distance!" came the cry.

"Brown horse wins! Green jacket loses!"

The Grand Stand saw it. Chukkers saw it, too. His eyes were fixed on his
rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. They never
stirred; they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his
enemy--insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have
screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his
poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her,
fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the
sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.

And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. It
seemed to be contagious. Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to
mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.

"He's swearing at him!" cried the White Hat, aghast.

"B---- shame!" shouted another.

"Tryin' to rattle the lad!"

And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.

To Silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as
time--Right against Wrong, Light against Dark. He was watching it like
God; and, like God, he could do nothing. His voice was lost in his
throat. Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea
in travail. A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within
him.

Then the nightmare passed.

The boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied
with him.

He steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred
deliberately and of set purpose.

He was asking his horse the question. There was no doubt of the reply.

Four-Pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream.

His vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away
behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations
of the triumphant Englishmen.

"Got her dead to the world!" cried Old Mat, a note of battle resounding
deeply through his voice. "What price Putnam's now!" And he thumped the
rail.

But the end was not even yet. The great English horse came moving like a
flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence.

The roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a
world-avalanche, shot with screams.

The jockey in green had pitched forward as his horse landed.

He scrambled for a moment, and somehow wriggled back into his
seat--short of his whip.

The Grand Stand became a maelstrom.

Men were fight