thousand dollars for the first horse; fifteen hundred for the second;
five hundred for the third. All striving to be at least placed within
the money--placed for the honor and glory and standing.

Last of all came The Rogue, black, lean, dangerous. Trained for the
fight of his life from muzzle to clean-cut hoofs. Those hoofs had been
cared for more carefully than the hands of any queen; packed every
day in the soft, velvety red clay brought all the way from the Potomac
River.

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
instantly, before even his face could be discerned.

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
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. 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 been
forgotten.

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, how many, really thought he was there to win? How many thought
he could win?

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
was deaf, impervious. He was there to win. That only.

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
overmast