Gray, sluggish, slow in coming and sullen of aspect, a reluctant dawn succeeded the night. A wet mist clung everywhere in the windless atmosphere, muffling sound as well as light. There was not even a servant stirring in the Rose house, when Gerard descended the dark stairs and went out into the chill, damp park.

In the garage one bright point shone out; under a swinging electric lamp Rupert was preparing his machine to go out, a solitary figure in the expanse of wavering shadows and dim bulks.

"Where are Rose and his man?" Gerard questioned, as he came across the floor.

His voice rolled startlingly loud in the lofty, echoing room. Moving to reply, the mechanician let fall a tool and the crash repeated itself sharply from every stone arch and angle.

"Rose won't be out at the course till late; I guess our peaceful life ain't what he's used to, exactly. He 'phoned over last night to Dean, who's sleeping yet."

Gerard nodded, eyeing the Mercury racer with affectionate attention.

"All right, is she?" he asked.

Rupert straightened himself and proceeded to close the hood.

"I ain't supposing we'll need to be towed," he conceded sarcastically. "But I'll put in a rope, if you're worried bad, and take my copy of Motor Repairing at a Glance."

"Do," Gerard urged. "I'd like to have it found on you, Rupert. Start her up, then, if you're ready."

He crossed, with the last word, to the shelf where lay his racing mask and gauntlets. The melancholy drip from moist eaves and trees, the dreary half-light and heavy air had absolutely no depressing power upon his flawless nerves and vigor of life. By the open door he paused to look out, unconsciously clasping his hands behind his head with the leisurely grace and relaxation of one who found pleasure in mere movement.

"There'll be a wet course," Rupert's muffled tones came from the opposite end of the room.

"Well?" Gerard queried lazily. "What of it?"

There was no answer. Instead sounded the click of moving throttle and spark, and the place burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the vibrating car as it moved forward to its master's side.

"I don't like this morning, and I don't like this course," stated Rupert, sombrely definite, through the roar and rattle of irregular reports from the cut-down motor. "But I guess I've got to stand for them. Anyhow, I couldn't have a classier Friday-the-thirteenth emotion equipment if I had been to a voodoo fortune teller who had a grudge against me. What are we waiting for?"

Gerard lingered in taking his seat, his amazed eyes travelling over the small, discontented dark face of his companion.

"Something's wrong, Rupert?"

"I ain't saying so—yet."

The driver's own expression shadowed slightly; he looked again and more searchingly at the other. In common with most men who had lived in the tense atmosphere of the most dangerous form of racing yet evolved, he had witnessed more than one case where a presentiment did not fail of fulfilment. Irrespective of whether catalogued as coincidence, occult foresight or absurdity, the facts did exist, occasionally to be read in the prosaic columns of a newspaper, more often lost except in camp annals. He knew, and Rupert knew, of a mechanician who suddenly refused absolutely to go out with the driver by whose side he had ridden countless miles, having no better reason than a disinclination for the trip. And they both had seen the substitute who took his place brought in dead, an hour later, after his car's wreck. A widely-known victor of many races, one of Gerard's close friends, had come to shake hands with him in a state of causeless nervousness that would have shamed a novice, just before starting on the ride from which he never returned. The price of debate is too high to argue with some things; Gerard temporized.

"I don't want to take you out feeling like that. Give yourself a day off," he suggested. "I'll find one of the factory men to go out with me for the morning's practice."

"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician acidly, and flung himself back in his narrow seat.

The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding drives, plunged into the sandy Long Island road, and sped lurching toward the course.

There was nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the Motor Parkway. Before the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted some of the cars, surrounded by their force of workers; in other camps the men stood, watch in hand, timing the machines already out. Reporters vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring group, two world-famous French and Italian drivers were pitching pennies for the last cigarettes from a box of special brand. Only the tiers of empty seats in the grand-stand and the absence of spectators in fields and parking-spaces distinguished this practice morning from the actual race.

There was a general movement of greeting as the Mercury rolled in and Gerard sprang out at his own camp.

"Where's your pink pet, Allan?" called a driver, from the starting line. "What's up—mornin' air too crude for millionaire kids?"

"He isn't up," was the blithe reply. "Never mind Rose, he's coming; tell me where you got your five-cylinder machine, Jack."

"A late Rose, eh? Oh, I've got six cylinders here, all right, but I daren't run on all of them now for fear my speed would make the rest of you quit, discouraged. I'm goin' to make your yesterday's record look like a last year's timetable, this mornin'."

"You look out that you don't break your neck. Rupert says it's a hoodoo day. We don't want you in the hospital twice this season."

"Is Rupert sad?" questioned the big blonde pilot of the neighboring camp, leaning over the railing.

"I ain't been so near it since I put my foot in a hole and sprained my ankle ten minutes before the start, when I was racing with Darling French at Philadelphia," admitted the mechanician. "It hurt me fierce."

"Your ankle?"

"No, seeing him start without me."

"Say, Gerard, there's your pink Rambler," a distant voice signified.

About to send his car forward, Gerard paused to glance over his shoulder, and caught the pink flash behind a row of mist-draped trees edging the cross-road. Sudden mischief curved his lips, his amber eyes laughed behind their goggles.

"Tell Corrie Rose I'll give him that game of auto tag, if he happens along while I'm on a straight stretch," he called across to one of Corrie's men, by way of farewell.

A little breeze stirred the mist, as the Mercury shot down the course; the gray light was brightening by slow gradations.

There was small probability that Gerard's car and the rose-colored machine would soon find themselves together on the twelve-mile circuit, allowing for their difference in starting time. But as the Mercury turned into the straight stretch of back road, on the second time around, there sounded a sharp report, the car staggered perilously, and a tire tore itself loose from a rear wheel to hurtle, a vicious projectile of rubber and steel, far across the stubble fields. Reeling, but held to its course by the driver's trained hand, the Mercury slackened its flight and was brought to a stop. Rupert was already leaning over the back, dragging free a spare tire; Gerard slipped out of his seat.

For experts the task was not long. A white car thundered past the workers, leaving a swirl of dust and flying pebbles, its mechanician turning to survey the halted Mercury. As Rupert swept the last tool into its place with precise swiftness, the throbbing of a second motor drifted to them, a pink streak darted around a distant curve.

"It's Corrie," identified Gerard. "Get in, Rupert. If he wasn't forced by his money into the amateur ranks, that boy would make some of us work to keep our laurels, all right."

The panther-agile figure swung into place beside him.

"I ain't a market gardener," Rupert drawled, fitting one small foot in a strap support, as the car leaped forward. "But I guess those plants ain't apt to flourish in too rich soil."

The Mercury did not gather speed too rapidly, rather it lingered until the pink car bore close down upon it.

"How near?" suddenly demanded Gerard, above the noise of the motor.

The mechanician reconnoitred.

"Hundred feet," he made report.

"Wave to him."

Rupert raised his hand obediently. The Mercury sprang ahead under Gerard's touch, and with an answering roar the rose-colored machine sped in pursuit.

There was no doubt that Corrie understood the play; nor that his car was easily capable of passing the sixty-mile an hour gait now held by the Mercury. But he was not allowed to pass. Each time he essayed it, the other racer swerved in front and cut off the road.

It was as dangerous a game as could well be designed, had either driver been less skilled, but it was safe enough now. Gerard was laughing as he drove, when the first tiny missile rattled against his car.

"He's pitching spare bolts," shouted Rupert, at his companion's ear, himself grimly amused. "Peevish, ain't he?"

Gerard nodded, and crossed the narrow road with an unexpected turn that drew a baffled explosion from the checked car behind. A brass nut smacked the Mercury's gasoline tank. It was not difficult to imagine Corrie's excited tempest of defeat, to those who knew him.

"The turn's ahead—we'll call it off there," Gerard answered mirthfully. "Give her some oil."

The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile of straight road. Rupert was stooping to reach the oil pump when the pink car made its final attempt to pass and was again forced back, but across his outstretched arm he glanced up to Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying missile as it came.

"Duck!" he shouted harshly, "Look out——"

There was no time for action. As Gerard turned his head, the heavy steel wrench struck him below the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel before the mechanician could snatch it from the inert grasp. With a lurch the speeding Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the road and, leaping a yard-high embankment, crashed through a row of trees to roll over and over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage over the farmhouse enclosure beyond.

The light breeze of half an hour earlier had freshened and gained strength, the pale-gray sky was changing to delicate blue. When the horrified knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the nearby Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard to join the pale-faced farmer already there, the sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds, glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the still figure that lay beneath it, illumining the dishevelled, gasping mechanician who struggled dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to safety, fifty feet from the wreck.

It is difficult for any group of men, however willing, to work without a leader. While the inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the verge of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing costume sprang up the bank, his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood where his teeth had bitten through.

"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to be jacked up. Hurry up—do you want him to die under there? Jump!"

His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.

Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed lithograph of The Trial of John Knox. A plush photograph album was jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with dull red here and there.

"They stopped here yesterday for some water," sobbed the mistress of the house hysterically. "Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard at the little dark one, he was, and both of them making fun."

The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room, stripping off his coat while appraising with keen eyes the unconscious patient.

"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely. "Here, I want a helper—you, Rose?"

Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up and dragged himself erect. Gerard's face was no more drawn and colorless than his, but he answered to the call, as half an hour before he had answered the demand of the situation for a guide.

"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I deserve it."

Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest of the men were retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across the threshold.

"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive? What?"

"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve, Rose—gently! Clear out, you; the ambulance men will take care of you when they get here."

Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the scene, and encountered Corrie.

"You——" he snarled, choking, and whirled to face the witnesses, extending one slim shaking hand toward the workers beside the couch. "Here, I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing headlines for paper rags—print down that Allan Gerard was killed by that man. I'm saying it; Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he pitched a wrench that knocked him out. Go down to the course and you'll get the wrench to Missouri you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard and our car ran wild."

The concentrated vehemence and force of the arraignment stupefied even the reportorial instinct. Dazed, the hearers stared from the mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale young driver who offered neither surprise nor defense, but went steadily on with his unsteadying task.

"He wrecked us——" Rupert made a limping step forward. "Well? Did you guess I was reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you taking him out of here? Put his mechanician through the third degree and get his story—who nailed you fast here? Why don't you move?"

The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from Corrie's grasp. Livid with wrath, the surgeon stood up.

"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you," he stormed. "Not a word; I don't care if Rose has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now. Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."

He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert into the retiring group, and the door closed.

Outside, the reporters became themselves. While ambulances dashed up, motor cycles, official cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was hurried apart and his story coaxed from him in detail.

The last automobile to come up, an hour after the accident, was a gilt-monogramed foreign limousine. From it descended a gentleman who, after a comprehensive glance over the disordered, crowded orchard, crossed straight to where Rupert sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite the shattered car.

"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's shoulder. "Rupert, what's been happening here?"

Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face, its grimness not lessened by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard resolve.

"Your son's finished Gerard, Mr. Rose," he stated, monotonously explicit. "He slipped his temper and fired a wrench at Gerard for not giving him the road. It hit him, and we ran wild without a driver till we struck here. Ask him—he's in there with what's left of Gerard—why he's sent Dean where he ain't to be found, if I'm lying."

Mr. Rose released Rupert's shoulder, both men equally oblivious of the pain his grasp had inflicted on bruised flesh and muscle, and turned his gray face to the surrounding group in dumb quest of confirmation. Then, moving stiffly, he walked toward the house.

There was an authority in his bearing that gained him unopposed entrance. In the hall, nauseating with the ominous odor of antiseptics, he was met by one of the doctors.

"You can turn my house into a hospital," Mr. Rose said briefly. "I want Gerard taken there instead of to your places. You can have all the money you like."

The man looked at the card presented, his professional impassivity flickering, but shook his head.

"He would better not be moved at all, sir; at least, not to-day. He can be asked, if you wish."

"He is conscious, then?"

"Just about," he shrugged, reaching for the door. "Here, if you care to go in."

The room was glaring with light, the lace curtains were dragged wide apart from the windows and the shades rolled high. Idle now in the presence of more skilled attendants, but recognized as one who had earned the right to be there, Corrie stood near the foot of the improvised bed, leaning against the wall with his fair head slightly bent. At the sound of the door he turned that way, as Mr. Rose stopped on the threshold.

The snapping latch, or some more subtle influence, aroused someone else. Slowly Gerard's heavy lashes lifted, and he saw father and son looking at each other across the parlor strewn with the tragic litter of the last hour's work. There was nothing to interrupt the triple regard; it endured long, with steadfast intensity.

In a corner two surgeons were holding a subdued consultation, a third was busied at the marble table, the attention of all fully engaged.

"Put a pillow under my head, someone," suddenly bade the shadow of Allan Gerard's voice, across the hush. "And give me a cigarette."

There was a startled flurry in the room. Familiar enough with the last request from his masculine patients, the man at the table took a case from his own pocket and, lighting one of the cigarettes, stooped over the bed.

"Keep your grip on yourself," he approved brusquely. "But don't move."

It was in his left hand that Gerard took the tiny narcotic, his right arm and shoulder were a mere bulk of splints and linen bandages.

"Thanks," his difficult voice spoke again. "Now open that door and let everyone in—I want to talk to them."

"Mr. Gerard!"

His clear eyes, dark with suffering but absolutely collected, met the surgeon's.

"I've got to talk to them, doctor, and I may be out of my head or in a box, to-morrow. Let them in—the reporters, I mean."

The listeners gazed at each other, a shock ran through the group. Every man there knew Rupert's story of the accident, every man guessed that it was Gerard's own version that was to be given now. Someone offered Mr. Rose one of the horse-hair chairs, during the moment of rearrangement before the youngest of the doctors left the room. Only Corrie remained unmoved, not changing his position or looking at Gerard. There was a certain dignity of utter quiescence in his pose that comprehended neither defiance nor submission, but a strange, aloof patience.

The representative reporters from the city journals filed in, avidly expectant. With them came two officials of the racing association, and a metallic-eyed man whose plain clothes were contradicted by the badge visible under his coat. There was silent orderliness; the grim significance of the room, the presence of the watchful surgeons, the central figure of the driver so well known to all of those who entered, were subduing to the least sensitive. Nor was the effect less hushing because of that other driver who attended in the background, the strong sunlight shining on his glistening pink garb and still face.

Gerard let fall the hand holding the cigarette, when the company was complete, and slowly turned his brown head on the pillow to face them.

"You newspaper men have been first-class to me for a good while; it's my chance to reciprocate now," he asserted. "Well, I'll give what copy I can. I know you want it, boys—you've often been after me for less."

The familiar gayety rippled above his aching effort of speech, his will locked to composure each rebellious line of expression. No one stirred in the room.

"I wish it were a better yarn. But when two tires blow out at the same time, while a car's turning——"

This time, there was a general sigh of quick-drawn breath. Mr. Rose stood up.

"When two tires let go, at ninety miles an hour, there's apt to be a wreck. I——" his lashes fell wearily. "I couldn't hold the machine to the road. The shock broke my control—there's no one to blame but me——" The cigarette crumpled in his clenching fingers, his straight brows knotted.

"Gerard," burst forth the racing official, excitedly urgent in his suspense. "Your tires wrecked you? That's your last word? Gerard, if you can speak, do!"

The amber eyes re-opened in answer, to meet the fixed gaze of the eager men who waited opposite.

"Yes," gasped Gerard, casually definite. "What else? Corrie, leave me your smokes, they're a better brand——"

If there had been any doubt left the witnesses, that comrade request beat it down. The surgeon flung out his hand in a sweeping gesture of dismissal, as he sprang toward his fainting patient. Gerard had finished.

Mr. Rose went out with the other men. Some of his florid color had come back, he walked more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness. On the narrow porch the referee from the racing association held out his hand with frank congratulation.

"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before they got any further, Mr. Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country, crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank. They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up to-morrow sane as ever. Nice way your son took it."

"Oh, Corwin B. is straight," declared Mr. Rose, proudly self-contained in his relief. "I guess there wasn't much need to worry about that part. I'll wait here and take him home with me, now; he's had about all of that room he ought to stand, fond of Gerard as he is."

"He looked done up, yes. Well——"

A long shout sounded down the course, a clamor of excited speech. A troup of men appeared, running toward the house in the wake of a chauffeur who held up some object that glittered in the sun.

"I've got it!" the leader called ahead. "I've got it where he said, beside the road!"

The thing in his hand was a small, heavy nickel wrench. The men on the porch and the men in the yard stared at each other, mute. After a moment Mr. Rose drew out his handkerchief, passed it across his forehead and lips, then went down to his limousine, got in and sank back against the cushions.

"Home," he issued his order.

"Mr. Corwin is not coming, sir?"

"Home."