She must have something to contend against; something on which to work +out the distemper of a heart and mind not in harmony. She must +experience physical exhaustion before resignation came. In learning a +lesson she could not remain inactive. She must walk, walk, up and +down, up an down, until its moral or text was beaten into her +mentality with her echoing footsteps. + +On this occasion she was in the humor to dare the impossible; dare +through sheer irritability of heart--not mind. And so she saddled +Lethe--an unregenerate pinto of the Southern Trail, whose concealed +devilishness forcibly reminded one of Balzac's famous description: "A +clenched fist hidden in an empty sleeve." + +She had been forbidden to ride the pinto ever since the day it was +brought home to her with irrefutable emphasis that the shortest +distance between two points is a straight line. It was more of a +parabola she described, when, bucked off, her head smashed the ground, +but the simile serves. + +But she would ride Lethe to-night. The other horses were too +comfortable. They served to irritate the bandit passions, not to +subdue them. She panted for some one, something, to break to her will. + +Lethe felt that there was a passion that night riding her; a passion +that far surpassed her own. Womanlike, she decided to arbitrate. She +would wait until this all-powerful passion burned itself out; then she +could afford to safely agitate her own. It would not have grown less +in the necessary interim. So, much to Sue's surprise, the filly was as +gentle as the proverbial lamb. + +As she turned for home, Waterbury rode out of the deepening shadows +behind her. He had left the colonel at his breeding-farm. Waterbury +and Sue rode in silence. The girl was giving all her attention to her +thoughts. What was left over was devoted to the insistent mouth of +Lethe, who ever and anon tested the grip on her bridle-rein; +ascertaining whether or not there were any symptoms of relaxation or +abstraction. + +It is human nature to grow tired of being good. Waterbury's better +nature had been in the ascendancy for over a week. He thought he could +afford to draw on this surplus balance to his credit. He was riding +very close to Sue. He had encroached, inch by inch, but her oblivion +had not been inclination, as Waterbury fancied. He edged nearer. As +she did not heed the steal, he took it for a grant. We fit facts to +our inclination. The animal arose mightily in him. In stooping to +avoid an overhanging branch he brushed against her. The contact set +him aflame. He was hungrily eyeing her profile. Then in a second, he +had crushed her head to his shoulder, and was fiercely kissing her +again and again--lips, hair, eyes; eyes, hair, lips. + +"There!" he panted, releasing her. He laughed foolishly, biting his +nails. His mouth felt as if roofed with sand-paper. His face was +white, but not as white as hers. + +She was silent. Then she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and very +carefully wiped her lips. She was absolutely silent, but a pulse was +beating--beating in her slim throat. The action, her silence, inflamed +Waterbury. He made to crush her waist with his ravenous arm. Then, for +the first time, she turned slowly, and her narrowed eyes met his. He +saw, even in the gloom. Again he laughed, but the onrushing blood +purpled his neck. + +Desperation came to help him brave those eyes--came and failed. He +talked, declaimed, avowed--grew brutally frank. Finally he spoke of +the mortgage he held, and waited, breathing heavily, for the answer. +There was none. + +"I suppose it's some one else, eh?" he rapped out, red showing in the +brown of his eyes. + +Silence. He savagely cut the gelding across the ears, and then checked +its answering, maddened leap. The red deepened in Sue's cheek--two red +spots, the flag of courage. + +"It's this nephew of Major Calvert's," added Waterbury. He lost the +last shred of common decency he could lay claim to; it was caught up +and whirled away in the tempest of his passion. "I saw him to-day, on +my way to the track. He didn't see me. When I knew him his name was +Garrison--Billy Garrison. I discharged him for dishonesty. I suppose +he sneaked home to a confiding uncle when the world had kicked him +out. I suppose they think he's all right, same as you do. But he's a +thief. A common, low-down--" + +The girl turned swiftly, and her little gauntlet caught Waterbury full +across the mouth. + +"You lie!" she whispered, very softly, her face white and quivering, +her eyes black with passion. + +And then Lethe saw her opportunity. Sensed it in the momentary +relaxing of the bridle-rein. She whipped the bit into her fierce, +even, white teeth, and with a snort shot down the pike. + +And then Waterbury's better self gained supremacy; contrition, self- +hatred rushing in like a fierce tidal wave and swamping the last +vestige of animalism. He spurred blindly after the fast-disappearing +filly. + +***** + +Garrison rode one of the best races of his life that night. It was a +trial of stamina and nerve. Lethe was primarily a sprinter, and the +gelding, raised to his greatest effort by the genius of his rider, +outfought her, outstayed her. As he flew down the moon-swept road, +bright as at any noontime, Garrison knew success would be his, +providing Sue kept her seat, her nerve, and the saddle from twisting. + +Inch by inch the white, shadow-flecked space between the gelding and +the filly was eaten up. On, on, with only the tempest of their speed +and the flying hoofs for audience. On, on, until now the gelding had +poked his nose past the filly's flying hocks. + +Garrison knew horses. He called on the gelding for a supreme effort, +and the gelding answered impressively. He hunched himself, shot past +the filly. Twenty yards' gain, twenty yards to the fore, and then +Garrison turned easily in the saddle. "All right, Miss Desha, let her +come," he sang out cheerfully. + +And the filly came, came hard; came with all the bitterness of being +outstripped by a clumsy gelding whom she had beaten time and again. As +she caught the latter's slowed pace, as her wicked nose drew alongside +of the other's withers, Garrison shot out a hand, clamped an iron +clutch on the spume-smeared bit, swung the gelding across the filly's +right of way; then, with his right hand, choked the fight from her +widespread nostrils. + +And then, womanlike, Sue fainted, and Garrison was just in time to +ease her through his arms to the ground. The two horses, thoroughly +blown, placidly settled down to nibble the grass by the wayside. + +Sue lay there, her wealth of hair clouding Garrison's shoulder. He +watched consciousness return, the flutter of her breath. The perfume +of her skin was in his nostrils, his mouth; stealing away his honor. +He held her close. She shivered. + +He fought to keep from kissing her as she lay there unarmed. Then her +throat pulsed; her eyes opened. Garrison kissed her again and again; +gripping her as a drowning man grips at a passing straw. + +With a great heave and a passionate cry she flung him from her. She +rose unsteadily to her feet. He stood, shame engulfing him. Then she +caught her breath hard. + +"Oh!" she said softly, "it's--it's you!" She laughed tremulously. "I-- +I thought it was Mr. Waterbury." + +Relief, longing was in the voice. She made a pleading motion with her +arms--a child longing for its mother's neck. He did not see, heed. He +was nervously running his hand through his hair, face flaming. +Silence. + +"Mr. Waterbury was thrown. I took his mount," he blurted out, at +length. "Are you hurt?" + +She shook her head without replying; biting her lips. She was +devouring him with her eyes; eyes dark with passion. The memory of +that moment in his arms was seething within her. Why--why had she not +known! They looked at each other; eye to eye; soul to soul. Neither +spoke. + +She shivered, though the night was warm. + +"Why did you call me Miss Desha?" she asked, at length. + +"Because," he said feebly--his nature was true to his Southern name. +He was fighting self like the girl--"I'm going away," he added. It had +to come with a rush or not at all. And it must come. He heaved his +chest as a swimmer seeks to breast the waves. "I'm not worthy of you. +I'm a--a beast," he said. "I lied to you; lied when I said I was not +Garrison. I am Billy Garrison. I did not know that I was. I know now. +Know----" + +"I knew you were," said the girl simply. "Why did you try to hide it? +Shame?" + +"No." In sharp staccato sentences he told her of his lapse of memory. +"It was not because I was a thief; because I was kicked from the turf; +because I was a horse-poisoner--" + +"Then--it's true?" she asked. + +"That I'm a--beast?" he asked grimly. "Yes, it's true. You doubt me, +don't you? You think I knew my identity, my crimes all along, and that +I was afraid. Say you doubt me." + +"I believe you," she said quietly. + +"Thank you," he replied as quietly. + +"And--you think it necessary, imperative that you go away?" There was +an unuttered sob in her voice, though she sought to choke it back. + +"I do." He laughed a little--the laugh that had caused the righteous +Dan Crimmins to wince. + +She made a passionate gesture with her hand. "Billy," she said, and +stopped, eyes flaming. + +"You were right to break the engagement," he said slowly, eyes on the +ground. "I suppose Mr. Waterbury told you who I was, and--and, of +course, you could only act as you did." + +She was silent, her face quivering. + +"And you think that of me? You would think it of me? No, from the +first I knew you were Garrison--" + +"Forgive me," he inserted. + +"I broke the engagement," she added, "because conditions were changed +--with me. My condition was no longer what it was when the engagement +was made--" She checked herself with an effort. + +"I think I understand--now," he said, and admiration was in his eyes; +"I know the track. I should." He was speaking lifelessly, eyes on the +ground. "And I understand that you do not know--all." + +"All?" + +"Um-m-m." He looked up and faced her eyes, head held high. "I am an +adventurer," he said slowly. "A scoundrel, an impostor. I am not-- +Major Calvert's nephew." And he watched her eyes; watched +unflinchingly as they changed and changed again. But he would not look +away. + +"I--I think I will sit down, if you don't mind," she whispered, hand +at throat. She seated herself, as one in a maze, on a log by the +wayside. She looked up, a twisted little smile on her lips, as he +stood above her. "Won't--won't you sit down and tell--tell me all?" + +He obeyed automatically, not striving to fathom the great charity of +her silence. And then he told all--all. Even as he had told that very +good trainer and righteous friend, Dan Crimmins. His voice was +perfectly lifeless. And the girl listened, lips clenched on teeth. + +"And--and that's all," he whispered. "God knows it's enough--too +much." He drew himself away as some unclean thing. + +"All that, all that, and you only a boy," whispered the girl, half to +herself. "You must not tell the major. You must not," she cried +fiercely. + +"I must," he whispered. "I will." + +"You must not. You won't. You must go away, go away. Wipe the slate +clean," she added tensely. "You must not tell the major. It must be +broken to him gently, by degrees. Boy, boy, don't you know what it is +to love; to have your heart twisted, broken, trampled? You must not +tell him. It would kill. I--know." She crushed her hands in her lap. + +"I'm a coward if I run," he said. + +"A murderer if you stay," she answered. "And Mr. Waterbury--he will +flay you--keep you in the mire. I know. No, you must go, you must go. +Must have a chance for regeneration." + +"You are very kind--very kind. You do not say you loathe me." He arose +abruptly, clenching his hands above his head in silent agony + +"No, I do not," she whispered, leaning forward, hands gripping the +log, eyes burning up into his face. "I do not. Because I can't. I +can't. Because I love you, love you, love you. Boy, boy, can't you +see? Won't you see? I love you--" + +"Don't," he cried sharply, as if in physical agony. "You don't know +what you say--" + +"I do, I do. I love you, love you," she stormed. Passion, long stamped +down, had arisen in all its might. The surging intensity of her nature +was at white heat. It had broken all bonds, swept everything aside in +its mad rush. "Take me with you. Take me with you--anywhere," she +panted passionately. She arose and caught him swiftly by the arm, +forcing up her flaming face to his. "I don't care what you are--I know +what you will be. I've loved you from the first. I lied when I ever +said I hated you. I'll help you to make a new start. Oh, so hard! Try +me. Try me. Take me with you. You are all I have. I can't give you up. +I won't! Take me, take me. Do, do, do!" Her head thrown back, she +forced a hungry arm about his neck and strove to drag his lips to +hers. + +He caught both wrists and eyed her. She was panting, but her eyes met +his unwaveringly, gloriously unashamed. He fought for every word. +"Don't--tempt--me--Sue. Good God, girl! you don't know how I love you. +You can't. Loved you from that night in the train. Now I know who you +were, what you are to me--everything. Help me to think of you, not of +myself. You must guard yourself. I'm tired of fighting--I can't----" + +"It's the girl up North?" + +He drew back. He had forgotten. He turned away, head bowed. Both were +fighting--fighting against love--everything. Then Sue drew a great +breath and commenced to shiver. + +"I was wrong. You must go to her," she whispered. "She has the right +of way. She has the right of way. Go, go," she blazed, passion +slipping up again. "Go before I forget honor; forget everything but +that I love." + +Garrison turned. She never forgot the look his face held; never forgot +the tone of his voice. + +"I go. Good-by, Sue. I go to the girl up North. You are above me in +every way--infinitely above me. Yes, the girl up North. I had +forgotten. She is my wife. And I have children." + +He swung on his heel and blindly flung himself upon the waiting +gelding. + +Sue stood motionless. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +GARRISON HIMSELF AGAIN. + +That night Garrison left for New York; left with the memory of Sue +standing there on the moonlit pike, that look in her eyes; that look +of dazed horror which he strove blindly to shut out. He did not return +to Calvert House; not because he remembered the girl's advice and was +acting upon it. His mind had no room for the past. Every blood-vessel +was striving to grapple with the present. He was numb with agony. It +seemed as if his brain had been beaten with sticks; beaten to a pulp. +That last scene with Sue had uprooted every fiber of his being. He +writhed when he thought of it. But one thought possessed him. To get +away, get away, get away; out of it all; anyhow, anywhere. + +He was like a raw recruit who has been lying on the firing-line, +suffering the agonies of apprehension, of imagination; experiencing +the proximity of death in cold blood, without the heat of action to +render him oblivious. + +Garrison had been on the firing-line for so long that his nerve was +frayed to ribbons. Now the blow had fallen at last. The exposure had +come, and a fierce frenzy possessed him to complete the work begun. He +craved physical combat. And when he thought of Sue he felt like a +murderer fleeing from the scene of his crime; striving, with distance, +to blot out the memory of his victim. That was all he thought of. +That, and to get away--to flee from himself. Afterward, analysis of +actions would come. At present, only action; only action. + +It was five miles to the Cottonton depot, reached by a road that +branched off from the Logan Pike about half a mile above the spot +where Waterbury had been thrown. He remembered that there was a +through train at ten-fifteen. He would have time if he rode hard. With +head bowed, shoulders hunched, he bent over the gelding. He had no +recollection of that ride. + +But the long, weary journey North was one he had full recollection of. +He was forced to remain partially inactive, though he paced from +smoking to observation-car time and time again. He could not remain +still. The first great fury of the storm had passed. It had swept him +up, weak and nerveless, on the beach of retrospect; among the wreck of +past hopes; the flotsam and jetsam of what might have been. + +He had time for self-analysis, for remorse, for the fierce probings of +conscience. One minute he regretted that he had run away without +confessing to the major; the next, remembering Sue's advice, he was +glad. He tried to shut out the girl's picture from his heart. +Impossible. She was the picture; all else was but frame. He knew that +he had lost her irrevocably. What must she think of him? How she must +utterly despise him! + +On the second day doubt came to Garrison, and with it a ray of hope. +For the first time the possibility suggested itself that Dan Crimmins, +from the deep well of his lively imagination, might have concocted +Mrs. Garrison and offspring. Crimmins had said he had always hated +him. And he had acted like a villain. He looked like one; like a +felon, but newly jail-freed. Might he not have invented the statement +through sheer ill will? Realizing that Garrison's memory was a blank, +might he not have sought to rivet the blackmailing fetters upon him by +this new bolt? + +Thus Garrison reasoned, and outlined two schemes. First, he would find +his wife if wife there were. He could not love her, for love must have +a beginning, and it feeds on the past. He had neither. But he would be +loyal to her; loyal as Crimmins said she had been loyal to him. Then +he would face whatever charges were against him, and seek restoration +from the jockey club, though it took his lifetime. And he would seek +some way of wiping out, or at least diminishing, the stain he had left +behind him in Virginia. + +On the other hand, if Crimmins had lied--Garrison's jaw came out and +his eyes snapped. Then he would scrape himself morally clean, and +fight and fight for honorable recognition from the world. He would +prove that a "has-been" can come back. He would brand the negative as +a lie. And then--Sue. Perhaps--perhaps. + +Those were the two roads. Which would he traverse? Whichever it was, +though his heart, his entire being, lay with the latter, he would +follow the pointing finger of honor; follow it to the end, no matter +what it might cost, or where it might lead. Love had restored to him +the appreciation of man's birthright; the birthright without which +nothing is won in this world or the next. He had gained self-respect. +At present it was but the thought. He would fight to make it reality; +fight to keep it. + +And that night as the train was leaping out of the darkness toward the +lights of the great city, racing toward its haven, rushing like a +falling comet, some one blundered. The world called it a disaster; the +official statement, an accident, an open switch; the press called it +an outrage. Pessimism called it fate--stern mother of the unsavory. +Optimism called it Providence. At all events, the train jammed shut +like a closing telescope. Undiluted Hades was very prevalent for over +an hour. There were groans, screams, prayers--all the jargon of those +about to precipitately return from whence they came. It was not a +pleasant scene. Ghouls were there. But mercy, charity, and great +courage were also there. And Garrison was there. + +Fate, the unsavory, had been with him. He had been thrown clear at the +first crash; thrown through his sleeping-berth window. Physically he +was not very presentable. But he fought a good fight against the +flames and the general chaos. + +One of the forward cars was a caldron of flame. A baby's cry swung out +from among the roar and smart of the living hell. There was a frantic +father and a demented mother. Both had to be thrown and pounded into +submission; held by sheer weight and muscle. + +There were brave men there that night, but there was no sense in +giving two lives for one. Death was reaping more than enough. They +would try to save the "kid," but it looked hopeless. Was it a girl? +Yes, and an only child? She must be pinned under a seat. The fire +would be about opening up on her. Sure--sure they would see what could +be done. Anyway, the roof was due to smash down. But they'd see. But +there were lots of others who needed a hand; others who were not +pinned under seats with the flames hungry for them. + +But Garrison had swung on to a near-by horse-cart, jammed into rubber +boots, coats, and helmet, tying a wet towel over nose and mouth. And +as some stared, some cursed, and some cheered feebly, he smashed his +way through the smother of flame to the choking screams of the child. + +The roof fell in. A great crash and a spouting fire of flame. An +eternity, and then he emerged like one of the three prophets from the +fiery furnace. Only he was not a Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego. He +was not fashioned from providential asbestos. He was vulnerable. They +carried him to a near-by house. His head had been wonderfully smashed +by the falling roof. His eyebrows and hair were left behind in the +smother of flame. He was fire-licked from toe to heel. He was raving. +But the child was safe. And that wreck and that rescue went down in +history. + +For weeks Garrison was in the hospital. It was very like the rehearsal +of a past performance. He was completely out of his head. It was all +very like the months he put in at Bellevue in the long ago, before he +had experienced the hunger-cancer and compromised with honesty. + +And again there came nights when doctors shook their heads and nurses +looked grave; nights when it was understood that before another dawn +had come creeping through the windows little Billy Garrison would have +crossed the Big Divide; nights when the shibboleths of a dead-and-gone +life were even fluttering on his lips; nights when names but not +identities fought with one another for existence; fought for birth, +for supremacy, and "Sue" always won; nights when he sat up in bed as +he had sat up in Bellevue long ago, and with tense hands and blazing +eyes fought out victory on the stretch. Horrible, horrible nights; +surcharged with the frenzy and unreality of a nightmare. + +And one of his audience who seldom left the narrow cot was a man who +had come to look for a friend among the wreck victims; come and found +him not. He had chanced to pass Garrison's cot. And he had remained. + +Came a night at last when stamina and hope and grit won the long, long +fight. The crisis was turned. The demons, defeated, who had been +fighting among themselves for the possession of Garrison's mind, +reluctantly gave it back to him. And, moreover, they gave it back-- +intact. The part they had stolen that night in the Hoffman House was +replaced. + +This restoration the doctors subsequently called by a very learned and +mysterious name. They gave an esoteric explanation redounding greatly +to the credit of the general medical and surgical world. It was +something to the effect that the initial blow Garrison had received +had forced a piece of bone against the brain in such a manner as to +defy mere man's surgery. This had caused the lapse of memory. + +Then had come the second blow that night of the wreck. Where man had +failed, nature had stepped in and operated successfully. Her methods +had been crude, but effective. The unscientific blow on the head had +restored the dislodged bone to its proper place. The medical world was +highly pleased over this manifestation of nature's surgical skill, and +appeared to think that she had operated under its direction. And +nature never denied it. + +As Garrison opened his eyes, dazed, weak as water, memory, full, +complete, rushed into action. His brain recalled everything-- +everything from the period it is given man to remember down to the +present. It was all so clear, so perfect, so workmanlike. The long- +halted clock of memory was ticking away merrily, perfectly, and not +one hour was missing from its dial. The thread of his severed life was +joined--joined in such a manner that no hitch or knot was apparent. + +To use a third simile, the former blank, utterly fearsome space, was +filled--filled with clear writing, without blotch or blemish. And on +the space was not recorded one deed he had dreaded to see. There were +mistakes, weaknesses--but not dishonor. For a moment he could not +grasp the full meaning of the blessing. He could only sense that he +had indeed been blessed above his deserts. + +And then as Garrison understood what it all meant to him; understood +the chief fact that he had not deserted wife and children; that Sue +might be won, he crushed his face to the pillow and cried--cried like +a little child. + +And a big man, sitting in the shelter of a screen, hitched his chair +nearer the cot, and laid both hands on Garrison's. He did not speak, +but there was a wonderful light in his eyes--steady, clear gray eyes. + +"Kid," he said. "Kid." + +Garrison turned swiftly. His hand gripped the other's. + +"Jimmie Drake," he whispered. For the first time the blood came to his +face. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +PROVEN CLEAN. + +Two months had gone in; two months of slow recuperation, regeneration +for Garrison. He was just beginning to look at life from the +standpoint of unremitting toil and endeavor. It is the only +satisfactory standpoint. From it we see life in its true proportions. +Neither distorted through the blue glasses of pessimism--but another +name for the failure of misapplication--nor through the wonderful +rose-colored glasses of the dreamer. He was patiently going back over +his past life; returning to the point where he had deserted the +clearly defined path of honor and duty for the flowery fields of +unbridled license. + +It was no easy task he had set himself, but he did not falter by the +wayside. Three great stimulants he had--health, the thought of Sue +Desha, and the practical assistance of Jimmie Drake. + +It was a month, dating from the memorable meeting with the turfman, +before Garrison was able to leave the hospital. When he did, it was to +take up his life at Drake's Long Island breeding-farm and racing- +stable; for in the interim Drake had passed from book-making stage to +that of owner. He ran a first-class string of mounts, and he signed +Garrison to ride for him during the ensuing season. + +It was the first chance for regeneration, and it had been timidly +asked and gladly granted; asked and granted during one of the long +nights in the hospital when Garrison was struggling for strength and +faith. It had been the first time he had been permitted to talk for +any great length. + +"Thank you," he said, on the granting of his request, which he more +than thought would be refused. His eyes voiced where his lips were +dumb. "I haven't gone back, Jimmie, but it's good of you to give me a +chance on my say-so. I'll bear it in mind. And--and it's good of you, +Jimmie, to--to come and sit with me. I--I appreciate it all, and I +don't see why you should do it." + +Drake laughed awkwardly. + +"It's the least I could do, kid. The favor ain't on my side, it's on +yours. Anyway, what use is a friend if he ain't there when you need +him? It was luck I found you here. I thought you had disappeared for +keeps. Remember that day you cut me on Broadway? I ought to have +followed you, but I was sore--" + +"But I--I didn't mean to cut you, Jimmie. I didn't know you. I want to +tell you all about that--about everything. I'm just beginning to know +now that I'm living. I've been buried alive. Honest!" + +"I always thought there was something back of your absent treatment. +What was it?" Drake hitched his chair nearer and focused all his +powers of concentration. "What was it, kid? Out with it. And if I can +be of any help you know you have only to put it there." He held out a +large hand. + +And then slowly, haltingly, but lucidly, dispassionately, events +following in sequence, Garrison told everything; concealing nothing. +Nor did he try to gloss over or strive to nullify his own dishonorable +actions. He told everything, and the turfman, chin in hand, eyes +riveted on the narrator, listened absorbed. + +"Gee!" Jimmie Drake whispered at last, "it sounds like a fairy-story. +It don't sound real." Then he suddenly crashed a fist into his open +palm. "I see, I see," he snapped, striving to control his excitement. +"Then you don't know. You can't know." + +"Know what?" Garrison sat bolt upright in his narrow cot, his heart +pounding. + +"Why--why about Crimmins, about Waterbury, about Sis--everything," +exclaimed Drake. "It was all in the Eastern papers. You were in +Bellevue then. I thought you knew. Don't you know, kid, that it was +proven that Crimmins poisoned Sis? Hold on, keep quiet. Yes, it was +Crimmins. Now, don't get excited. Yes, I'll tell you all. Give me +time. Why, kid, you were as clean as the wind that dried your first +shirt. Sure, sure. We all knew it--then. And we thought you did--" + +"Tell me, tell me." Garrison's lip was quivering; his face gray with +excitement. + +Drake ran on forcefully, succinctly, his hand gripping Garrison's. + +"Well, we'll take it up from that day of the Carter Handicap. +Remember? When you and Waterbury had it out? Now, I had suspected that +Dan Crimmins had been plunging against his stable for some time. I had +got on to some bets he had put through with the aid of his dirty +commissioners. That's why I stood up for you against Waterbury. I knew +he was square. I knew he didn't throw the race, and, as for you--well, +I said to myself: 'That ain't like the kid.' I knew the evidence +against you, but it was hard to believe, kid. And I believed you when +you said you hadn't made a cent on the race, but instead had lost all +you had, I believed that. But I knew Crimmins had made a pile. I found +that out. And I believed he drugged you, kid. + +"Now, when you tell me you were fighting consumption it clears a lot +of space for me that has been dark. I knew you were doped half the +time, but I thought you were going the pace with the pipe, though I'll +admit I couldn't fathom what drug you were taking. But now I know +Crimmins fed you dope while pretending to hand you nerve food. I know +it. I know he bet against his stable time and ag'in and won every race +you were accused of throwing. I tracked things pretty clear that day +after I left you. + +"Well, I went to Waterbury and laid the charge against the trainer; +giving him a chance to square himself before I made trouble higher up. +Well, Waterbury was mad. Said he had no hand in it, and I believed +him. The upshot of it was that he faced Crimmins. Now, Crimmins had +been blowing himself on the pile he had made, and he was nasty. +Instead of denying it and putting the proving of the game up to me, he +took the bit in his mouth at something Waterbury said. + +"I don't know all the facts. They came out in the paper afterward. But +Crimmins and Waterbury had a scrap, and the trainer was fired. He was +fired when you went to the stable to say good-by to Sis. He was +packing what things he had there, but when he saw you weren't on, he +kept it mum. I believe then he was planning to do away with Sis, and +you offered a nice easy get-away for him. He hated you. First, because +you turned down the crooked deal he offered you, for it was he who was +beating the bookies, and he wanted a pal. Secondly, he thought you had +split about the dope, and he laid his discharge to you. And he hated +Waterbury. He could square you both at one shot. He poisoned Sis when +you'd gone. + +"Every one believed you guilty, for they didn't know the row Crimmins +and Waterbury had. But Waterbury suspected. He and Crimmins had it +out. He caught him on Broadway, a day or two later, and Crimmins +walloped him over the head with a blackjack. Waterbury went to the +hospital, and came next to dying. Crimmins went to jail. I guess he +was down and out, all right, when, as you say, he heard from his +brother that Waterbury was at Cottonton. I believe he went there to +square him, but ran across you instead, and thought he could have a +good blackmailing game on the side. That wife game was a plot to catch +you, kid. He didn't think you'd dare to come North. When you told him +about your lapse of memory, then he knew he was safe. You knew nothing +of his showdown." + +Garrison covered his face with his hands. Only he knew the great, the +mighty obsession that was slowly withdrawing itself from his heart. It +was all so wonderful; all so incredible. Long contact with misfortune +had sapped the natural resiliency of his character. It had been +subjected to so much pressure that it had become flaccid. The pressure +removed, it would be some time before the heart could act upon the +message of good tidings the brain had conveyed to it. For a long time +he remained silent. And Drake respected his silence to the letter. +Then Garrison uncovered his eyes. + +"I can't believe it. I can't believe it," he whispered, wide-eyed. "It +is too good to be true. It means too much. You're sure you're right, +Jimmie? It means I'm proven clean, proven square. It means +reinstatement on the turf. Means--everything." + +"All that, kid," said Drake. "I thought you knew." + +Garrison hugged his knees in a paroxysm of silent joy. + +"But--Waterbury?" he puzzled at length. "He knew I had been +exonerated. And yet--yet he must have said something to the contrary +to Miss Desha. She knew all along that I was Garrison; knew when I +didn't know myself. But she thought me square. But Waterbury must have +said something. I can never forget her saying when I confessed: 'It's +true, then.' I can never forget that, and the look in her eyes." + +"Aye, Waterbury," mused Drake soberly. He eyed Garrison. "You know +he's dead," he said simply. He nodded confirmation as the other +stared, white-faced. "Died this morning after he was thrown. Fractured +skull. I had word. Some right-meaning chap says somewhere something +about saying nothing but good of the dead, kid. If Waterbury tried to +queer you, it was through jealousy. I understand he cared something +for Miss Desha. He had his good points, like every man. Think of them, +kid, not the bad ones. I guess the bookkeeper up above will credit us +with all the times we've tried to do the square, even if we petered +out before we'd made good. Trying counts something, kid. Don't forget +that." + +"Yes, he had his good points," whispered Garrison. "I don't forget, +Jimmie. I don't forget that he has a cleaner bill of moral health than +I have. I was an impostor. That I can't forget; cannot wipe out." + +"I was coming to that," Drake scratched his grizzled head elaborately. +"I didn't say anything when you were unwinding that yarn, kid, but it +sounded mighty tangled to me." + +"How?" + +"How? Why, we ain't living in fairy-books to-day. It's straight hard +life. And there ain't any fools, as far as I can see, who are allowed +to take up air and space. I've heard of Major Calvert, and his brains +were all there the last time I heard of him--" + +"What do you mean?" Garrison bored his eyes into Drake's. + +"Why, I mean, kid, that blood is thicker than water, and leave it to a +woman to see through a stone wall. I don't believe you could palm +yourself off to the major and his wife as their nephew. It's not +reasonable nohow. I don't believe any one could fool any family." + +"But I did!" Garrison was staring blankly. "I did, Jimmie! Remember I +had the cooked-up proofs. Remember that they had never seen the real +nephew--" + +"Oh, shucks! What's the odds? Blood's blood. You don't mean to say a +man wouldn't know his own sister's child? Living in the house with +him? Wouldn't there be some likeness, some family trait, some +characteristic? Are folks any different from horses? No, no, it might +happen in stories, but not life, not life." + +Garrison shook his head wearily. "I can't follow you, Jimmie. You like +to argue for the sake of arguing. I don't understand. They did believe +me. Isn't that enough? Why--why----" His face blanched at the thought. +"You don't mean to say that they knew I was an imposter? Knew all +along? You--can't mean that, Jimmie?" + +"I may," said Drake shortly. "But, see here, kid, you'll admit it +would be impossible for two people to have that birthmark on them; the +identical mark in the identical spot. You'll admit that. Now, wouldn't +it be impossible?" + +"Improbable, but not impossible." Suddenly Garrison had commenced to +breathe heavily, his hands clenching. + +Drake cocked his head on one side and closed an eye. He eyed Garrison +steadily. "Kid, it seems to me that you've only been fooling yourself. +I believe you're Major Calvert's nephew. That's straight." + +For a long time Garrison stared at him unwinkingly. Then he laughed +wildly. + +"Oh, you're good, Jimmie. No, no. Don't tempt me. You forget; forget +two great things. I know my mother's name was Loring, not Calvert. And +my father's name was Garrison, not Dagget." + +"Um-m-m," mused Drake, knitting brows. "You don't say? But, see here, +kid, didn't you say that this Dagget's mother was only Major Calvert's +half-sister? How about that, eh? Then her name would be different from +his. How about that? How do you know Loring mightn't fit it? Answer me +that." + +"I never thought of that," whispered Garrison. "If you only are right, +Jimmie! If you only are, what it would mean? But my father, my +father," he cried weakly. "My father. There's no getting around that, +Jimmie. His name was Garrison. My name is Garrison. There's no dodging +that. You can't change that into Dagget." + +"How do you know?" argued Drake, slowly, pertinaciously. "This here is +my idea, and I ain't willing to give it up without a fight. How do you +know but your father might have changed his name? I've known less +likelier things to happen. You know he was good blood gone wrong. How +do you know he mightn't have changed it so as not disgrace his family, +eh? Changed it after he married your mother, and she stood for it so +as not to disgrace her family. You were a kid when she died, and you +weren't present, you say. How do you know but she mightn't have wanted +to tell you a whole lot, eh? A whole lot your father wouldn't tell you +because he never cared for you. No, the more I think of it the more +I'm certain that you're Major Calvert's nephew. You're the only +logical answer. That mark of the spur and the other incidents is good +enough for me." + +"Don't tempt me, Jimmie, don't tempt me," pleaded Garrison again. "You +don't know what it all means. I may be his nephew. I may be--God grant +I am! But I must be honest. I must be honest." + +"Well, I'm going to hunt up that lawyer, Snark," affirmed Drake +finally. "I won't rest until I see this thing through. Snark may have +known all along you were the rightful heir, and merely put up a job to +get a pile out of you when you came into the estate. Or he may have +been honest in his dishonesty; may not have known. But I'm going to +rustle round after him. Maybe there's proofs he holds. What about +Major Calvert? Are you going to write him?" + +Garrison considered. "No--no," he said at length. "No, if--if by any +chance I am his nephew--you see how I want to believe you, Jimmie, God +knows how much--then I'll tell him afterward. Afterward when--I'm +clean. I want to lie low; to square myself in my own sight and man's. +I want to make another name for myself, Jimmie. I want to start all +over and shame no man. If by any chance I am William C. Dagget, then-- +then I want to be worthy of that name. And I owe everything to +Garrison. I'm going to clean that name. It meant something once--and +it'll mean something again." + +"I believe you, kid." + +Subsequently, Drake fulfilled his word concerning the "rustling round" +after that eminent lawyer, Theobald D. Snark. His efforts met with +failure. Probably the eminent lawyer's business had increased so +enormously that he had been compelled to vacate the niche he held in +the Nassau Street bookcase. But Drake had not given up the fight. + +Meanwhile Garrison had commenced his life of regeneration at the +turfman's Long Island stable. He was to ride Speedaway in the coming +Carter Handicap. The event that had seen him go down, down to oblivion +one year ago might herald the reascendency of his star. He had vowed +it would. And so in grim silence he prepared for his farewell +appearance in that great seriocomic tragedy of life called "Making +Good." + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +GARRISON FINDS HIMSELF. + +Sue never rightly remembered how the two months passed; the two months +succeeding that hideous night when in paralyzed silence she watched +Garrison away. The greatest sorrow is stagnant, not active. The heart +becomes like a frozen morass. Sometimes memory slips through the +crust, only to sink in the grim "slough of despond." + +Waterbury's death had unnerved her, coming as it did at a time when +tragedy had opened the pores of her heart. He had been conscious for a +few minutes before the messenger of a new life summoned him into the +great beyond. He used the few minutes well. If we all lived with the +thought that the next hour would be our last, the world would be +peopled with angels--and hypocrites. + +Waterbury asked permission of his host, Colonel Desha, to see Sue +alone. It was willingly granted. The girl, white-faced, came and sat +by the bed in the room of many shadows; the room where death was +tapping, tapping on the door. She had said nothing to her father +regarding the events preceding the runaway and Waterbury's accident. + +Waterbury eyed her long and gravely. The heat of his great passion had +melted the baser metal of his nature. What original alloy of gold he +possessed had but emerged refined. His fingers, formerly pudgy, well- +fed, had suddenly become skeletons of themselves. They were picking at +the coverlet. + +"I lied about--about Garrison," he whispered, forcing life to his +mouth, his eyes never leaving the girl's. "I lied. He was square--" +Breath would not come. "For-forgive," he cried, suddenly in a smother +of sweat. "Forgive--" + +"Gladly, willingly," whispered the girl. She was crying inwardly. + +His eyes flamed for an instant, and then died away. By sheer will- +power he succeeded in stretching a hand across the coverlet, palm +upward. "Put--put it--there," he whispered. "Will you?" + +She understood. It was the sporting world's token of forgiveness; of +friendship. She laid her hand in his, gripping with a firm clasp. + +"Thank you," he whispered. Again his eyes flamed; again died away. The +end was very near. Perhaps the approaching freedom of the spirit lent +him power to read the girl's thoughts. For as he looked into her eyes, +his own saw that she knew what lay in his. He breathed heavily, +painfully. + +"Could--could you?" he whispered. "If--if you only could." There was a +great longing, a mighty wistfulness in his voice. Death was trying to +place its hand over his mouth. With a mighty effort Waterbury slipped +past it. "If you only could," he reiterated. "It--it means so little +to you, Miss Desha--so much, so much to--me!" + +And again the girl understood. Without a word she bent over and kissed +him. He smiled. And so died Waterbury. + +Afterward, the girl remembered Waterbury's confession. So Garrison was +honest! Somehow, she had always believed he was. His eyes, the windows +of his soul, were not fouled. She had read weakness there, but never +dishonesty. Yes, somehow she had always believed him honest. But he +was married. That was different. The concrete, not the abstract, was +paramount. All else was swamped by the fact that he was married. She +could not believe that he had forgotten his marriage with his true +identity. She could not believe that. Her heart was against her. Love +to her was everything. She could not understand how one could ever +forget. One might forget the world, but not that, not that. + +True to her code of judging not, she did not attempt to estimate +Garrison. She could not bear to use the probe. There are some things +too sacred to be dissected; so near the heart that their proximity +renders an experiment prohibitive. She believed that Garrison loved +her. She believed that above all. Surely he had given something in +exchange for all that he owned of her. If in unguarded moments her +conscience assumed the woolsack, mercy, not justice, swayed it. + +She realized the mighty temptation Garrison had been forced against by +circumstances. And if he had fallen, might not she herself? Had it not +taken all her courage to renounce--to give the girl up North the right +of way? Now she understood the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." + +Yes, it had been weakness with Garrison, not dishonor. He had been +fighting against it all the time. She remembered that morning in the +tennis-court--her first intimacy with him. And he had spoken of the +girl up North. She remembered him saying: "But doesn't the Bible say +to leave all and cleave unto your wife?" + +That had been a confession, though she knew it not. And she had +ignored it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand +it truth. Strangely enough, she did not judge him for posing as Major +Calvert's nephew. Strangely enough, that seemed trivial in comparison +with the other. It was so natural for him to be the rightful heir that +she could not realize that he was an impostor, nor apportion the fact +its true significance. Her brain was unfit to grapple. Only her heart +lived; lived with the passive life of stagnation. It was choked with +weeds on the surface. She tried to patch together the broken parts of +her life. Tried and failed. She could not. She seemed to be existing +without an excuse; aimlessly, soullessly. + +After many horrible days, hideous nights, she realized that she still +loved Garrison. Loved with a love that threatened to absorb even her +physical existence. It seemed as if the very breath of her lungs had +been diverted to her heart, where it became tissue-searing flame. + +And at Calvert House life had resolved itself into silence. The major +and his wife were striving to live in the future; striving to live +against Garrison's return. They were ignorant of the true cause of his +leaving. For Sue, the keeper of the secret, had not divulged it. She +had been left with a difficult proposition to face, and she could not +face it. She temporized. She knew that sooner or later the truth would +have to come out. She put it off. She could not tell, not now, not +now. Each day only rendered it the more difficult. She could not tell. + +She had only to look at the old major; to look at his wife, to see +that the blow would blast them. She had had youth to help her, and +even she had been blasted. What chance had they? And so she said that +Garrison and she had quarreled seriously and that in sudden anger, +pique, he had left. Oh, yes, she knew he would return. She was quite +sure of it. It was all so silly and over nothing, and she had no idea +he would take it that way. And she was so sorry, so sorry. + +It had all been her fault. He had not been to blame. It was she, only +she. In a thoughtless moment she had said something about his being +dependent on his uncle, and he had fired up, affirming that he would +show her that he was a man, and could earn his own salt. Yes, it had +been entirely her own fault, and no one hated herself as she did. He +had gone to prove his manhood, and she knew how stubborn he was. He +would not return until he wished. + +Sue lied bravely, convincingly, whole-heartedly. Everything she did +was done thoroughly. She would not think of the future. But she could +not tell that Garrison was an impostor; a father of children. She +could not tell. So she lied, and lied so well that the old major, +bewildered, was forced to believe her. He was forced to acquiesce. He +could not interfere. He could do nothing. It was better that his +nephew should prove his manhood; return some time and love the girl, +than that he should hate her for eternity. + +Each day he hoped to see Garrison back, but each day passed without +that consummation. The strain was beginning to tell on him. His heart +was bound up in the boy. If he did not return soon he would advertise, +institute a search. He well knew the folly of youth. He was broad- +minded, great-hearted enough not to censure the girl by word or act. +He saw how she was suffering; growing paler daily. But why didn't +Garrison write? All the anger, all the quarrels in the world could not +account for his leaving like that; account for his silence. + +The major commenced to doubt. And his wife's words: "It's not like Sue +to permit William to go like that. Nor like her to ever have said such +a thing even unthinkingly. There's more than that on the girl's mind. +She is wasting away"--but served to strengthen the doubt. Still, he +was impotent. He could not understand. If his nephew did not wish to +return, all the advertising in creation could not drag him back. + +Yes, his wife was right. There was more on the girl's mind than that. +And it was not like Sue to act as she affirmed she had. Still, he +could not bring himself to doubt her. He was in a quandary. It had +begun to tell on him, on his wife; even as it had already told on the +girl. + +And old Colonel Desha was likewise breasting a sea of trouble. +Waterbury's death had brought financial matters to a focus. Honor +imperatively demanded that the mortgage be settled with the dead man's +heirs. It was only due to Sue's desperate financiering that the +interest had been met up to the present. That it would be paid next +month depended solely on the chance of The Rogue winning the Carter +Handicap. Things had come to as bad a pass as that. + +The colonel frantically bent every effort toward getting the +thoroughbred into condition. How he hated himself now for posting his +all on the winter books! Now that the great trial was so near, his +deep convictions of triumph did not look so wonderful. + +There were good horses entered against The Rogue. Major Calvert's +Dixie, for instance, and Speedaway, the wonderful goer owned by that +man Drake. Then there were half a dozen others--all from well-known +stables. There could be no doubt that "class" would be present in +abundance at the Carter. And only he had so much at stake. He had +entered The Rogue in the first flush consequent on his winning the +last Carter. But he must win this. He must. Getting him into condition +entailed expense. It must be met. All his hopes, his fears, were +staked on The Rogue. Money never was so paramount; the need of it so +great. Fiercely he hugged his poverty to his breast, keeping it from +his friend the major. + +Then, too, he was greatly worried over Sue. She was not looking well. +He was worried over Garrison's continued absence. He was worried over +everything. It was besetting him from all sides. Worry was causing him +to take the lime-light from himself. He awoke to the fact that Sue was +in very poor health. If she died-- He never could finish. + +Taken all in all, it was a very bad time for the two oldest families +in Cottonton. Every member was suffering silently, stoically; each in +a different way. One striving to conceal from the other. And it all +centered about Garrison. + +And then, one day when things were at their worst, when Garrison, +unconscious of the general misery he had engendered, had completed +Speedaway's training for the Carter, when he himself was ready for the +fight of his life, a stranger stepped off the Cottonton express and +made his way to the Desha homestead. He knew the colonel. He was a +big, quiet man--Jimmie Drake. + +A week later and Drake had returned North. He had not said anything to +Garrison regarding what had called him away, but the latter vaguely +sensed that it was another attempt on the indefatigable turfman's part +to ferret out the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark. And when Drake, on his +return, called Garrison into the club-house, Garrison went white- +faced. He had just sent Speedaway over the seven furlongs in record +time, and his heart was big with hope. + +Drake never wasted ammunition in preliminary skirmishing. He told the +joke first and the story afterward. + +"I've been South. Seen Colonel Desha and Major Calvert," he said +tersely. + +Garrison was silent, looking at him. He tried to read fate in his +inscrutable eyes; news of some description; tried, and failed. He +turned away his head. "Tell me," he said simply. Drake eyed him and +slowly came forward and held out his large bloodshot hand. + +"Billy Garrison--'Bud'--'Kid'--William C. Dagget," he said, nodding +his head. + +Garrison rose with difficulty, the sweat on his face. + +"William C. Dagget? Me? Me? Me?" he whispered, his head thrown +forward, his eyes narrowed, starting at Drake. "Just God, Jimmie! +Don't play with me----" He sat down abruptly covering his quivering +face with his hands. + +Drake laid a hand on the heaving shoulders. "There, there, kid," he +murmured gruffly, as if to a child, "don't go and blow up over it. +Yes, you're Dagget. The luckiest kid in the States, and--and the +damnedest. You've raised a muss-pile down South in Cottonton. Dagget +or no Dagget, I'm talking straight. You've been selfish, kid. You've +only been thinking of yourself; your regeneration; your past, your +present, your future. You--you--you. You never thought of the folks +you left down home; left to suffocate with the stink you raised. You +cleared out scot-free, and, say, kid, you let a girl lie for you; lie +for you. You did that. A girl, by heck! who wouldn't lie for the +Almighty Himself. A girl who--who----" Drake searched frantically for +a fitting simile, gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk +handkerchief, and flumped into a chair. "Well, say, kid, it's just +plain hell. That's what it is." + +"Lied for me?" said Garrison very quietly. + +"That's the word. But I'll start from the time the fur commenced to +fly. In the first place, there's no doubt about your identity. I was +right. I've proved that. I couldn't find Snark--I guess the devil must +have called him back home. So I took things on my own hook and went to +Cottonton, where I moseyed round considerable. I know Colonel Desha, +and I learned a good deal in a quiet way when I was there. I learned +from Major Calvert that his half-sister's--your mother's--name was +Loring. That cinched it for me. But I said nothing. They were in an +awful stew over your absence, but I never let on, at first, that I had +you bunked. + +"I learned, among other things, that Miss Desha had taken upon herself +the blame of your leaving; saying that she had said something you had +taken exception to; that you had gone to prove your manhood, kid. Your +manhood, kid--mind that. She's a thoroughbred, that girl. Now, I would +have backed her lie to the finish if something hadn't gone and +happened." Drake paused significantly. "That something was that the +major received a letter--from your father, kid." + +"My father?" whispered Garrison. + +"Um-m-m, the very party. Written from 'Frisco--on his death-bed. One +of those old-timey, stage-climax death-bed confessions. As old as the +mortgage on the farm business. As I remarked before some right-meaning +chap says somewhere something about saying nothing but good of the +dead. I'm not slinging mud. I guess there was a whole lot missing in +your father, kid, but he tried to square himself at the finish, the +same as we all do, I guess. + +"He wrote to the major, saying he had never told his son--you, kid--of +his real name nor of his mother's family. He confessed to changing his +name from Dagget to Garrison for the very reasons I said. Remember? He +ended by saying he had wronged you; that he knew you would be the +major's heir, and that if you were to be found it would be under the +name of Garrison. That is, if you were still living. He didn't know +anything about you. + +"There was a whole lot of repentance and general misery in the letter. +I don't like to think of it overmuch. But it knocked Cottonton flatter +than stale beer. Honest. I never saw such a time. I'm no good at +telling a yarn, kid. It was something fierce. There was nothing but +knots and knots; all diked up and tangles by the mile. And so I had to +step in and straighten things out. And--and so, kid, I told the major +everything; every scrap of your history, as far as I knew it. All you +had told to me. I had to. Now, don't tell me I kicked in. Say I did +right, kid. I meant to." + +"Yes, yes," murmured Garrison blankly. "And--and the major? What--did +he say, Jimmie?" + +Drake frowned thoughtfully. + +"Say? Well, kid, I only wish I had an uncle like that. I only wish +there were more folks like those Cottonton folks. I do. Say? Why, +Lord, kid, it was one grand hallelujah! Forgive? Say," he finished, +thoughtfully eyeing the white-faced, newly christened Garrison, "what +have you ever done to be loved like that? They were crazy for you. Not +a word was said about your imposition. Not a word. It was all: 'When +will he be back?' 'Where is he?' 'Telegraph!' All one great slambang +of joy. And me? Well, I could have had that town for my own. And your +aunt? She cried, cried when she heard all you had been through. Oh, I +made a great press-agent, kid. And the old major-- Oh, fuss! I can't +tell a yarn nohow," grumbled Drake, stamping about at great length and +vigorously using the lurid silk handkerchief. + +William C. Dagget was silent--the silence of great, overwhelming joy. +He was shivering. "And--and Miss Desha?" he whispered at length. + +"Yes--Miss Desha," echoed Drake, planting wide his feet and +contemplating the other's bent head. "Yes, Miss Desha. And why in +blazes did you tell her you were married, eh?" he asked grimly. "Oh, +you thought you were? Oh, yes. And you didn't deny it when you found +it wasn't so? Oh, yes, of course. And it didn't matter whether she ate +her heart out or not? Of course not. Oh, yes, you wanted to be clean, +first, and all that. And she might die in the meantime. You didn't +think she still cared for you? Now, see here, kid, that's a lie and +you know it. It's a lie. When a girl like Miss Desha goes so far as +to-- Oh, fuss! I can't tell a yarn. But, see here, kid, I haven't your +blood. I own that. But if I ever put myself before a girl who cared +for me the way Miss Desha cares for you, and I professed to love her +as you professed to love Miss Desha, than may I rot--rot, hide, hair, +and bones! Now, cuss me out, if you like." + +Garrison looked up grimly. + +"You're right, Jimmie. I should have stood my ground and taken my +dose. I should have written her when I discovered the truth. But--I +couldn't. I couldn't. Listen, Jimmie, it was not selfishness, not +cowardice. Can't you see? Can't you see? I cared too much. I was so +unworthy, so miserable. How could I ever think she would stoop to my +level? She was so high; I so horribly low. It was my own unworthiness +choking me. It was not selfishness, Jimmie, not selfishness. It was +despair; despair and misery. Don't you understand?" + +"Oh, fuss!" said Drake again, using the lurid silk handkerchief. Then +he laid his hand on the other's shoulder. "I understand," he said +simply. There was silence. Finally Drake wiped his face and cleared +his throat. + +"And now, with your permission, we'll get down to tacks, Mr. William +C. Dagget--" + +"Don't call me that, Jimmie. I'm not that--yet. I'm Billy Garrison +until I've won the Carter Handicap--proven myself clean." + +"Right, kid. And that's what I wished to speak about. In the first +place, Major Calvert knows where you are. Colonel and Miss Desha do +not. In fact, kid," added Drake, rubbing his chin, "the major and I +have a little plot hatched up between us. Your identity, if possible +is not to be made known to the colonel and his daughter until the +finish of the Carter. Understand?" + +"No," said Garrison flatly. "Why?" + +"Because, kid, you're not going to ride Speedaway. You're not going to +ride for my stable. You're going to ride Colonel Desha's Rogue--ride +as you never rode before. Ride and win. That's why." + +Garrison only stared as Drake ran on. "See here, kid, this race means +everything to the colonel--everything in the world. Every cent he has +is at stake; his honor, his life, his daughter's happiness. He's +proud, cussed proud, and he's kept it mum. And the girl--Miss Desha +has bucked poverty like a thoroughbred. I got to know the facts, +picking them up here and there, and the major knows, too. We've got to +work in the dark, for the colonel would die first if he knew the +truth, before he would accept help even indirectly. The Rogue must +win; must. But what chance has he against the major's Dixie, my +Speedaway, and the Morgan entry--Swallow? And so the major has +scratched his mount, giving out that Dixie has developed eczema. + +"Now, the colonel is searching high and low for a jockey capable of +handling The Rogue. It'll take a good man. I recommended you. He +doesn't know your identity, for the major and I have kept it from him. +He only thinks you are /the/ Garrison who has come back. I have fixed +it up with him that you are to ride his mount, and The Rogue will +arrive to-morrow. + +"The colonel is a wreck mentally and physically; living on nerve. I've +agreed to put the finishing touches on The Rogue, and he, knowing my +ability and facilities, has permitted me. It's all in my hands--pretty +near. Now, Red McGloin is up on the Morgan entry--Swallow. He used to +be a stable-boy for Waterbury. I guess you've heard of him. He's +developed into a first-class boy. But I want to see you lick the hide +off him. The fight will lie between you and him. I know the rest of +the field--" + +"But Speedaway?" cried Garrison, jumping to his feet. "Jimmie--you! +It's too great a sacrifice; too great, too great. I know how you've +longed to win the Carter; what it means to you; how you have slaved to +earn it. Jimmie--Jimmie--don't tempt me. You can't mean you've +scratched Speedaway!" + +"Just that, kid," said Drake grimly. "The first scratch in my life-- +and the last. Speedaway? Well, she and I will win again some other +time. Some time, kid, when we ain't playing against a man's life and a +girl's happiness. I'll scratch for those odds. It's for you, kid--you +and the girl. Remember, you're carrying her colors, her life. + +"You'll have a good fight--but fight as you never fought before; as +you never hope to fight again. Cottonton will watch you, kid. Don't +shame them; don't shame me. Show 'em what you're made of. Show Red +that a former stable-boy, no matter what class he is now, can't have +the licking of a former master. Show 'em a has-been can come back. +Show 'em what Garrison stands for. Show 'em your finish, kid--I'll ask +no more. And you'll carry Jimmie Drake's heart-- Oh, fuss! I can't +tell a yarn, nohow." + +In silence Garrison gripped Drake's hand. And if ever a mighty +resolution was welded in a human heart--a resolution born of love, +everything; one that nothing could deny--it was born that moment in +Garrison's. Born as the tears stood in his eyes, and, man as he was, +he could not keep up; nor did he shame his manhood by denying them. +"Kid, kid," said Drake. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +GARRISON'S FINISH. + +It was April 16. Month of budding life; month of hope; month of spring +when all the world is young again; when the heart thaws out after its +long winter frigidity. It was the day of the opening of the Eastern +racing season; the day of the Carter Handicap. + +Though not one of the "classics," the Carter annually draws an +attendance of over ten thousand; ten thousand enthusiasts who have not +had a chance to see the ponies run since the last autumn race; those +who had been unable to follow them on the Southern circuit. Women of +every walk of life; all sorts and conditions of men. Enthusiasts glad +to be out in the life-giving sunshine of April; panting for +excitement; full to the mouth with volatile joy; throwing off the +shackles of the business treadmill; discarding care with the +ubiquitous umbrella and winter flannels; taking fortune boldly by the +hand; returning to first principles; living for the moment; for the +trial of skill, endurance, and strength; staking enough in the +balances to bring a fillip to the heart and the blood to the cheek. + +It was a typical American crowd; long-suffering, giving and taking-- +principally giving--good-humored, just. All morning it came in a +seemingly endless chain; uncoupling link by link, only to weld +together again. All morning long, ferries, trolleys, trains were +jammed with the race-mad throng. Coming by devious ways, for divers +reasons; coming from all quarters by every medium; centering at last +at the Queen's County Jockey Club. + +And never before in the history of the Aqueduct track had so +thoroughly a representative body of racegoers assembled at an opening +day. Never before had Long Island lent sitting and standing room to so +impressive a gathering of talent, money, and family. Every one +interested in the various phases of the turf was there, but even they +only formed a small portion of the attendance. + +Rumors floated from paddock to stand and back again. The air was +surcharged with these wireless messages, bearing no signature nor +guarantee of authenticity. And borne on the crest of all these rumors +was one--great, paramount. Garrison, the former great Garrison, had +come back. He was to ride; ride the winner of the last Carter, the +winner of a fluke race. + +The world had not forgotten. They remembered The Rogue's last race. +They remembered Garrison's last race. The wise ones said that The +Rogue could not possibly win. This time there could be no fluke, for +the great Red McGloin was up on the favorite. The Rogue would be shown +in his true colors--a second-rater. + +Speculation was rife. This Carter Handicap presented many, many +features that kept the crowd at fever-heat. Garrison had come back. +Garrison had been reinstated. Garrison was up on a mount he had been +accused of permitting to win last year. Those who wield the muck-rake +for the sake of general filth, not in the name of justice, shook their +heads and lifted high hands to Heaven. It looked bad. Why should +Garrison be riding for Colonel Desha? Why had Jimmie Drake transferred +him at the eleventh hour? Why had Drake scratched Speedaway? Why had +Major Calvert scratched Dixie? The latter was an outsider, but they +had heard great things of her. + +"Cooked," said the muck-rakers wisely, and, thinking it was a show- +down for the favorite, stacked every cent they had on Swallow. No long +shots for them. + +And some there were who cursed Drake and Major Calvert; cursed long +and intelligently--those who had bet on Speedaway and Dixie, bet on +the play-or-pay basis, and now that the mounts were scratched, they +had been bitten. It was entirely wrong to tempt Fortune, and then have +her turn on you. She should always be down on the "other fellow"--not +you. + +And then there were those, and many, who did not question, who were +glad to know that Garrison had come back on any terms. They had liked +him for himself. They were the weak-kneed variety who are stanch in +prosperity; who go with the world; coincide with the world's verdict. +The world had said Garrison was crooked. If they had not agreed, they +had not denied. If Garrison now had been reinstated, then the world +said he was honest. They agreed now--loudly; adding the old shibboleth +of the moral coward: "I told you so." But still they doubted that he +had "come back." A has-been can never come back. + +The conservative element backed Morgan's Swallow. Red McGloin was up, +and he was proven class. He had stepped into Garrison's niche of fame. +He was the popular idol now. And, as Garrison had once warned him, he +was already beginning to pay the price. The philosophy of the exercise +boy had changed to the philosophy of the idol; the idol who cannot be +pulled down. And he had suffered. He had gone through part of what +Garrison had gone through, but he also had experienced what the +latter's inherent cleanliness had kept him from. + +Temptation had come Red's way; come strong without reservation. Red, +with the hunger of the long-denied, with the unrestricted appetite of +the intellectually low, had not discriminated. And he had suffered. +His trainer had watched him carefully, but youth must have its fling, +and youth had flung farther than watching wisdom reckoned. + +Red had not gone back. He was young yet. But the first flush of his +manhood had gone; the cream had been stolen. His nerve was just a +little less than it had been; his eye and hand a little less steady; +his judgment a little less sound; his initiative, daring, a little +less paramount. And races have been won and lost, and will be won and +lost, when that "little Less" is the deciding breath that tips the +scale. + +But he had no misgivings. Was he not the idol? Was he not up on +Swallow, the favorite? Swallow, with the odds--two to one--on. He knew +Garrison was to ride The Rogue. What did that matter? The Rogue was +ten to one against. The Rogue was a fluke horse. Garrison was a has- +been. The track says a has-been can never come back. Of course +Garrison had been to the dogs during the past year--what down-and-out +jockey has not gone there? And if Drake had transferred him to Desha, +it was a case of good riddance. Drake was famous for his eccentric +humor. But he was a sound judge of horse-flesh. No doubt he knew what +a small chance Speedaway had against Swallow, and he had scratched +advisedly; playing the Morgan entry instead. + +In the grand stand sat three people wearing a blue and gold ribbon-- +the Desha colors. Occasionally they were reinforced by a big man, who +circulated between them and the paddock. The latter was Jimmie Drake. +The others were "Cottonton," as the turfman called them. They were +Major and Mrs. Calvert and Sue Desha. + +Colonel Desha was not there. He was eating his heart out back home. +The nerve he had been living on had suddenly snapped at the eleventh +hour. He was denied watching the race he had paid so much in every way +to enter. The doctors had forbidden his leaving. His heart could not +stand the excitement; his constitution could not meet the long journey +North. And so alone, propped up in bed, he waited; waited, counting +off each minute; more excited, wrought up, than if he had been at the +track. + +It had been arranged that in the event of The Rogue winning, the good +news should be telegraphed to the colonel the moment the gelding +flashed past the judges' stand. He had insisted on that and on his +daughter being present. Some member of the family must be there to +back The Rogue in his game fight. And so Sue, in company with the +major and his wife, had gone. + +She had taken little interest in the race. She knew what it meant, no +one knew better than she, but somehow she had no room left for care to +occupy. She was apathetic, listless; a striking contrast to the major +and his wife, who could hardly repress their feelings. They knew what +she would find at the Aqueduct track--find the world. She did not. + +All she knew was that Drake, whom she liked for his rough, patent +manhood, had very kindly offered the services of his jockey; a jockey +whom he had faith in. Who that jockey was, she did not know, nor +overmuch care. A greater sorrow had obliterated her racing passion; +had even ridden roughshod over the fear of financial ruin. Her mind +was numb. + +For days succeeding Drake's statement to her that Garrison was not +married she waited for some word from him. Drake had explained how +Garrison had thought he was married. He had explained all that. She +could never forget the joy that had swamped her on hearing it; even as +she could never forget the succeeding days of waiting misery; waiting, +waiting, waiting for some word. He had been proven honest, proven +Major Calvert's nephew, proven free. What more could he ask? Then why +had he not come, written? + +She could not believe he no longer cared. She could not believe that; +rather, she would not. She gaged his heart by her own. Hers was the +woman's portion--inaction. She must still wait, wait, wait. Still she +must eat her heart out. Hers was the woman's portion. And if he did +not come, if he did not write--even in imagination she could never +complete the alternative. She must live in hope; live in hope, in +faith, in trust, or not at all. + +Colonel Desha's enforced absence overcame the one difficulty Major +Calvert and Jimmie Drake had acknowledged might prematurely explode +their hidden identity mine. The colonel, exercising his owner's +prerogative, would have fussed about The Rogue until the last minute. +Of course he would have interviewed Garrison, giving him riding +instructions, etc. Now Drake assumed the right by proxy, and Sue, +after one eager-whispered word to The Rogue, had assumed her position +in the grand stand. + +Garrison was up-stairs in the jockey's quarters of the new paddock +structure, the lower part of which is reserved for the clerical force, +and so she had not seen him. But presently the word that Garrison was +to ride flew everywhere, and Sue heard it. She turned slowly to Drake, +standing at her elbow, his eyes on the paddock. + +"Is it true that a jockey called Garrison is to ride to-day?" she +asked, a strange light in her eyes. What that name meant to her! + +"Why, yes, I believe so, Miss Desha," replied Drake, delightfully +innocent. "Why?" + +"Oh," she said slowly. "How--how queer! I mean--isn't it queer that +two people should have the same name? I suppose this one copied it; +imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. I hope he does the +name justice. Do you know him? He is a good rider? What horse is he up +on?" + +Drake, wisely enough, chose the last question. "A ten-to-one shot," he +replied illuminatingly. "Perhaps you'll bet on him, Miss Desha, eh? +It's what we call a hunch--coincidence or anything like that. Shall I +place a bet for you?" + +The girl's eyes kindled strangely. Then she hesitated. + +"But--but I can't bet against The Rogue. It would not be loyal." + +Mrs. Calvert laughed softly. + +"There are exceptions, dear." In a low aside she added: "Haven't you +that much faith in the name of Garrison? There, I know you have. I +would be ashamed to tell you how much the major and I have up on that +name. And you know I never bet, as a rule. It is very wrong." + +And so Sue, the blood in her cheeks, handed all her available cash to +Drake to place on the name of Garrison. She would pretend it was the +original. Just pretend. + +"Here they come," yelled Drake, echoed by the rippling shout of the +crowd. + +The girl rose, white-faced; striving to pick out the blue and gold of +the Desha stable. + +And here they came, the thirteen starters; thirteen finished examples +of God and man's handicraft. Speed, endurance, skill, nerve, grit--all +were there. Horse and rider trained to the second. Bone, muscle, +sinew, class. And foremost of the string came Swallow, the favorite, +Red McGloin, confidently smiling, sitting with the conscious ease of +the idol who has carried off the past year's Brooklyn Handicap. + +Good horses there were; good and true. There were Black Knight and +Scapegrace, Rightful and Happy Lad, Bean Eater and Emetic--the latter +the great sprinter who was bracketed with Swallow on the book-maker's +sheets. Mares, fillies, geldings--every offering of horse-flesh above +three years. All striving for the glory and honor of winning this +great sprint handicap. The monetary value was the lesser virtue. Eight +thousand dollars for the first horse; fifteen hundred for the second; +five hundred for the third. All striving to be at least placed within +the money--placed for the honor and glory and standing. + +Last of all came The Rogue, black, lean, dangerous. Trained for the +fight of his life from muzzle to clean-cut hoofs. Those hoofs had been +cared for more carefully than the hands of any queen; packed every day +in the soft, velvety red clay brought all the way from the Potomac +River. + +Garrison, in the blue and gold of the Desha stable, his mouth drawn +across his face like a taut wire, sat hunched high on The Rogue's +neck. He looked as lean and dangerous as his mount. His seat was +recognized instantly, before even his face could be discerned. + +A murmur, increasing rapidly to a roar, swung out from every foot of +space. Some one cried "Garrison!" And "Garrison! Garrison! Garrison!" +was caught up and flung back like the spume of sea from the surf- +lashed coast. + +He knew the value of that hail, and how only one year ago his name had +been spewed from out those selfsame laudatory mouths with venom and +contempt. He knew his public. Adversity had been a mighty master. The +public--they who live in the present, not the past. They who swear by +triumph, achievement; not effort. They who have no memory for the +deeds that have been done unless they vouch for future conquests. The +public--fickle as woman, weak as infancy, gullible as credulity, +mighty as fate. Yes, Garrison knew it, and deep down in his heart, +though he showed it not, he gloried in the welcome accorded him. He +had not been forgotten. + +But he had no false hopes, illusions. His had been the welcome +vouchsafed the veteran who is hopelessly facing his last fight. They, +perhaps, admired his grit, his optimism; admired while they pitied. +But how many, how many, really thought he was there to win? How many +thought he could win? + +He knew, and his heart did not quicken nor his pulse increase so much +as a beat. He was cool, implacable, and dangerous as a rattler waiting +for the opportune moment to spring. He looked neither to right nor +left. He was deaf, impervious. He was there to win. That only. + +And he would win? Why not? What were the odds of ten to one? What was +the opinion, the judgment of man? What was anything compared with what +he was fighting for? What horse, what jockey among them all was backed +by what he was backed with? What impulse, what stimulant, what +overmastering, driving necessity had they compared with his? And The +Rogue knew what was expected of him that day. + +It was only as Garrison was passing the grand stand during the +preliminary warming-up process that his nerve faltered. He glanced up +--he was compelled to. A pair of eyes were drawing his. He glanced up +--there was "Cottonton"; "Cottonton" and Sue Desha. The girl's hands +were tightly clenched in her lap, her head thrown forward; her eyes +obliterating space; eating into his own. How long he looked into those +eyes he did not know. The major, his wife, Drake--all were shut out. +He only saw those eyes. And as he looked he saw that the eyes +understood at last; understood all. He remembered lifting his cap. +That was all. + +***** + +"They're off! They're off!" That great, magic cry; fingering at the +heart, tingling the blood. Signal for a roar from every throat; for +the stretching of every neck to the dislocating point; for prayers, +imprecations, adjurations--the entire stock of nature's sentiment +factory. Sentiment, unbridled, unleashed, unchecked. Passion given a +kick and sent hurtling without let or hindrance. + +The barrier was down. They were off. Off in a smother of spume and +dust. Off for the short seven furlongs eating up less than a minute +and a half of time. All this preparation, all the preliminaries, the +whetting of appetites to razor edge, the tilts with fortune, the +defiance of fate, the moil and toil and tribulations of months--all +brought to a head, focused on this minute and a half. All, all for one +minute and a half! + +It had been a clean break from the barrier. But in a flash Emetic was +away first, hugging the rail. Swallow, taking her pace with all +McGloin's nerve and skill, had caught her before she had traveled half +a dozen yards. Emetic flung dirt hard, but Swallow hung on, using her +as a wind-shield. She was using the pacemaker's "going." + +The track was in surprisingly good condition, but there were streaks +of damp, lumpy track throughout the long back and home-stretch. This +favored The Rogue; told against the fast sprinters Swallow and Emetic. +After the two-yard gap left by the leaders came a bunch of four, with +The Rogue in the center. + +"Pocketed already!" yelled some derisively. Garrison never heeded. +Emetic was the fastest sprinter there that day; a sprinter, not a +stayer. There is a lot of luck in a handicap. If a sprinter with a +light weight up can get away first, she may never be headed till the +finish. But it had been a clear break, and Swallow had caught on. + +The pace was heart-breaking; murderous; terrific. Emetic's rider had +taken a chance and lost it; lost it when McGloin caught him. Swallow +was a better stayer; as fast as a sprinter. But if Emetic could not +spread-eagle the field, she could set a pace that would try the +stamina and lungs of Pegasus. And she did. First furlong in thirteen +seconds. Record for the Aqueduct. A record sent flying to flinders. +My! that was going some. Quarter-mile in twenty-four flat. Another +record wiped out. What a pace! + +A great cry went up. Could Emetic hold out? Could she stay, after all? +Could she do what she had never done before? Swallow's backers began +to blanch. Why, why was McGloin pressing so hard? Why? why? Emetic +must tire. Must, must, must. Why would McGloin insist on taking that +pace? It was a mistake, a mistake. The race had twisted his brain. The +fight for leadership had biased his judgment. If he was not careful +that lean, hungry-looking horse, with Garrison up, would swing out +from the bunch, fresh, unkilled by pace-following, and beat him to a +froth. . . . + +There, there! Look at that! Look at that! God! how Garrison is riding! +Riding as he never rode before. Has he come back? Look at him. . . . I +told you so. I told you so. There comes that black fiend across-- It's +a foul! No, no. He's clear. He's clear. There he goes. He's clear. +He's slipped the bunch, skinned a leader's nose, jammed against the +rail. Look how he's hugging it! Look! He's hugging McGloin's heels. +He's waiting, waiting. . . . There, there! It's Emetic. See, she's wet +from head to hock. She is, she is! She's tiring; tiring fast. . . . +See! . . . McGloin, McGloin, McGloin! You're riding, boy, riding. Good +work. Snappy work. You've got Emetic dead to rights. You were all +right in following her pace. I knew you were. I knew she would tire. +Only two furlongs-- What? What's that? . . . Garrison? That plug +Rogue? . . . Oh, Red, Red! . . . Beat him, Red, beat him! It's only a +bluff. He's not in your class. He can't hang on. . . . Beat him, Red, +beat him! Don't let a has-been put it all over you! . . . Ride, you +cripple, ride! . . . What? Can't you shake him off? . . . Slug him! +. . . Watch out! He's trying for the rail. Crowd him, crowd him! . . . +What's the matter with you? . . . Where's your nerve? You can't shake +him off! Beat him down the stretch! He's fresh. He wasn't the fool to +follow pace, like you. . . . What's the matter with you? He's crowding +you--look out, there! Jam him! . . . He's pushing you hard. . . . Neck +and neck, you fool. That black fiend can't be stopped. . . . Use the +whip! Red, use the whip! It's all you've left. Slug her, slug her! +That's it, that's it! Slug speed into her. Only a furlong to go. . . . +Come on, Red, come on! . . . + +Here they come, in a smother of dust. Neck and neck down the stretch. +The red and white of the Morgan stable; the blue and gold of the +Desha. It's Swallow. No, no, it's The Rogue. Back and forth, back and +forth stormed the rival names. The field was pandemonium. "Cottonton" +was a mass of frantic arms, raucous voices, white faces. Drake, his +pudgy hands whanging about like semaphore-signals in distress, was +blowing his lungs out: "Come on, kid come on! You've got him now! He +can't last! Come on, come on!--for my sake, for your sake, for +anybody's sake, but only come!" + +Game Swallow's eyes had a blue film over them. The heart-breaking +pace-following had told. Red's error of judgment had told. The "little +less" had told. A frenzied howl went up. "Garrison! Garrison! +Garrison!" The name that had once meant so much now meant--everything. +For in a swirl of dust and general undiluted Hades, the horses had +stormed past the judges' stand. The great Carter was lost and won. + +Swallow, with a thin streamer of blood threading its way from her +nostrils, was a beaten horse; a game, plucky, beaten favorite. It was +all over. Already The Rogue's number had been posted. It was all over; +all over. The finish of a heart-breaking fight; the establishing of a +new record for the Aqueduct. And a name had been replaced in its +former high niche. The has-been had come back. + +And "Cottonton," led by a white-faced girl and a big, apoplectic +turfman, were forgetting dignity, decorum, and conventionality as hand +in hand they stormed through the surging eruption of humanity fighting +to get a chance at little Billy Garrison's hand. + +And as, saddle on shoulder, he stood on the weighing-scales and caught +sight of the oncoming hosts of "Cottonton" and read what the girl's +eyes held, then, indeed, he knew all that his finish had earned him-- +the beginning of a new life with a new name; the beginning of one that +the lesson he had learned, backed by the great love that had come to +him, would make--paradise. And his one unuttered prayer was: "Dear +God, make me worthy, make me worthy of them--all!" + +Aftermath was a blur to "Garrison." Great happiness can obscure, befog +like great sorrow. And there are some things that touch the heart too +vitally to admit of analyzation. But long afterward, when time, mighty +adjuster of the human soul, had given to events their true +proportions, that meeting with "Cottonton" loomed up in all its +greatness, all its infinite appeal to the emotions, all its appeal to +what is highest and worthiest in man. In silence, before all that +little world, Sue Desha had put her arms about his neck. In silence he +had clasped the major's hand. In silence he had turned to his aunt; +and what he read in her misty eyes, read in the eyes of all, even the +shrewd, kindly eyes of Drake the Silent and in the slap from his +congratulatory paw, was all that man could ask; more than man could +deserve. + +Afterward the entire party, including Jimmie Drake, who was regarded +as the grand master of Cottonton by this time, took train for New +York. Regarding the environment, it was somewhat like a former ride +"Garrison" had taken; regarding the atmosphere, it was as different as +hope from despair. Now Sue was seated by his side, her eyes never once +leaving his face. She was not ordinarily one to whom words were +ungenerous, but now she could not talk. She could only look and look, +as if her happiness would vanish before his eyes. "Garrison" was +thinking, thinking of many things. Somehow, words were unkind to him, +too; somehow, they seemed quite unnecessary. + +"Do you remember this time a year ago?" he asked gravely at length. +"It was the first time I saw you. Then it was purgatory to exist, now +it is heaven to live. It must be a dream. Why is it that those who +deserve least, invariably are given most? Is it the charity of Heaven, +or--what?" He turned and looked into her eyes. She smuggled her hand +across to his. + +"You," she exclaimed, a caressing, indolent inflection in her soft +voice. "You." That "you" is a peculiar characteristic caress of the +Southerner. Its meaning is infinite. "I'm too happy to analyze," she +confided, her eyes growing dark. "And it is not the charity of Heaven, +but the charity of--man." + +"You mustn't say that," he whispered. "It is you, not me. It is you +who are all and I nothing. It is you." + +She shook her head, smiling. There was an air of seductive luxury +about her. She kept her eyes unwaveringly on his. "You," she said +again. + +"And there's old Jimmie Drake," added "Garrison" musingly, at length, +a light in his eyes. He nodded up the aisle where the turfman was +entertaining the major and his wife. "There's a man, Sue, dear. A man +whose friendship is not a thing of condition nor circumstance. I will +always strive to earn, keep it as I will strive to be worthy of your +love. I know what it cost Drake to scratch Speedaway. I will not, +cannot forget. We owe everything to him, dear; everything." + +"I know," said the girl, nodding. "And I, we owe everything to him. He +is sort of revered down home like a Messiah, or something like that. +You don't know those days of complete misery and utter hopelessness, +and what his coming meant. He seemed like a great big sun bursting +through a cyclone. I think he understands that there is, and always +will be, a very big, warm place in Cottonton's heart for him. At +least, we-all have told him often enough. He's coming down home with +us now--with you." + +He turned and looked steadily into her great eyes. His hand went out +to meet hers. + +"You," whispered the girl again. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Garrison's Finish, by W. B. M. Ferguson + |