Various

By Martha McCulloch-Williams

Miss Allys Rhett stood upon the clubhouse lawn, a vision in filmy white, smiling her softest, most enchanting smile. There was a reason for the smile—a reason strictly feminine, yet doubly masculine. She had walked down the steps that led from the piazza betwixt Rich Hilary and Jack Adair, the catches of the season, in full view of the Hammond girl, who was left to waste her sweetness upon prosy old Van Ammerer.

The Hammond girl had been rather nasty all summer—she was, moreover, well known to be in hot pursuit of Rich Hilary. Until Allys came on the scene it had seemed the pursuit must be successful. They had gone abroad on the same steamer the year before, dawdled through a London season, and come home simultaneously—he rather bored and languid, she of a demure and downcast, but withal possessive, air. She had said they were not engaged—“oh, dear no, only excellent friends,” but looking all the while a contradiction of the words. Then unwisely she had taken Hilary to that tiresome tea for the little Rhett girl—and behold! the mischief was done.

The little Rhett girl was not little; instead, she was divinely tall, and lithe as a young ash. No child, either. What with inclination and mother-wisdom, her coming out had waited for her to find herself. At nineteen she had found herself—a woman, well poised and charming as she was beautiful. Notwithstanding Hilary had not instantly surrendered—horse, foot and dragoons. Rather he had held out for terms—the full honors of war, as became a man rising thirty, and prospective heir to more millions than he well knew what to do with.

Two or three of the millions had taken shape in the Bay Park, the newest and finest of metropolitan courses. Hilary’s father, a power alike on the turf and in the street, had built it, and controlled it absolutely—of course through the figment of an obedient jockey club. A trace of sentiment, conjoined to a deal of pride, had made him revive an old-time stake—the Far and Near. It dated back to that limbo of racing things—“before the war.” Banker Hilary’s grandfather, a leader among gentlemen horsemen of that good day, had been of those who instituted it—a fact upon which no turf scribe had failed to dilate when telling the glories of the course. The event was, of course, set down a classic—as well it might be, all things considered. The founders had framed it so liberally as to admit the best in training—hence the name. The refounders made conditions something narrower, but offset that by quadrupling the value.

This was Far and Near day—with a record crowd, and hot, bright summer weather. The track was well known to be lightning fast, and the entry list was so big and puzzling that the Far and Near might well prove anybody’s race. There were favorites, of course, also rank outsiders. One heard their names everywhere in the massed throng that had overflowed the big stand, the lawn, the free field, and broken in human waves upon the green velvet of the infield. This by President Hilary’s own order. He had come to the track early, and looked to everything—with a result that there was no trouble anywhere.

The crowd had been gayly demonstrative through the first two races. It had watched the third in tense silence—except that moiety of it ebbing and flowing through the clubhouse. It was the silence of edged patience. Albeit the early races were fair betting propositions, the most of those who watched them had come to lay wagers on some Far and Near candidate—and the Far and Near candidates had been getting their preliminaries.

They numbered just nineteen. Seventeen had been out when Allys and her squires stopped under the shade of a tree. Notwithstanding the shadow, she put up her white parasol, tilting it at just the angle to make it throw her head and shoulders in high relief. Adair glanced at her, caught a hard breath, nipped it, then looked steadily down the course a minute.

Hilary smiled—a smile that got no further than the corners of his red lips—his eyes, indeed, gloomed the more for it—then turned upon Allys with: “Pick the winner for us, won’t you? You are so delightful feminine you know nothing of horses, therefore ought to bring us luck. Say, now, what shall we back?”

“It depends,” Allys said, twirling her parasol ever so lightly. “Do you want to lose? Or do you really care to win?”

“To win, please, O oracle, if it’s all the same to you,” Hilary said, supplication in his voice, although his eyes danced.

Allys gave him a long look. “Then you must take Heathflower,” she said. “I have the Wickliffe boy’s word for it—he wrote me only yesterday: ‘Miss Allys, if you want to get wealthy, bet all your real money on that Heathflower thing.’”

“H’m! Who is the Wickliffe boy? Tell us that before we play his tip,” Adair demanded. Hilary could not speak for laughing.

Allys smiled entrancingly. “The Wickliffe boy—is a knight-errant born out of time,” she said. “I’m wondering if it will last. We came to know him last summer—mother and I—down at Hollymount, my uncle’s place in Virginia. The Wickliffe boy, Billy by name, lives at Lyonesse, which is Hollymount’s next neighbor. It belongs to Billy’s uncle, the dearest old bachelor—maybe that is the reason the boy has such reverence for womankind. I don’t know which he comes nearest worshiping—women or horses. Whenever we rode out—he was my steadfast gallant—he managed somehow to pass through or by or around Haw Bush, where the Heathflower thing was bred. Old Major Mediwether, her owner, is Billy’s best chum. They match beautifully—though the major is nearly eighty, and Billy just my age—rising nineteen.”

“They must have made it interesting for you. I’m sure you couldn’t tell half so much about either of us,” Adair said, with a deeply injured air.

Allys shook her head at him. “They are dears,” she said, emphatically. “And they taught me a lot I should never have known—about horses and men.”

“Anything specific—as about the Heathflower thing?” Hilary asked, affecting to speak with awe.

Allys nodded. “A heap,” she said. “I can hear Billy now, as we watched her on the training track, saying: ‘She hasn’t got any looks—but legs are better for winnin’. And she must win; she’s bound to—whenever she feels like it, and the track and the weights suit her. She can’t help it—she’s got eight full crosses of Blink Bonny blood.’”

“Blink Bonny! H’m! Who was he? What did he do?” Hilary asked.

Allys looked at him severely. “‘He’ happens to have been ‘she,’” she said. “As for the doing, it was only winning the Derby, with the Oaks right on top of it. Mighty few mares have ever done that—as you would know if you had grown up in Virginia, with time to know everything. Billy does know everything about pedigrees—he can reel them off at least a hundred years back. Remember, now, I’m strictly quoting him: ‘Blink Bonny is really ancient history—she won the year poor old Dick Ten Broek tried so hard to have his American-bred ones carry off the blue ribbon of the turf. He didn’t win it—no American did—until one of them had luck enough to try for it with something of Blink Bonny’s blood. Iroquois went back to her through his sire, Bonnie Scotland-Iroquois, who wasn’t really a great horse, but a good one that happened on a great chance.’”

“Why, Allys darling, I can hardly believe my ears! Here you are talking horse like a veteran, when I always thought you didn’t know a fetlock from a wishbone,” the Hammond girl cooed, swimming up behind them on old Van Ammerer’s arm. They were headed for the paddock, although it was not quite time for the saddling bell. The Heathflower thing was still invisible—Allys searched the course for her through Hilary’s glass, saying the while over her shoulder, with her most infantine smile: “You thought right, Camilla dear. I don’t really know anything—have only a parrot faculty of repeating what I hear.”

The Hammond girl flushed—that was what she had said of Allys when people laughed over the Rhett mots. But before she could counter, Allys cried joyously: “At last! The Heathflower thing! Really, she hasn’t any looks—but see her run, will you?”

“She does move like a winner—but it’s impossible she can stay,” Hilary said, almost arrogantly. “Pedigree is all very well—until it runs up against performance——”

“Right you are! Quite mighty right, Rich, me boy,” old Van Ammerer interrupted. “But I didn’t know they let dark horses run in the Far and Near——”

“Lucky you are young, Van—you have such a lot to learn,” Adair said, brusquely, as they went toward the paddock. It was thronged, but somehow at sight of Hilary the human masses fell respectfully apart—albeit the men and women there had forgotten themselves, even forgotten each other for the time being, in their poignant eagerness over the big race.

They were hardly through the gate and well established in an eddy when the bell brought the racers pacing or scurrying in. The Heathflower thing came straight off the course, and stood spiritlessly, drooping her head and blinking her eyes. Clear eyes, matching the loose, satiny skin, beneath which whipcord muscles stood out, or played at each least motion, they told the eye initiate that she was in the pink of condition. Like her so-famous ancestors, a bay with black points, neither under nor over size, with a fine, lean head, a long neck, and four splendid legs, it was a marvel that she could so utterly lack any trace of equine comeliness. Her chest was noticeably narrow, her barrel out of proportion to shoulders and quarters. Still, against those patent blemishes, a judge of conformation would have set the splendid sloping shoulders, the reaching forearm, the bunches of massy muscle in the long loin, the quarters well let down into perfect houghs, the fine, clean bone of knees and ankles, the firm, close-grained hoofs spreading faintly from coronet to base.

Clean-limbed throughout, with ears that, if they drooped, had no trace of coarseness and were set wide apart above a basin face, the mare showed race indisputably, notwithstanding the white in her forehead was too smudgy to be called a star, or that, though her muzzle tapered finely, the lower lip habitually protruded a bit. A four-year-old, she was still a maiden—consequently had but a feather on her back in the Far and Near. The handicapper had laughed, half wearily, half compassionately as he allotted it, muttering something about the jockey club robbing the cradle and the grave—that poor old Major Meriwether, it was well known, hadn’t any money to spare; what he did have was the gambler’s instinct to sit into any game where the stakes were big.

The race was open to three-year-olds and upward, and run over a distance—two miles and a half. The distance kept out the sprinters—it also, now and again, played hob with racing idols. To win a horse must be able to go—also to stay. With twenty thousand of added money, there was sure to be always a long list of entries. The conditions held one curious survival from the original fixture—namely, that, horses brought over three hundred miles to run in it got a three-pound allowance if they reached the course less than a week before the day of the race.

Major Meriwether had chuckled whenever he thought of that. He knew “the weight of a stable key may win or lose a race.” And the Heathflower thing was a splendid traveler, coming out of her padded stall as ready to run as when she went into it. She had got to the Bay Park only two days back, in charge of her rubber, Amos, and Black Tim, her jockey. Tim stood at her head, Amos was giving her lank sides their last polish, as Allys and her train swept down upon them.

Allys nodded to them gayly, as she asked: “Tim, have you come up to break New York? I hear your stable will need a special car to take home its money—after the Far and Near.”

“Yessum, dat’s so!” Tim said.

Amos scowled at him, but said to Allys, respectfully: “Please’um, don’t ax dat dar fool boy no mo’ ’bout de Flower—hit’s mighty bad luck sayin’ whut you gwine do, ontwel you is done done it.”

“Dar come Marse Billy Wickliffe—you kin ax him all you wanter.” Tim giggled, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Tim was lathy—long-legged, long-armed, with an ashy-black complexion and very big eyes. As he stood fondling the Flower’s nose, he glared disdain of all the other candidates, or, rather, of the knots of folk gathered admiringly about them.

Allys turned half about—for two breaths at least she had a snobbish impulse to overlook Billy and hurry away. Billy was tall, with a face like a young Greek god—but how greet him there with the Hammond girl to see, in a checked suit, patently ready-made, with the noisiest of shirts, a flowing bright red tie, and a sunburned straw hat? If it were only Adair, she would not mind—Hilary was, she knew, very much more critical. She might have run away, but that she caught the Hammond girl’s look—amusement and satisfaction struggled through it, although the young lady tried hard to mask them.

Allys turned wholly, holding out both hands, and saying: “Billy, by all that’s delightful! I’ve just been telling these people about you. Come, show them I kept well within the truth.”

Billy caught the outstretched hands, his heart so openly in his eyes Hilary wanted to strangle him on the spot. The Hammond girl laughed, and turned to whisper in Van Ammerer’s ear. Adair, alone of the group, shook hands. Although the others gave him civil, if formal, greeting, Billy felt their hostility intuitively, and flung up his head like a stag at bay.

“You got my note—have you done it yet?” he asked, bending over Allys in a fashion that made Hilary’s teeth set hard.

She laughed back at him: “Have you done it yet? Bet your whole fortune on the Heathflower thing at a hundred to one?”

Billy nodded confidently. “That’s just what I have done. Unc’ Robert was willin’—he thought as I did, such a little bit o’ money was better risked than kept.”

“H’m! I hope you kept the price of a return ticket,” Hilary said, trying to speak jocularly. “Really, Mr. Wickliffe, you can’t think that ugly brute has a chance to be even in the money.”

“My money’s talkin’ for me,” Billy said, facing Hilary. “’Tain’t much—only a thousand. Lordy! if I could, wouldn’t I burn up these ringsters! You ought to a-heard ’em, Miss Allys, when I went at ’em. ‘The Heathflower thing, did you say?’ the first one asked me. ‘Oh, say! do you want to rob us poor fellows? Couldn’t think of layin’ you less’n a thousand to one on that proposition.’ But he cut it mighty quick to a hundred to one when I said: ‘I’d take you for a hundred, only I know you couldn’t pay.’ Tell you he rubbed his slate in a hurry after I got down fifty. The next one tried to be smart as he was—sang out to some o’ the rest: ‘Here’s the wild man from Borneo, come to skin us alive!’ Then made out he was skeered to death when I offered him one little pitiful rag of a ten. But when they saw me keep on right down the line, some of ’em shut up and looked a little anxious, some cut the price, and some got sassier than ever. They called me Rube, and Johnny-on-the-spot-of-wealth, and Shekels, and a heap of other things. But I didn’t mind. Still, next time I’ll send my money by one of those commissioner fellows. To-day I couldn’t risk it.”

“What makes you so suddenly avaricious, Billy?” Allys asked. “Last summer you cared less for money than anything. There must be a reason—tell me, does it wear frocks?”

“Not the special reason,” Billy said, with an adoring look; then in her ear: “I know you don’t care for money any more’n I do. But I’m bound to have some—if there’s any chance—it’s—it’s because of the major. I’ll tell you all about it, after the race.”

The parade was nearly over when Allys and her three swains came again to the lawn. By some odd chance, the long shots had been well toward the head of it, leaving the two favorites and the three second choices to bring up the rear. The Heathflower thing was immediately in front of them. She had moved so soberly, plodding with low head and sleepy eyes, the watchers had given her an ironic cheer, mingled with cat calls. All the others had got a welcome more or less enthusiastic, but it was only when Aramis, even-money favorite, came through the paddock gate that the crowd got to its feet.

All up and down, and round about, roaring cheers greeted him, followed him—men flung up their hats for him, women in shrill falsetto cried his name. Nobody could fail to understand that he carried the hopes and the fortunes of a great multitude. Nobody could fail to understand either that Aldegonde, who followed right on his heels, would win or lose for as many. The pair were blood-brothers, sons of the great Hamburg, but one out of an imported dam, the other from a mare tracing to Lexington, and richly inbred to that great sire.

Still the line of cleavage was not patriotic nor even international. Folk had picked one or the other to win freakishly—on hunches of all sorts, tips of all manners, pure fancy, or “inside information” of the hollowest sort. As to looks, pedigree, or performance, there was hardly a pin to choose between the pair. Both were three-year-olds, tried in the fire of spring racing; both held able to go the distance and stay the route, in that they had won from everything except from each other.

By some curious chance they had not met before that season—in their two-year-old form they had won and lost to each other.

Thus to many onlookers the Far and Near held out a promise of such an equine duel as would make it the race of the century. And certainly two handsomer or gallanter beasts than the pair of raking chestnuts, long-striding, racelike, with white-starred faces and single white hind feet, never looked through a bridle.

Notwithstanding, the second choices were far from friendless, albeit their greatest support was for the place or to show. The greeting they got was tame compared to that of the favorites, but still a volleying cheer, rising and falling along the quarter-mile of humanity banked and massed either side the course. Shrewd form players and the plainer sort had taken liberal fliers on them—that was evident by the way the shouting mounted in the free field, and the jam in front of the betting ring.Not a few of the professional layers had turned their slates and were out on watch for the event that would mean thousands in or out of their pockets. Among the second choices Artillery, the black Meddler mare, was held a shade the best. Next to her came Tay Ho, a son of Hastings, five years old, who might have divided honors with the favorites but for being an arrant rogue. To-day he ran in blinkers, and nodded the least bit in his stride, whereas his stable mate, Petrel, the last of the second choices, went as free as ever water ran.

Billy watched the parade, scarcely conscious that Allys clung to his arm. Hilary stood at her other hand, frowning blackly. The finish line was almost in front of them.

Hilary moved back a pace. “We can see better here,” he said, trying to draw Allys along with him. She shook her head obstinately, but said nothing; in her heart she was resolved that Billy should have the comfort of her presence in his hour of defeat.

Since she was very far from being a model young person, Hilary’s manifest anger was not displeasing. She was going to marry him—but only at her own time, and upon her own conditions. So far, there was no engagement—she had fenced and played with him beautifully all through the last three months. He had no right whatever to be nasty about Billy; of course, if it were some grown-up body, Adair for example, there might be a color of reason for his wrath. He ought to understand that Billy was, in a way, her guest—also a person to whom she owed something in the way of hospitality. What provoked her most was knowing that Hilary was less jealous than ashamed—ashamed to have her thus openly countenance anybody who wore Billy’s clothes. She was all the angrier for her own moment of snobbishness—men ought to be above such paltry things, she reasoned; anyway, she was bound to stand by Billy to the inevitably bitter end.

The start was tedious. Again and again the line of rainbow jackets drew taut across the course, only to break and tangle, and at last dissolve into its original gaudy units. Billy sighed as he watched it, then smiled shyly, and drew a long breath, saying in Allys’ ear: “I hate to win except right square out.”

“I don’t understand,” Allys returned.

Billy looked at her in surprise.

“Don’t you see—the favorites have got so much on their backs, the longer they wheel and turn, the more they take out of themselves?” he asked. “I’ll bet they are frettin’ like everything, too. See there! One of them chestnut-sorrels—can’t tell whether it’s Aramis or Aldegonde—is cuttin’ up high didoes. And the Heathflower thing standin’ like a little lamb——”

“She may be standing there when the race is over,” Hilary interrupted.

Billy did not put down his glass, but said over his shoulder: “Oh, I reckon Tim can stop her before she gets that far around. Don’t know, though—if she feels like runnin’ she’s a handful. And this is one of the days—I know, because she looks as though she couldn’t beat a funeral.”

Allys pressed Billy’s arm—it was all she could do to show her enjoyment of the way he had turned things. Hilary bent toward her, saying, with a hard smile: “You seem to be on Mr. Wickliffe’s side—I wonder will you back his judgment?”

“Maybe so,” Allys said, without turning her head. “That is, if you care to make it anything worth while. I’m not quite sure which I’d like best—a winter in Paris or a pearl necklace—and I know I shan’t ever get them at bridge—I have no luck at all.”

“Give you millions against—just one word,” Hilary whispered; then aloud: “Is it a bet?”

“Say yes, Miss Allys,” Billy entreated. “You ain’t trustin’ to my judgment—remember that—but to the blood of Blink Bonny.”

“I take you up,” Allys said, nodding to Hilary. As well this way as any other, she thought—besides, she could hold him off as long as she chose. Her father would stand by her loyally—he was in no haste to see her established. Besides, this was what she had always craved—to watch a race with a heartrending wager on its event.

“Here they come!” Billy shouted, dropping his glass, and flinging up his head.

Up course the rainbow line had at last held steady, then, as the tape flew up, bellied out like a sail in gusty wind, and been rent into flecks and tatters. The lightweights, of course, were in the foremost of the flecks and tatters—all, that is, save the Heathflower thing, who came absolutely last. Tim’s orange jacket and scarlet sash were dust-dimmed by the time he came to the stand. But right in front of him were Aldegonde’s tiger stripes, black and yellow, and the blue and white in the saddle of Aramis.

“Last all the way—eh, Miss Allys?” Adair said, leaning across Billy, who would have given back but that Allys clung to him in silence, her eyes glued to the glass, flushing and paling, her breath coming quicker even thus early in the race.

There were open lengths all along—the lightweights were bent on making it a runaway race. Billy knew they could never do it. A horseman born and made, he marked their stride, and understood even better than their jockeys how much the killing pace was taking out of them. It did not astonish him that in the outstretch, before a mile had been run, three of the first flight chucked it up, falling back, back, till even the Heathflower thing showed them her heels. At the mile there were more counterfeits proven—as the race swept down upon the stand the second time there were but seven of the original contenders really in it. The rest were tailing hopelessly. One or two even pulled up. But the Heathflower thing was among the seven, and keeping place right behind the favorites.

Allys clutched Billy’s arm so hard her fingers half buried in it. She was getting the thrills she had pined for with a vengeance, now that her freedom, her future, were to be colored by the issue of the race.

The Heathflower thing could not win, of course; still, it was pure delight to have her so far redeem herself. If she was even near the real contenders at the finish, Billy’s faith would be justified. So many, at shorter odds, had already fallen out, there would be distinction in staying all the way.

If the impossible happened, the Heathflower thing won, then she would have Hilary in a very proper frame of mind. Losing always hurt him dreadfully—it would be gall and wormwood to have lost to such a winner. She felt this rather than thought it—connected thought indeed was impossible in view of what was happening out on the course.

In the outstretch, for the second time, Aramis shot forward like the arrow from a bended bow. He had been running under wraps—now thus far from home, his jockey, the most famous of them all, gave him his head, evidently thinking there would be but one horse in the race. All in a breath two open lengths showed between Aramis and the others; then Aldegonde with a mighty burst lapped the leader’s flank. Tay Ho was right behind—so close his backers set up a breathless shout. The Flower was still last, but strive, strain, stretch as the flying leaders might, they got no further away from her.

Billy flung up his hat, then clapped his hand over his mouth and said, smotheredly:

“See that, Miss Allys! Let her come into the stretch with just one breath more’n those fine fellows, and it’s all over but the cashin’ in.”

“Billy, you’re an angel! I thought we were hopelessly beaten,” Allys breathed rather than said.

Hilary’s mouth set. Adair, watching him narrowly, saw it also whiten when, at the second mile post, the three leaders swept the turn barely heads apart, with the Heathflower thing right on their heels. More than that, she was running strongly, easily, clearly not distressed, although Aramis, still leading, rolled the least bit.

Could that leggy bay really stay the route? Was there any reason for the Wickliffe boy’s unreason? Was there also any chance for him?—there Adair stopped short, smiling a thought grimly to see how all unconsciously, all femininely, Allys drooped to Billy’s upright, youthful strength.

Hilary likewise noted it—with a thumping heart that sent the color surging over his face. Habitually he held himself well in hand—it amazed and angered him to find himself thus swept beyond himself. To all of us come moments when instinct masters reason—the primal masculine instinct of possession told him he would win or lose his quicksilver sweetheart on the issue of this race.

Now she had no thought of him—her eyes were only for the course, where four horses ran like a team as never any of them had run before. All through the first quarter of this fateful last half, they held each other safe, running side by side, stride for stride.

At the furlong pole beyond, Tay Ho’s hooded head for the first time showed in front—only to be instantly eclipsed by the white star of Aldegonde. Aramis began to hang—the angry roar of his backers told he was out of it. Simultaneously, the jockeys sat down to ride—there was the cruel swish of catgut, the crueler prodding of steel. In the crowd a great hushed breath, like the sigh of a forest before the storm, told of tense heartstrings.

Almost instantly the sigh changed to a shouted roar as Tay Ho dropped back level with Aramis, leaving Aldegonde and the Heathflower thing half a length to the good. But next breath the falterers came again—together they held their place, their way, four mighty masses of blood and bone, of breath and fire and stay, fighting it out every inch of the way, with a living sea roaring, shouting, cursing, crying encouragement on either hand.

How they lay down to it! How they came up!

Stretch and gather! Stretch and gather, the game and gallant foursome held to it. Now, for the first time, the Heathflower thing showed all that was in her. Even those who stood to lose fortunes felt that her whirlwind rush deserved to win.

A hundred yards from the wire, whips still flying, rowels plowing furrows in satin coats, Aramis staggered, half stumbled, then fell back an open length.

Tim flung away his whip, and leaned far over, lying almost flat upon the Flower’s neck to shout in her ear: “You see dat dar Mister Aldergown! Dee calls him bulldawg! Tote yosef, gal! Show ’im you’s bulldawg, too.” Perhaps the Flower resented the caution. Certainly, she hung a bit in the next stride. Tay Ho and Aldegonde, running either side of her, almost let in daylight between.

The cheers, the roars, mounted in deafening volume. The Heathflower thing answered them by going down, down, till it seemed she lay quite flat on earth. And then she came up, up, with a leap so long, so lancelike, it recovered all she had lost. Again she thrust herself forward—the horses either side of her thrust as far.

Twenty yards from home not one of the three was an inch to the good or the bad. Aldegonde’s jockey slashed his mount savagely—somehow, one blow of the whip fell on the Flower’s quarter—fell and won the race. With a sweep as of the wind she went away from it, and got her nose across the finish line three inches in front!

A near thing. Anybody must admit that. So near the tumult died to a breathless hush. Hilary half turned about. “I’m going to the judges’ stand to see what won,” he said. “I saw Aldegonde first.”

“I don’t know about that—but I reckon you won’t go,” Billy said, laying his hand upon Hilary’s arm.

Hilary was furious. “Why not?” he demanded. He was no weakling, but somehow he could not get free of that impertinent young cub’s grip.

“Oh, because you are—your father’s son,” Billy said, nonchalantly, then steadfastly, the lightness dying from face and voice: “I mean no disrespect, Mr. Hilary, but all of us have got to take account of human nature. We may think we know what won—you and me—but it’s the judges’ business to say so—and ours to be satisfied with the sayin’. That’s only fair——”

“Let go my arm!” Hilary said, in a hoarse whisper, his eyes murderous.

Billy held him fast. “Not until you give me a gentleman’s word you won’t interfere,” he said.

Allys looked at him amazed, enchanted. Here was no boy to be played with, petted and coaxed from his beliefs—rather a man standing for what he held the right with the fire and strength of youth.

Adair caught Hilary on the other side, saying under breath: “Hold still, Rich! You must! The wild man from Borneo is right this time. It would be horribly bad form if you said a questioning word—and, anyway, the judges saw—what we did.”

Hilary turned upon Billy a look that made Allys hide her eyes, but nodded shortly, and strode away, not toward the stand. Billy turned to shield Allys, until by the stunned silence falling on the course, he knew the boards were going up—with the Flower’s number at the top of them.

Then he took the fence in front at a flying leap, and came to himself only when he had both arms about the Flower’s neck, his face pressed to it, and tears raining, as he whispered: “You won, lady! You had to! You wouldn’t let Haw Bush be sold over the major’s head. Hang the mortgages now—we’ll save him, you and I! And you shall never, never run another race!”

As the Flower was led away to receive other flowers, the hideous horseshoe penalty of victory, the crowd was astounded to see in the middle of the course a tall youngster in loud plaids, leaping, shouting, hugging himself, laughing and crying in the same breath.

And this was what he shouted: “The blood of Blink Bonny! Hurrah! hurrah! Beat it if you can! Hurrah for Haw Bush! For Major Meriwether! For Tim! For Blink Bonny! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”

Allys watched him, smiling roguishly. “Billy is ridiculously young,” she said to the constant Adair.

Adair looked glum. He knew, and knew she knew, that the boy they had welcomed was of full man’s age—quite old enough, in fact, to be married.