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Garrison's Finish, A Romance of the RaceCourse........................................................................................1

As he made his way out of the paddock Garrison carefully tilted his bag of Durham into the curved

ricepaper held between nicotinestained 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

He smiled cynically as he shouldered his way through the slowly moving crowdthat kaleidoscope of the

humanities which congregate but do not blend; which coagulate wherever the trial of science, speed, and

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 atmosphereone not so resentful. For it had been a hard day for

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 thingsrecorded faithfully so many, many things he would give

He was choking, smotheringsmothering with shame, hopelessness, despair. He must get away; get away to

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,

He knew what the action of the Jockey Club would be. The stewards would do only one thing. His license

would be revoked. Today had seen his finish. This, the tenthousand 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

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

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 straightride as he could, as he did, as it had been

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 unflinchinglythat

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

"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

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 graywhite

"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 pentup venom

was unleashed. "You threw it. You've tried to make me party to your dirty workme, 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

"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. II didn't throw it. I was sick. II've been sick.

II" 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. Youyou'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 dishonoreddown 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

Instantly there was a mixup. The crowd was bloodhungry. 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

The blows were caught on the thick arm of a tan boxcoat. 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

Jimmy was a popular bookmaker with educated fists. The crowd surged closer. It looked as if the fight

"If yeh want to fight kids," said the bookmaker, in his slow, drawling voice, "wait till they're grown up.

Waterbury was on his feet now. He let loose some vitriolic verbiage, using Drake as the objectivepoint. He

told him to mind his own business, or that he would make it hot for him. He told him that Garrison was a

"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 snowshovel. "I stepped in here not

to argue morals, but to see fair play. If Billy Garrison's done dirtand I admit it looks close like itI'll bet

Instantly Drake's large face stiffened like cement, and his overcoat was on the ground.

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

Meanwhile, Garrison, taking advantage of the switching of the lime light from himself to Drake, had

"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 windup.

You've struck bedrock and the tide's coming inhard. 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 eyeseyes 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 potatorace? 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 poolroom like all the hasbeens

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

He stopped, and his face slowly relaxed. The hard, vindictive look slowly faded from his narrowed eyes.

He swung on his heel, and with hunched shoulders made his way back to Aqueduct. Waterbury's

trainingquarters were adjacent, and, after lurking furtively about like some hunted animal, Garrison

The only stableboy 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

"Hello, Red!" said Garrison gruffly. He had been Red's idol once. He was quite prepared now, however, to

"In there." Red nodded to the left where were situated the stalls. "Gettin' Sis ready for the Belmont opening."

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

"Kid," he said, and his voice quivered, "you know I wish you luck. It's a great gamethe 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

SisSis 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 stableboy. "I guess the stewards will let the race stand, even if

"Yeh, because yeh choked Sis off in th' stretch. She could ha' slept home a winner, an' yeh know it, Billy,"

There was a time when he never would have dared to call Garrison by his Christian name. Disgrace is a great

"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 Statesat least, yeh could." And

"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'

hurryup stunt. An' yeh're all right to your owner so long's yeh make good. After that it's twentythree,

fortysix, 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' bandwagon. 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 advicethey 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

"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

Crimmins, the trainer, looked up sharply as Garrison entered. He was a small, hard man, with a face like an

icepick 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 exbookie, knew what he was about when he appointed

"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

"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,

"Yeh," continued the upright trainer; "that's Dan Crimmins' way. And after much agitating of my brain I've

"Yeh." And the trainer lowered his voice. "I know a man that's goin' to buck the poolrooms in New York.

He needs a chap who knows the ropesone like youand 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

poolroom 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

"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

The handlers fell back in silence as Garrison approached the filly. He was softly humming the musichall

song, "Goodby, 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 goodby. 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 goodby to me. Do you care?"

The filly nuzzled at his shoulder. "I've done you dirt today," 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 youI can't. You don't think me a crook, Sis? Say you don't. Say it," he

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

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,

twoyear 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

"No, it doesn't take much thinking, Dan," agreed Garrison slowly, his eyes narrowed. "I'll rot first before I

"Yes?" The trainer raised his thick eyebrows and lowered his thin voice. "Kind of tony, ain't yeh? Beggars

"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 anythinganything; 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

"Huh! Wanted you to go crooked?" flashed the trainer with a sneer. "What are y' talking about? Ain't yeh a

"You mean that, Dan?" Garrison's face was white. "You've trained me, and yet you, too, believe I was in on

"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'

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 musichall favorite,

"Goodby, Sis"humming in a desperate effort to keep his nerve. Billy Garrison had touched bottom in the

Garrison left Long Island for New York that night. When you are hard hit the soul suffers a reflexaction. 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 bloodgood, clean bloodto the GarrisonLoring entente cordialea polite definition of a huge

From his mother Garrison had inherited his cool head, steady eye, and the intuitive hands that could compel

horseflesh like a magnet. From her he had inherited a peculiar recklessness and swift daring. From his

fatherwell, Garrison never liked to talk about his father. His mother was a memory; his father a blank. He

was a goodlooking, bad living sprig of a straight familytree. He had met his wife at the New Orleans

track, where her father, an amateur horseowner, 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 offat 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 magnifyingglass. Her life with Garrison was a constant whirlwind of

changing scene and fortunethe perpetual merryor sorrygoround of a bookmaker; 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

trunkwhen it wasn't held for hotel bills but she had lived out her mistake gamely.

When the boy cameBillyshe 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

mostin his selfish way. And Garrison resented the arrival of Billy. He resented sharing his wife's affection

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

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 starvationbut with an insistent ambition

goading one onare 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

manthe easy, rosestrewn way, big and broad and scented, that ends in a bottomless abyss filled with bitter

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 bandwagon to the finish, never asking where it

might lead; never caring. He had youth, reputation, moneyhe 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

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,

Billy Garrison huddled down now in the roaring train as he thought of it. It was always before him, a

demoniacal obsessionthat morning when he coughed, and a bright speck of arterial blood stood out like a

tardy dangersignal against the white of his handkerchief; it was leering at him, saying: "I have been here

Consumptionthe jockey's Old Man of the Seahad 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

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 exerciseboy; rode despicably. The Carter Handicap had finished his deal.

He had done many things in his mad years of prosperitythe 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

And so at twentytwo, when the average young man is leaving college for the real taste of life, little Garrison

For obvious reasons Garrison had not chosen his usual haven, the smokingcar, 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," "hasbeen," "wouldbe," "willbe" has enemies. It is well they have. Nothing is lost in

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 slouchhat. His eyes were looking inward, not outward; they did not see his surroundings; they were

The present, the future, did not exist; only the past livedlived 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

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 slategray 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

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 snapshots 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

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

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."

Garrison halflowered 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 halfvacant seat beside the girl with the slatecolored 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.

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 hatbrim. 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

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.

Garrison avoided a scene for the girl's sake. He tapped the man on the shoulder.

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 papertwelve 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.

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

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

"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? Youyou contemptible littlelittle

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!"

Meanwhile Garrison had silently walked into the smoker. He tried to dismiss the incident from his mind, but

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 doubleleaded 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

"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

Garrison crumpled up the paper and buried his face in his hands, making no pretense of hiding his misery.

"SisSis," he whispered over and over again, the tears burning to his eyes, his throat choking: "I didn't get a

On arriving at the Thirtyfourth Street ferry Garrison idly boarded a Fortysecond 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

Garrison drifted hither and thither with every cross eddy of humanity, and finally dropped into the steady

pulsating, evermoving tide on the west curb going souththe ever restless tide that never seems to reach

the open sea. As he passed one wellknown caf� 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 himwith his own wine; toasted him as the kingpin. Now they either

nodded absently or became suddenly vitally interested in a showwindow 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

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

A lesson in mankind and the making had been coming to Garrison, and in that short walk down Broadway he

"Think I had the mange or the plague," he mused grimly, as a plethoric exalderman passed and

absentmindedly forgot to return his bowan 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 megone! I'm down on my luckhard. And it's not over yet.

He shivered through sheer nervous exhaustion, though the night was warm for midApril. He rummaged in

"One dollar in birdseed," 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.

He was standing on the corner of Twentyfifth Street, and unconsciously he turned into the caf� 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 twothirds of those present. Some there were who nodded,

some kindly, some pityingly. Some there were who cut him dead, deliberately turning their backs or

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

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.

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 bookmaker 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

"What's that to me?" spat out Billy venomously. "I'm not afraid of him. No call to be."

"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

"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

"Kid," he said finally, "I don't like to think it of youbut 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

"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!

"The paper lies! Lies, do you hear? Let me see it! Let me see it! Where does it say that? Where, where? Show

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

"It's not enough to havehave 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 stablehands say that. It looks bad, kid. Here, don't take it so hard. Get a cinch on yourself,"

"I'm all right. I'm all right," muttered Billy vaguely, passing a hand over his throbbing temples.

"Kid," he blurted out at length, "it looks as if you were all in. Say, let me be your bankroll, 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

"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

"Well," said Drake, finally and uncomfortably, "if you ever want it, Billy, you know where to come for it. I

Garrison continued staring at the floor. This, then, was the reason why the sporting world had cut him dead;

for a horsepoisoner is ranked in the same category as that assigned to the horsestealer of the Western

frontier. There, a man's horse is his life; to the turfman it is his fortuneone and the same. And so Crimmins

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

Garrison considered the issue paramount. He was furious, though so seemingly indifferent. Every ounce of

resentment in his nature had been focused to the burningpoint. 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,

Crimminsthe world, if necessary. And mingled with the warp and woof of this resolve was another; one

that he determined would comprise the colorscheme 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

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

"And I say," concluded the one whose nasal twang bespoke the New Englander; "I say that it was a dirty race

"One paper hints that the stable was in on it; wanted to hit the bookies hard," put in his companion

"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 halfsister. 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

"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 plungedheavy. 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 Garrisona miserable little whelp; that's what he is. He ought to have poisoned himself

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

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 caf�'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 blas� 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

"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

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

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

spiritbottle, 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

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 brainfever had set in, brought on by the excitement he had undergone and finished

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! Nownow 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

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

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

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

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

This oblivion may have been the manifestation of an allwise 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

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

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

"Pardon me, you have made a mistake." Garrison stared coldly, blankly at Drake, shook free his arm, and

"Gee, what a cut!" mused the bookmaker, 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.

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 postgraduate 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

He had no commercial education; nothing but the /savoirfaire/ 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

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 breadline, to go the rounds of the homeless "onenight

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,

If he had only taken to the track, his passionlegitimate passion for horseflesh would have pulled 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 wellfed 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

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

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 lodginghouses are severely crude and primitive. For the sake of sanitation,

the whilom lodger's clothes are put in a net and fumigated in a germdestroying temperature. The men

congregate together in one long room, in various stages of pre Adamite costumes, and the shower is turned

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, cleanshaven mouth. He was

welldressed, and was continually probing with a quill toothpick at his goldfilled front teeth, evidently

"My name's SnarkTheobald 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

"You'll like me when you do," supplemented the eminent lawyer coolly. "Merely a matter of business, you

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

The journey to Nassau Street was completed in silence, Mr. Snark centering all his faculties on his teeth, and

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 towelcabinet, he assumed a very preoccupied and highly official

mien at his rollertop desk, where he became vitally interested in a batch of letters, presumably that

Then the eminent lawyer delved importantly into an empty letterfile; 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

Ordinarily Garrison would have begged him to go to a climate where thermometers are not in demand, but

"Good, William," said the eminent lawyer, smiling at himself in the little mirror of the towelcabinet. He

understood that he possessed a thin vein of humor. Necessary quality for an eminent lawyer. "And no

"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 CalvertMajor 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

"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 DaggetWilliam C. Dagget. His mother was a halfsister of Major Calvert's. The search for this

nephew has been going on for almost a yearsince Major Calvert heard of his brotherinlaw's deathbut

The eminent lawyer cleared his throat eloquently and relighted the athletic cigar, which had found occasion to

"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 heirif 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

"Well, I've found him at last. You are he, Mr. Good. Mr. Good, my heartiest congratulations, sir." And Mr.

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."

"Exactly, my son, the longlost 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 collarbone. 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

"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 twentyfive thousand or so when you come into the estate on your uncle's

The eminent lawyer, his calculating eye still on Garrison, then proceeded with much forensic ability and

"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 kindhearted 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

"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

"We'll let my discovery of you stand as it is, only we'll substitute the swimmingpool 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 headwho have time and again distinctly heard your childish prattle regarding

"I'll wire on that longlost nephew has been found, and you can proceed to lie right down in your

readymade bed of roses. There won't be any thorns. Bit of a step up from municipal lodginghouses, 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

And what thoughts they were! What excuses he made to himselfpoor hostages to a fastcrumbling 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

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 allhis 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

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 longlost

nephew, in company with Mr. Snark, was to start the next day for Cottonton, Virginia. The telegram was

"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 forfor" mechanically he went to the small towelcabinet and gravely

"To the longlost 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 goodby to Gotham had been said. It had not been difficult for Garrison

to say goodby. 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 goodby 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

"There they arethe major and his wife," whispered Snark, gripping his arm and nodding out of the window

to where a tall, cleanshaven, whitehaired 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 twoseated phaeton, with a

pair of clean limbed bays. The driver was not a negro, as is usually the case in the South, but a tightfaced

Garrison never remembered how he got through his introduction to his "uncle" and "aunt." His homecoming

was a dream. The sense of shame was choking him as Major Calvert seized both hands in a stonecrushed

And then Mrs. Calvert, a dear, middleaged 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

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

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 peacefulthe blue sky, the waving

cornfields, 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 yearold 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

Garrison made some absentminded, 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

"I'm right glad to see you," said the girl, finally, a slow blush coming to the tan of her cheek. She slowly drew

"The honor is mine," returned Garrison mechanically, as he replaced his hat. Where had he heard that throaty

A week had passeda 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 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 "homecoming," for the Calvert

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

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

"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 longdeferred payment."

The major was present, and Garrison felt the hot blood surge to his face, as the former's eyes were riveted

"Youth is a prodigal spendthrift," put in the major sadly. "But isn't it hereditary, doctor? Perhaps the seed was

"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 darkbrown stain,

doesn't it? That's what your lungs are likecoated 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 forfresh air. Then, your vitality is nearly bankrupt. You've

made an old curiosityshop out of your stomach. You require regular sleeptons of it"

"But I'm never sleepy," argued Garrison, feeling very much like a schoolboy catechised by his master. "When

"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

"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

He bent his white brows and regarded Garrison steadily out of his keen eyes, in which lurked a fund of

"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'tnot 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; alsoyour

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

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

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 fleshpots, nor because of any monetary benefits, present or future. He lived in

For Garrison had fallen in love with his nextdoor 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 contentthe whole gamut of the virtueshell awoke in little Billy

The second time he had seen her was the day following his arrival, and when he had started on Doctor

"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

She was bareheaded, dressed in a blue sailor costume, her sleeves rolled high on her firm, tanned arms. She

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

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 magnoliatree, and then the girl

"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."

"Oh, but you're not; not a little bit. Do you know you're veryvery 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

"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."

A sudden vague passion mouthed at Garrison's heart. "Ride?" he echoed, eyes far away. "II think so."

"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

"It is small," admitted Garrison, eyeing it ruefully. "I wish I had thought of asking mother to give me a bigger

"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

"You know," she continued, her great eyes halfclosed, "I was awfully anxious to see you when I heard you

She turned and faced him, her grey eyes opened wide. "Why? Isn't one always interested in one's future

It was Garrison who was confused. Something caught at his throat. He stammered, but words would not

"Didn't you know we were engaged?" asked the girl, with childlike simplicity and astonishment. "Oh, yes.

"Of course. Before we were born. Your uncle and aunt and my parents had it all framed up. I thought you

"Butbut," expostulated Garrison, his face white, "supposing the real meI mean, supposing I had not

"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, andconnubial 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

Garrison was silent, staring with hard eyes at the ground. He could not begin to analyze his thoughts.

"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.

"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 youall 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 homewhich 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 lovefeast, with

"And then I turned upa little, undersized, nothingless pea, instead of the regular patented, doubleaction,

"And of course you, too, were horribly disappointed?" she added, after a moment's pause, tapping her oxford

"Yes; I amhorribly," 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

Garrison eyed her in silence, the smile on his lips. She returned the look, her face flushed.

'You'll have to call me Sue. You're Billy; I'm Sue. That's one of the minor penalties. Our prenatal engagement

"Sue, then. Sue," continued Garrison quietly, "from your type, I thought you fashioned of better material.

Now, don't explodeyet a while. I mean property and parents' blessing should not weigh a curse with you.

Yes; I said cursedamn, if you wish. If you loved, this burlesque engagement should not stand in your way.

"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 onethe dark, clinging girland let me free? You want me to

Garrison considered. "I never thought of that, honestly!" he said, with a laugh. "I would elope quick enough,

"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 goodhumoredly. "How you must detest me! But cheer up, my sister in misery! You will marry

"Will I?" she asked enigmatically. Her eyes were halfshut, watching Garrison's profile. "Will I, soothsayer?"

"You will. One of the equations of the problem will be eliminated, and thus will be found the answer."

"It must be nice to be loved like that." Her eyes were wide and far away. "To have one renounce relatives,

"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 selfishvery selfish?"

"I believe the Bible says to leave all and cleave unto your wife," returned Garrison.

"And why this hurry? Aren't you depriving your uncle and aunt unnecessarily early?"

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

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 focusingpoint of the misty past forever out of focus.

"Of course," she said gravely, "you are not sincere when you say your primal reason for leaving would be in

"Is insincerity necessarily added to my numerous physical infirmities?" he bantered.

"Not necessarily. But there is always the love to make a virtue of necessityespecially when there's some

"But did I say that would be my primal reason for leavingsetting you free? I thought I merely stated it as

"Is there such a hurry? Won't you let me ferret out a pair of pajamas, to say nothing of goodbys?"

"How silly you are!" she said coldly, rising. "The question, then, rests entirely with you. Whenever you make

"Couldn't we let it hang fire indefinitely? Perhaps you could learn to love me. Then there would be no need to

Miss Desha returned his look steadily. "And the other girlthe 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

"And no question of dishonesty enters into it?" He could not say why he asked. "It is not, then, a matter of

"Sensitiveness," she finished dryly. "I really think I prefer rank dishonesty, if it is offset by courtesy and good

Here Mrs. Calvert made her appearance, with a book and sunshade. She was a woman whom a sunshade

"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 tenniscourt. 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

"In this instance you can believe them," commented the girl. She turned to Mrs. Calvert. "Whose ravings are

"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 elementsif it contains any. He is so miserably

busydoing nothing, as usual. But it is a labor of love. If we women are denied children, we must interest

"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

Picketdear 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

He took the book from her unwilling hand. A fullpage photograph of Sis was confronting him. He studied it

"II 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 youall heard of her

"Why, I believe I did hear that she was poisoned, or something to that effect, now that you mention it." His

"You look as if you had seen a ghost," laughed Sue, her eyes on the magnoliatree.

"Is the major going in for the Carter this year?" asked the girl, turning to Mrs. Calvert. "Who will he

"I think so. She is the logical choice." Mrs. Calvert was nervously prodding the gravel with her sunshade.

"I think father is responsible for that. Since Rogue won the last Carter, father is horsemad, and has infected

"Then it will be friend against friend," laughed Mrs. Calvert. "For, of course, the colonel will run Rogue

'II 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

"Racing can be carried to excess, like everything," said the older woman, at length. "I suppose the colonel

The girl nodded. There was silence, each member of the trio evidently engrossed with thoughts that were of

Mrs. Calvert was idly thumbing over the racetrack 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 meyes, it's ended here. Oh, it

must have been the photograph and record of that jockey, Billy Garrison! Remember him? What a brilliant

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 ridingclothes in your room, I think. I recommend an excellent teacher in Sue. Goodby, and

Garrison's heart was pounding strangely. His mouth was dry. "Yes, yes," he said eagerly.

The tightfaced cockney, Crimmins, was in the stable when Garrison, in ridingbreeches, puttee leggings,

etc., entered. Four names were whirling over and over in his brain ever since they had been first mentioned.

Four namesSis, Waterbury, Garrison, and Crimmins. He did not know whey they should keep recurring

"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 stiddygoin' as a alarum clock. Ho, yuss. I calls 'im Waterbury

Watchpartly 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.

"Three years, sir. Ho, yuss. Thoroughbred. Castoff 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,

Garrison turned, speaking mechanically. "I wonder do you think I'm a fool! Sysonby himself won the

Brighton sweepstakes in nineteenfour. It was the beginning of his racing career, and an easy win. This

animal here is a plug; an outandout plug of the first water. He never saw Hamburg Belle or

Sysonbythey never mated. This plug's a sevenyearold, 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

Crimmins shifted the cud again to hide his astonishment at Garrison's sudden /savoirfaire/.

"She hasn't been handled right. Her mouth's hard, but her temper's even. I'll ride her," said Garrison shortly.

"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 clothesbasket 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

"Cripes!" ejaculated the veracious Crimmins, as wideeyed 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 'orseflesh. 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

Moralizing on the deceptiveness of appearances, Crimmins fortified himself with another slab of cutplug.

Miss Desha, up on a big bay gelding with white stockings, was waiting on the Logan Pike, where the

"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 cowa nice, amiable cow; speedy as a

"Ummm," said Garrison; "why, yes, I suppose so." He laughed in sudden joy. "It feels so good," he

"You remind me of a person in a dream," she said, after a little, still watching him closely. "Nothing seems

"Come on, I'll race you," she cried suddenly. "To that big poplar down there. See it? About two furlongs. I'll

"I gave, never took, handicaps." The words came involuntarily to Garrison's surprise. "Come on; even up," he

The big bay gelding was off first, with the long, heartbreaking 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

"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 trackfamous once upon a time, and as Garrison eased up his

harddriven mount a queer feeling of exultation swelled his heart; a feeling which he could not quite

"Could I have been a jockey once?" he kept asking himself over and over. "I wonder could I have been! I

"I'll bet that was close to twentyfour, the track record," said Garrison unconsciously. "Pretty fair for dead

and lumpy going, eh? Midge is a comer, all right. Good weightcarrying sprinter. I fancy that gelding.

"And so you think I cannot ride properly!" added the girl quietly, arranging her windblown hair.

She laughed a little. "I'm satisfied now. You know I was at the Carter Handicap last year."

"Yes, you know Rogue, father's horse, won. They say Sis, the favorite, had the race, but was pulled in the

She glanced at him sharply, then fell to pleating the gelding's mane. "Ummm," she added softly. "Billy

"Yes. And, do you know, his seat was identical with yours?" She turned and eyed him steadily.

"Yes," she continued dreamily, the smile at her lips; "it's funny, of course, but Billy Garrison used to be my

"Oh, well," observed Garrison, "I dare say any number of girls loved Billy Garrison. Popular idol, you

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

smokingcar. And who do you think should be sitting opposite me, two seats ahead, but Who do you

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, "erlet 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

"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

"I've always wanted to apologize to Mr. Garrison, though I do not know himhe 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 wonderI

"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

"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

"No? Ummm, 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.

"I don't understand a wordnot 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

"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.

Proudthatthatwell, that I rode a race with you today. 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

Garrison eyed her steadily. His face was white, his breath coming hot and hard. Something was

beatingbeating in his brain as if striving to jam through. Finally he shook his head.

"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

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

jockeyBilly Garrison. The face was more youthful, carefree. Otherwise it was a fair likeness.

Garrison studied it long and carefully. "YesI do," he murmured, in a perplexed tone. "A double. Funny,

"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

"I must thank you for your kindness, even though it went astray. May I have it?"

"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

"What's bred in the bone will come out in the blood," she quoted enigmatically. She was smiling in a way that

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 memorythat plate on which the negatives of the past were but

filmy shadows. Now, of them all, the same Garrison was on the skyline 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 racetrack 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

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

"Born in eightytwo. Just my age, I guessthough I can't swear how old I am, for I don't know. Stableboy

for James R. Keene. Contract bought by Henry Waterbury. Highest price ever paid for boughtup 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 yetthey 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

Garrisonthen by my present rank deception I've queered a good record. But I know I'm not. I'm a nobody.

Major Calvert was seated by his desk in the great oldfashioned library, intently scanning various

racingsheets and the multitudinous data of the track. A greater part of his time went to the cultivation of his

one hobbythe track and horsesfor by reason of his financial standing, having large cotton and

He spent his mornings and afternoons either in his stables or at the extensive trainingquarters of his stud,

A friendly rivalry had long existed between his neighbor and friend, Colonel Desha, and himself in the matter

of horseflesh. The colonel was from KentuckyKentucky originand 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

"Just look at Rogue and my daughter, Sue, suh," he was wont to say with pardonable pride. "Thoroughbreds

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

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

Dixie, a threeyearold filly whom he had recently purchased, showed unmistakable evidences of winning

class in her tryouts, 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 furlongsand a beating. That is, of course," he always

concluded, with goodhumored vexation, "providing the colonel doesn't pick up in New York an animal that

"I thought you were in bed, boy. Leave late hours to age. You're looking better these days. I think Doctor

Blandly's openair physic is firstrate, eh? By the way, Crimmins tells me you were out on Midge today,

and that you ridewell, 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

"Oh, I merely know a horse's tail from his head," laughed Garrison indifferently. "Speaking of Garrison, did

"How many times have I asked you to say uncle, not major?" reproved Major Calvert. "Don't you feel as if

"You've been more than kind," blurted out Garrison uncomfortably. "More than gooduncle." He was

"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.

"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 tomorrow. 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

"Nothing more than I've said. He was a firstclass 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

Garrison felt the hot blood mounting to his face. "IIthat is, II like her. Very much indeed." He

"I knew you would, boy. There's good blood in that girlthe 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 schoolchum of minewe're never out of school in this worldand my wife was a

nurserychum of Sue's mothershe was killed on the huntingfield ten years ago. Your aunt and I have

always regarded the girl as our own. God somehow neglected to give us a chickprobably we would have

"I understand that Sue and I are intended for each other," observed Garrison, a halfcynical smile at his lips.

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

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

"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 today. It

got mixed up in my mail by accident." He opened the deskdrawer 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

"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

"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 Yorkone's appetite develops with

cultivation, and mine has been starved for yearsand 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

hottempered, deplorably addicted to firearms, and I don't think you would look a pretty sight if you

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

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 gobut he could not, would not. He decided to take the

cowardly, halfway measure. He had not the courage for renunciation. He would stay until this pot of

He was not afraid of the eminent Mr. Snark. Possession is in reality tentenths of the law. The lawyer had

cleverly proven hisGarrison'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 himselffor 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 overworking a tool that might snap in his hand or cut both ways. So Garrison

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 racetrack 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

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

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

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

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 guestchamber. He was of the abdominal variety of the animal species, eating and sleeping his way

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 Suein 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

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

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

Sue threw on a dressinggown and entered her father's room. He was in a light green bathrobe, his white hair

"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."

"Eh?" Then Colonel Desha frowned, coughed, and finally laughed. "Still a child, I see," he added, with a

"Yeswhen 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 tenmile

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 lovemarriage temporarily increased the primal funds, but more

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

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 easygoing mooning colonel had exerted himself to that extent. She

insisted upon using onehalf the yearly income for household expenses; the other the colonel could fritter

away as he chose upon his racingstable and his secondary hobbyan 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

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

The colonel recommenced his pacing. Sue, hands clasped around knees, watched him with steady, unwinking

"It's not the deviled crab, daddy," she said quietly, at length. "It's something else. 'Fess up. You're in trouble. I

Colonel Desha vaguely passed a hand through his hair, then, mechanically yielding to the superior strength

"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,

mountsall the jargon of the turf. The dam of his mind had given way, and a flood of thoughts, hopes, fears

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 talespawn of the

The colonel, swollen with the winning of the Carter Handicap, had conceived the idea that he was possessor

of a Godgiven 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

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

"Whatwhat have I been saying?" he cried tensely. He attempted a laugh, a denial; caught his daughter's

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

"YesI 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

booksup on The Rogue. He'll win the Carter as sure as there's a God in heaven. It's a tenthousand stake,

and I've had twenty on himthe balanceyour 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

Sue's face was averted, eyes on floor, hands tensely clasping those of her father. Absolute stillness held the

"It'sit's all right, girlie. All right, don't fret," he murmured thickly. "The Rogue will winbound to win.

"Of course, Daddy," agreed Sue slowly, wideeyed. "I'm only a child. I don't understand."

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 Housea modern racingstable in every sense of the wordand early the next

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 womanand 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

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 rightbut 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

Perhaps he even might possess the qualifications of an exerciseboy; he had the builda 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 exerciseboy 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 othersquickness

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 devilmaycare; Just a bit of bone and meat, With plenty of

And "Father Bill" Daly ought to know above all others, for he has trained more famous jockeys than any

There are two essential points in the training of racehorsessecrecy 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 goodhearted and bullheaded that Crimmins had come to view his master's racing aspirations

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

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 twentyfive 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 weatherbeaten duster fluttering in the wind, took his accustomed perch on the rail, while

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 beforeto the roar of thousands of voicespossessed

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 balkstop dead in her stride. He had known such

As soon as Garrison's feet touched stirrups all the condensed, colossal knowledge of track and horseflesh,

gleaned by the sweating labor of years, came tingling to his fingertips. Judgment, instinct, daring, nerve,

were all his; at his beck and call; serving their master. He felt every inch the veteran he wasthough he

knew it not. It was not a freak of nature. He had worked, worked hard for knowledge, and it would not be

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 finespun silk slips through a

shuttle. She was highstrung, sensitive to a degree, but Garrison understood her, and she answered his

It was impressive riding to those who knew the filly's irritability, uncertainty. Cleancut veteran

horsemanship, with horse and rider as one; a mechanically precise pace, heartbreaking 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 Cartersome one who could ride; ride and understand. I've found

that some one in my nephew. You'll ride herride as no one else can. God knows how you learned the

gameI don't. But know it you do. Nor do I pretend to know how you understand the filly. I don't

"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 itslave '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' beaneating

Dutchman! 'E's th' top spit of Garrisonth' 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

"Come, haven't you ridden before, eh?" he asked goodhumoredly. "It's no disgrace, boy. Is it hardwon

science, as Crimmins says, or merely an unbelievable and curious freak of nature, eh?"

"If I've ever ridden a mount beforeI'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

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

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

horseflesh. And if the acid little cockney suspected that Garrison had ever carried a jockey's license or been

trackbred, 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

She was broadmindedthe 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

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 daughtera 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

Every spare minute of his dayand he had manythe 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

The Rogue's success meant everything to himeverything 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 drinklike 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

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

Fear never would have given the turfman the entr�e 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; "Soand 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

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.

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

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 necessaryhe who had watched

without the flicker of an eyelash a fortune lost by an inch of horseflesh. And if the girl knew, she gave no

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 parentfostered 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 GarrisonDesha 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 molehill into a mountain.

But one memorable evening, when the boyish and enthusiastic major and Garrison returned from an allday

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

Mrs. Calvert's good nature was not the good nature of the faint hearted or weakkneed. 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

"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 tonight and straighten it out. These little tiffs have to be killed earlylike spring

chickens. Sue has her dander up, I tell you. She met your aunt today. Said flatly that she had broken the

"Eh, demmit; pride, boy, pride," said the major confidently. "Now, run along over and apologize; scratch

humble gravelclear 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 pressagent. It's woman's

positionand delight. She values man on her own valuationnot his. Women are illogicalthat's why they

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 downstairs. 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 magnoliatree shadowing the broad walk. A clear threequarter

"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

"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

Garrison eyed him. Crimmins? Crimmins? The name was part of his dream. What had he been to this man?

"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

"It's this way," began Crimmins, once the shelter of the pike was gained. "I'm Billy Crimmins' brotherthe

chap who trains for Major Calvert. Now, I was down an' outI guess you know whyan' 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.

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.

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 nephewno

more than the Sheik of Umpooba. I'm ashamed of you. Tryin' on a game like that with your old trainer, who

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.

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 allall; like a little child

"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 rideride like glory. I'll win for

youanything. 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

"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

"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 sympathyhe

needs money. Here's three thousand dollarsall 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

"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 itfor 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

"ThenI'm married?" asked Garrison slowly. He laugheda 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

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 neckandneck down the stretch, snatching

victory by sheer, condensed, bulldog grit. Crimmins knew of old what that mouth portended, and he spoke

"Don't do anything rash, Bud. Bygones is bygones, and, as the Bible says: 'Circumstances alters cases,'

"Then this is how I stand," cut in Garrison steadily, unheeding the advice. He counted the dishonorable tally

on his fingers. "I'm a horsepoisoner, a thief, a welcher. I've deserted my wife and family. I owe youhow

"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 wrongedtreated like" He

"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

"Shut up," blazed Garrison savagely. "I knowwhat I've done. Fouled those I'm not fit to grovel to. I

"You don't mean to say you're goin' to welch again?" asked the horrified Crimmins. "Goin' to tell the

"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.

"See here," inserted Crimmins, dangerously reasonable, "your little whitewashing 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

"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 meyes,

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 yourselfyourself 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

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,

Then Crimmins spoke; through his teeth, and very slowly: "So you'll go to Waterbury, eh?" And he nodded

the words home. "Youlittle 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 moneywant it

quick!" he spat, taking a step forward. "You want hatred, eh? Well, hatred you'll have, boy. Hatred that I've

Garrison blotted out the insult to his mother's memory with his knuckles. "And that's for your friendship," he

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 hardearned fistic education roused, was waiting; waiting

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 sidestepped, and his fist clacked under Crimmins' chin. Neither spoke. Again

A great splatter of hoofbeats 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 saddlegirth flapped raggedly. Garrison

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.

It was Waterbury who was lying unconscious on the lonely Logan Pike; Waterbury who had been thrown as

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

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

On this occasion she was in the humor to dare the impossible; dare through sheer irritability of heartnot

mind. And so she saddled Lethean 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 tonight. 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 allpowerful 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

As she turned for home, Waterbury rode out of the deepening shadows behind her. He had left the colonel at

his breedingfarm. 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

bridlerein; 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,

"There!" he panted, releasing her. He laughed foolishly, biting his nails. His mouth felt as if roofed with

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 beatingbeating 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

Desperation came to help him brave those eyescame and failed. He talked, declaimed, avowedgrew

brutally frank. Finally he spoke of the mortgage he held, and waited, breathing heavily, for the answer. There

"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

"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 today, on my way

to the track. He didn't see me. When I knew him his name was GarrisonBilly 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, lowdown"

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 bridlerein. She whipped the

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 fastdisappearing 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 moonswept 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, shadowflecked 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

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 spumesmeared bit, swung the

gelding across the filly's right of way; then, with his right hand, choked the fight from her widespread

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.

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,

"Oh!" she said softly, "it'sit'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 armsa 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. Whywhy had she not known!

"Because," he said feeblyhis 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 aa 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"

"No." In sharp staccato sentences he told her of his lapse of memory. "It was not because I was a thief;

"That I'm abeast?" he asked grimly. "Yes, it's true. You doubt me, don't you? You think I knew my

"Andyou think it necessary, imperative that you go away?" There was an unuttered sob in her voice,

"I do." He laughed a littlethe 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

"And you think that of me? You would think it of me? No, from the first I knew you were Garrison"

"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 understandnow," 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 knowall."

"Ummm." 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

"II 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.

He obeyed automatically, not striving to fathom the great charity of her silence. And then he told allall.

Even as he had told that very good trainer and righteous friend, Dan Crimmins. His voice was perfectly

"Andand that's all," he whispered. "God knows it's enoughtoo much." He drew himself away as some

"All that, all that, and you only a boy," whispered the girl, half to herself. "You must not tell the major. You

"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. Iknow." She crushed her

"A murderer if you stay," she answered. "And Mr. Waterburyhe will flay youkeep you in the mire. I

"You are very kindvery kind. You do not say you loathe me." He arose abruptly, clenching his hands

"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

"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 youanywhere," 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 areI 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

He caught both wrists and eyed her. She was panting, but her eyes met his unwaveringly, gloriously

unashamed. He fought for every word. "Don'ttemptmeSue. 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

meeverything. Help me to think of you, not of myself. You must guard yourself. I'm tired of fightingI

He drew back. He had forgotten. He turned away, head bowed. Both were fightingfighting against

"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. Goodby, Sue. I go to the girl up North. You are above me in every wayinfinitely above me. Yes,

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 bloodvessel 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

He was like a raw recruit who has been lying on the firingline, suffering the agonies of apprehension, of

imagination; experiencing the proximity of death in cold blood, without the heat of action to render him

Garrison had been on the firingline 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 awayto flee from himself. Afterward, analysis of actions would come. At present, only action; only

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

tenfifteen. He would have time if he rode hard. With head bowed, shoulders hunched, he bent over the

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 observationcar 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 selfanalysis, 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 jailfreed. 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

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 liedGarrison'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 "hasbeen" can come back. He would brand the negative as a lie. And thenSue. Perhapsperhaps.

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 selfrespect. At present it was but the

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 fatestern 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, prayersall the jargon of

those about to precipitately return from whence they came. It was not a pleasant scene. Ghouls were there.

Fate, the unsavory, had been with him. He had been thrown clear at the first crash; thrown through his

sleepingberth window. Physically he was not very presentable. But he fought a good fight against the flames

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

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. Suresure 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 nearby horsecart, 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

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 nearby 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 firelicked from toe to heel. He was raving. But the child was safe. And that wreck and that

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

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 deadandgone 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

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

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

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 joinedjoined in such a

To use a third simile, the former blank, utterly fearsome space, was filledfilled with clear writing, without

blotch or blemish. And on the space was not recorded one deed he had dreaded to see. There were mistakes,

weaknessesbut not dishonor. For a moment he could not grasp the full meaning of the blessing. He could

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 criedcried like a little

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 eyessteady, clear gray eyes.

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 pessimismbut

another name for the failure of misapplicationnor through the wonderful rosecolored 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

hadhealth, 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 breedingfarm and racing stable; for

in the interim Drake had passed from bookmaking stage to that of owner. He ran a firstclass string of

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

"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 sayso. I'll bear it in mind. Andand it's good of you, Jimmie, toto come and sit with me. II

"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

"But II didn't mean to cut you, Jimmie. I didn't know you. I want to tell you all about thatabout

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

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 fairystory. 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

"Whywhy about Crimmins, about Waterbury, about Siseverything," 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

"Tell me, tell me." Garrison's lip was quivering; his face gray with excitement.

"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 youwell, 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

"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

"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 goodby 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 getaway 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.

"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

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

"I can't believe it. I can't believe it," he whispered, wideeyed. "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

"ButWaterbury?" he puzzled at length. "He knew I had been exonerated. And yetyet 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, whitefaced. "Died this morning after he was thrown. Fractured

skull. I had word. Some rightmeaning 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

"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

"How? Why, we ain't living in fairybooks today. 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

"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

"But I did!" Garrison was staring blankly. "I did, Jimmie! Remember I had the cookedup proofs. Remember

"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? Whywhy" His face blanched at the thought.

"You don't mean to say that they knew I was an imposter? Knew all along? Youcan'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

"Improbable, but not impossible." Suddenly Garrison had commenced to breathe heavily, his hands

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."

"Oh, you're good, Jimmie. No, no. Don't tempt me. You forget; forget two great things. I know my mother's

"Ummm," 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 halfsister? 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

"Don't tempt me, Jimmie, don't tempt me," pleaded Garrison again. "You don't know what it all means. I may

"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

Garrison considered. "Nono," he said at length. "No, ifif by any chance I am his nephewyou see how

I want to believe you, Jimmie, God knows how muchthen I'll tell him afterward. Afterward whenI'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

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

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."

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

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

Waterbury asked permission of his host, Colonel Desha, to see Sue alone. It was willingly granted. The girl,

whitefaced, 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 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,

"I lied aboutabout Garrison," he whispered, forcing life to his mouth, his eyes never leaving the girl's. "I

lied. He was square" Breath would not come. "Forforgive," he cried, suddenly in a smother of sweat.

His eyes flamed for an instant, and then died away. By sheer will power he succeeded in stretching a hand

She understood. It was the sporting world's token of forgiveness; of friendship. She laid her hand in his,

"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,

"Couldcould you?" he whispered. "Ifif 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. "Itit means so little to you, Miss Deshaso much, so much tome!"

And again the girl understood. Without a word she bent over and kissed him. He smiled. And so died

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

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,

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 renounceto give the girl up North the right of

Yes, it had been weakness with Garrison, not dishonor. He had been fighting against it all the time. She

remembered that morning in the tenniscourther 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

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

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.

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

Sue lied bravely, convincingly, wholeheartedly. 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, greathearted 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

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

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

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

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 othersall from wellknown

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

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 limelight from himself. He awoke to the fact that Sue was in very poor health. If she died

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

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

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

clubhouse, Garrison went white faced. He had just sent Speedaway over the seven furlongs in record time,

Drake never wasted ammunition in preliminary skirmishing. He told the joke first and the story afterward.

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

"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

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, andand the damnedest. You've

raised a musspile 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.

Youyouyou. You never thought of the folks you left down home; left to suffocate with the stink you

raised. You cleared out scotfree, 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 whowho" Drake searched frantically for a

fitting simile, gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk handkerchief, and flumped into a chair. "Well, say,

"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 SnarkI 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 halfsister'syour mother'sname 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, kidmind 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

"Ummm, the very party. Written from 'Friscoon his deathbed. One of those oldtimey, stageclimax

deathbed confessions. As old as the mortgage on the farm business. As I remarked before some

rightmeaning 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

"He wrote to the major, saying he had never told his sonyou, kidof 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

"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. Andand 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

"Yes, yes," murmured Garrison blankly. "Andand the major? Whatdid he say, Jimmie?"

"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 whitefaced, 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 pressagent, kid.

And the old major Oh, fuss! I can't tell a yarn nohow," grumbled Drake, stamping about at great length and

William C. Dagget was silentthe silence of great, overwhelming joy. He was shivering. "Andand Miss

"YesMiss 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

"You're right, Jimmie. I should have stood my ground and taken my dose. I should have written her when I

discovered the truth. ButI 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.

"Don't call me that, Jimmie. I'm not thatyet. I'm Billy Garrison until I've won the Carter

"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

"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 Rogueride 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 coloneleverything

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 girlMiss 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

entrySwallow? 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,

"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 handspretty near.

Now, Red McGloin is up on the Morgan entrySwallow. He used to be a stableboy for Waterbury. I guess

you've heard of him. He's developed into a firstclass boy. But I want to see you lick the hide off him. The

"But Speedaway?" cried Garrison, jumping to his feet. "Jimmieyou! 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.

"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, kidyou and the girl. Remember, you're carrying her

"You'll have a good fightbut 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 stableboy, no matter what class he is now, can't have the licking of a former master. Show 'em a

hasbeen can come back. Show 'em what Garrison stands for. Show 'em your finish, kidI'll ask no more.

In silence Garrison gripped Drake's hand. And if ever a mighty resolution was welded in a human hearta

resolution born of love, everything; one that nothing could denyit 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

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

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 lifegiving 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

It was a typical American crowd; longsuffering, giving and taking principally givinggoodhumored,

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 racemad throng. Coming by devious ways,

for divers reasons; coming from all quarters by every medium; centering at last at the Queen's County Jockey

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

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

onegreat, paramount. Garrison, the former great Garrison, had come back. He was to ride; ride the winner

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 colorsa secondrater.

Speculation was rife. This Carter Handicap presented many, many features that kept the crowd at feverheat.

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 muckrake 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

"Cooked," said the muckrakers wisely, and, thinking it was a show down for the favorite, stacked every

And some there were who cursed Drake and Major Calvert; cursed long and intelligentlythose who had bet

on Speedaway and Dixie, bet on the playorpay 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

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 weakkneed 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 nowloudly; adding the old shibboleth of the moral coward: "I told you so."

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

Temptation had come Red's way; come strong without reservation. Red, with the hunger of the longdenied,

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

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

oddstwo to oneon. 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 hasbeen can never

come back. Of course Garrison had been to the dogs during the past yearwhat downandout 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 horseflesh. 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

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

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 trackfind

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

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 portioninaction. 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 writeeven in

imagination she could never complete the alternative. She must live in hope; live in hope, in faith, in trust, or

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

Garrison was upstairs 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

"Is it true that a jockey called Garrison is to ride today?" she asked, a strange light in her eyes. What that

"Why, yes, I believe so, Miss Desha," replied Drake, delightfully innocent. "Why?"

"Oh," she said slowly. "Howhow queer! I meanisn'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

Drake, wisely enough, chose the last question. "A tentoone shot," he replied illuminatingly. "Perhaps you'll

bet on him, Miss Desha, eh? It's what we call a hunchcoincidence or anything like that. Shall I place a bet

"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 so Sue, the blood in her cheeks, handed all her available cash to Drake to place on the name of Garrison.

The girl rose, whitefaced; 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, gritall 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 Emeticthe latter the great sprinter who was bracketed with Swallow on the bookmaker's

sheets. Mares, fillies, geldingsevery offering of horseflesh 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

Last of all came The Rogue, black, lean, dangerous. Trained for the fight of his life from muzzle to cleancut

hoofs. Those hoofs had been cared for more carefully than the hands of any queen; packed every day in the

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

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

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 publicthey 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 publicfickle 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

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,

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

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 warmingup 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, Drakeall 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,

adjurationsthe entire stock of nature's sentiment factory. Sentiment, unbridled, unleashed, unchecked.

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

monthsall 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 windshield. She was using the pacemaker's

The track was in surprisingly good condition, but there were streaks of damp, lumpy track throughout the

long back and homestretch. This favored The Rogue; told against the fast sprinters Swallow and Emetic.

After the twoyard 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 heartbreaking; 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 spreadeagle

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.

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,

hungrylooking horse, with Garrison up, would swing out from the bunch, fresh, unkilled by pacefollowing,

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

hasbeen 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 youlook 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. . .

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 semaphoresignals 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,

Game Swallow's eyes had a blue film over them. The heartbreaking pacefollowing 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 meanteverything. 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 heartbreaking fight; the establishing of a new record for the Aqueduct. And a name had

And "Cottonton," led by a whitefaced 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

And as, saddle on shoulder, he stood on the weighingscales 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 makeparadise. And his one unuttered prayer was: "Dear God,

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

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;

"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, orwhat?" He turned and looked into her eyes. She

"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 ofman."

"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

"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

"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, weall have

He turned and looked steadily into her great eyes. His hand went out to meet hers.