ped on the turf with a bang, a thin streamer of blood
threading its way down his gray-white face.

"You miserable little whelp!" howled his owner. "You've dishonored me.
You threw that race, damn you! That's what I get for giving you a chance
when you couldn't get a mount anywhere." His long pent-up venom was
unleashed. "You threw it. You've tried to make me party to your dirty
work--me, me, me!"--he thumped his heaving chest. "But you can't heap
your filth on me. I'm done with you. You're a thief, a cur--"

"Hold on," cut in Garrison. He had risen slowly, and was dabbing
furtively at his nose with a silk red-and-blue handkerchief--the
Waterbury colors.

"Just a minute," he added, striving to keep his voice from sliding the
scale. He was horribly calm, but his gray eyes were quivering as was his
lip. "I didn't throw it. I--I didn't throw it. I was sick. I--I've been
sick. I--I----" Then, for he was only a boy with a man's burdens, his
lip began to quiver pitifully; his voice shrilled out and his words came
tumbling forth like lava; striving to make up by passion and reiteration
what they lacked in logic and coherency. "I'm not a thief. I'm not. I'm
honest. I don't know how it happened. Everything became a blur in the
stretch. You--you've called me a liar, Mr. Waterbury. You've called me
a thief. You struck me. I know you can lick me," he shrilled. "I'm
dishonored--down and out. I know you can lick me, but, by the Lord,
you'll do it here and now! You'll fight me. I don't like you. I never
liked you. I don't like your face. I don't like your hat, and
here's your damn colors in your face." He fiercely crumpled the silk
handkerchief and pushed it swiftly into Waterbury's glowering eye.

Instantly there was a mix-up. The crowd was blood-hungry. They had paid
for sport of some kind. There would be no crooked work in this deal.
Lustfully they watched. Then the inequality of the boy and the man was
at length borne in on them, and it roused their stagnant sense of fair
play.

Garrison, a small hell let loose, had risen from the turf for the third
time! His face was a smear of blood, venom, and all the bandit passions.
Waterbury, the gentleman in him soaked by the taint of a foisted
dishonor and his fighting blood roused, waited with clenched fists. As
Garrison hopped in for the fourth time, the older man feinted quickly,
and then swung right and left savagely.

The blows were caught on the thick arm of a tan box-coat. A bi