W. B. M. Ferguson

“ It was all very like the months he put in at Bellevue in the long ago, before he had experienced the hunger-cancer and compromised with honesty.
And again there came nights when doctors shook their heads and nurses looked grave; nights when it was understood that before another dawn had come creeping through the windows little Billy Garrison would have crossed the Big Divide; nights when the shibboleths of a dead-and-gone life were even fluttering on his lips; nights when names but not identities fought with one another for existence; fought for birth, for supremacy, and “Sue” always won ”

“ Garrison! Garrison!” was caught up and flung back like the spume of sea from the surf-lashed coast.
He knew the value of that hail, and how only one year ago his name had been spewed from out those selfsame laudatory mouths with venom and contempt. He knew his public. Adversity had been a mighty master. The public—they who live in the present, not the past. They who swear by triumph, achievement; not effort. They who have no memory for the deeds that have been done unless they vouch for future conquests. The public—fickle as woman, weak as infancy, gullible as credulity, mighty as fate. ”

“ He could not know that those same hands had once coaxed thoroughbreds down the stretch to victory. His haunts necessarily kept him from meeting with those whom he had once known. The few he did happen to meet he cut unconsciously as he had once cut Jimmy Drake.
And so day by day Garrison's morality suffered. It is so easy for the well-fed to be honest. But when there is the hunger cancer gnawing at one's vitals, not for one day, but for many, then honesty and dishonesty cease to be concrete realities. It is not a question of piling up luxuries, but of supplying mere necessity. ”

“ Sue never rightly remembered how the two months passed; the two months succeeding that hideous night when in paralyzed silence she watched Garrison away. The greatest sorrow is stagnant, not active. The heart becomes like a frozen morass. Sometimes memory slips through the crust, only to sink in the grim “slough of despond.”
Waterbury's death had unnerved her, coming as it did at a time when tragedy had opened the pores of her heart. ”

“ He came over and laid a kindly hand on Garrison's shoulder.
And Garrison had been silent. He was in a mental and moral fog. He guessed that his supposed father had not been all that a man should be. The eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, had said as much. He knew himself that he was nothing that a man should be. His conscience was fully awakened by now. Every worthy ounce of blood he possessed cried out for him to go; to leave Calvert House before it was too late; before the old major and his wife grew to love him as there seemed danger of them doing. ”

“ Sue lied bravely, convincingly, whole-heartedly. Everything she did was done thoroughly. She would not think of the future. But she could not tell that Garrison was an impostor; a father of children. She could not tell. So she lied, and lied so well that the old major, bewildered, was forced to believe her. He was forced to acquiesce. He could not interfere. He could do nothing. It was better that his nephew should prove his manhood; return some time and love the girl, than that he should hate her for eternity. ”

“ She whipped the bit into her fierce, even, white teeth, and with a snort shot down the pike.
And then Waterbury's better self gained supremacy; contrition, self-hatred rushing in like a fierce tidal wave and swamping the last vestige of animalism. He spurred blindly after the fast-disappearing filly.
Garrison rode one of the best races of his life that night. It was a trial of stamina and nerve. Lethe was primarily a sprinter, and the gelding, raised to his greatest effort by the genius of his rider, outfought her, outstayed her. ”

“ Judgment, instinct, daring, nerve, were all his; at his beck and call; serving their master. He felt every inch the veteran he was—though he knew it not. It was not a freak of nature. He had worked, worked hard for knowledge, and it would not be denied. He felt as he used to feel before he had “gone back.”
Garrison took Dixie over the seven furlongs twice, and in a manner, despite her grossness, the mare had never been taken before. She ran as easily, as relentlessly, without a hitch or break, as fine-spun silk slips through a shuttle. ”

“ And as, saddle on shoulder, he stood on the weighing-scales and caught sight of the oncoming hosts of “Cottonton” and read what the girl's eyes held, then, indeed, he knew all that his finish had earned him—the beginning of a new life with a new name; the beginning of one that the lesson he had learned, backed by the great love that had come to him, would make—paradise. And his one unuttered prayer was: “Dear God, make me worthy, make me worthy of them—all!”
Aftermath was a blur to “Garrison.” Great happiness can obscure, befog like great sorrow. ”

“ The favorite beaten in the stretch, choked off, outside the money——
Garrison gasped as the rushing simulacra of the Carter Handicap surged to his beating brain; that brain at bursting pressure. It had recorded so many things—recorded faithfully so many, many things he would give anything to forget.
He was choking, smothering—smothering with shame, hopelessness, despair. He must get away; get away to breathe, to think; get away out of it all; get away anywhere—oblivion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But presently the word that Garrison was to ride flew everywhere, and Sue heard it. She turned slowly to Drake, standing at her elbow, his eyes on the paddock.
“Is it true that a jockey called Garrison is to ride to-day?” she asked, a strange light in her eyes. What that name meant to her!
“Why, yes, I believe so, Miss Desha,” replied Drake, delightfully innocent. “Why?”
“Oh,” she said slowly. “How—how queer! I mean—isn't it queer that two people should have the same name? I suppose this one copied it; imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. I hope he does the name justice. ”

“ It made itself apparent in countless foolish little ways; in countless little means of placating his daughter—a favorite book, a song, a new saddle. These votive offerings were tendered in subdued silence fitting to the occasion, but Sue always lauded them to the skies. Nor would she let him see that she understood the contrition working in him. To Colonel Desha she was no longer “my little girl,” but “my daughter.” Very often we only recognize another's right and might by being in the wrong and weak ourselves. ”

“ All sorts and conditions of men comprised that list of former friends, and not one now stepped out and wrung his hand; wrung it as they had only the other day, when they thought he would retrieve his fortunes by pulling off the Carter Handicap. They did not wring it now, for there was nothing to wring out of it. Now he was not only hopelessly down in the muck of poverty, but hopelessly dishonored. And gentlemanly appearing blackguards, who had left all honesty in the cradle, now wouldn't for the world be seen talking on Broadway to little Billy Garrison, the horribly crooked jockey. ”

“ Crooked as Doyers Street, they said; throwing every race; standing in with his owner to trim the bookies, and they couldn't stand for that. Sport was sport. But they had been loyal. They had warned, implored, begged. What was the use soaking a pile by dirty work? Why not ride straight—ride as he could, as he did, as it had been bred in him to? Any money, any honor was his. Instead—
Garrison, stung to madness by retrospect, humped his way through the crowd at the gates of the Aqueduct. There was not a friendly eye in that crowd. ”

“ Garrison left Long Island for New York that night. When you are hard hit the soul suffers a reflex-action. It recoils to its native soil. New York was Garrison's home. He was a product of its sporting soil. He loved the Great White Way. But he had drunk in the smell, the intoxication of the track with his mother's milk. She had been from the South; the land of straight women, straight men, straight living, straight riding. She had brought blood—good, clean blood—to the Garrison-Loring entente cordiale—a polite definition of a huge mistake. ”

“ Dagget or no Dagget, I'm talking straight. You've been selfish, kid. You've only been thinking of yourself; your regeneration; your past, your present, your future. You—you—you. You never thought of the folks you left down home; left to suffocate with the stink you raised. You cleared out scot-free, and, say, kid, you let a girl lie for you; lie for you. You did that. A girl, by heck! who wouldn't lie for the Almighty Himself. A girl who—who——” Drake searched frantically for a fitting simile, gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk handkerchief, and flumped into a chair. ”

“ Snark. Possession is in reality ten-tenths of the law. The lawyer had cleverly proven his—Garrison's—claim. He would be still more clever if he could disprove it. A lie can never be branded truth by a liar. How could he disprove it? How could his shoddy word weigh against Garrison's, fashioned from the whole cloth and with loyalty, love on Garrison's side? ”

“ 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. ”

“ A great splatter of hoof-beats came from down the pike, sounding like the vomitings of a Gatling gun. A horse streaked its way toward them. Crimmins darted into the underbrush bordering the pike. The horse came fast. It flashed past Garrison. Its rider was swaying in the saddle; swaying with white, tense face and sawing hands. The eyes were fixed straight ahead, vacant. A broken saddle-girth flapped raggedly. Garrison recognized the fact that it was a runaway, with Sue Desha up. ”

“ Where man had failed, nature had stepped in and operated successfully. Her methods had been crude, but effective. The unscientific blow on the head had restored the dislodged bone to its proper place. The medical world was highly pleased over this manifestation of nature's surgical skill, and appeared to think that she had operated under its direction. And nature never denied it.
As Garrison opened his eyes, dazed, weak as water, memory, full, complete, rushed into action. His brain recalled everything—everything from the period it is given man to remember down to the present. ”

“ Came a day when in the paddock Dan Crimmins had seen that fleck of arterial blood on the handkerchief. Then Dan shared the secret. He commenced to doctor Garrison. Before every race the jockey had a drug. But despite it he rode worse than an exercise-boy; rode despicably. The Carter Handicap had finished his deal. And with it Garrison had lost his reputation.
He had done many things in his mad years of prosperity—the mistakes, the faults of youth. But Billy Garrison was right when he said he was square. He never threw a race in his life. ”

“ Garrison's pinched face had gone slowly white. A vague premonition of impending further disaster possessed him, amounting almost to an obsession. “What do you mean, Jimmy?” he reiterated tensely.
Drake was silent, still scrutinizing him.
“Kid,” he said finally, “I don't like to think it of you—but I know what made you do it. You were sore on Waterbury; sore for losing. You wanted to get hunk on something. But I tell you, kid, there's no deal too rotten for a man who poisons a horse—”
“Poisons a horse,” echoed Garrison mechanically. “Poisons a horse. Good Lord, Drake!” ”

“ This intimacy with Sue Desha was destined to work a change in Waterbury.
He had come unworthy to the Desha home. He acknowledged that to himself. Come with the purpose of compelling his suit, if necessary. His love had been the product of his animalistic nature. It was a purely sensual appeal. He had never known the true interpretation of love; never experienced the society of a womanly woman. But it is in every nature to respond to the highest touch; to the appeal of honor. When trust is reposed, fidelity answers. It did its best to answer in Waterbury's case. ”

“ And some there were who cursed Drake and Major Calvert; cursed long and intelligently—those who had bet on Speedaway and Dixie, bet on the play-or-pay basis, and now that the mounts were scratched, they had been bitten. It was entirely wrong to tempt Fortune, and then have her turn on you. She should always be down on the “other fellow”—not you.
And then there were those, and many, who did not question, who were glad to know that Garrison had come back on any terms. They had liked him for himself. They were the weak-kneed variety who are stanch in prosperity; who go with the world ”