g hand
was placed over Waterbury's face and he was given a shove backward. He
staggered for a ridiculously long time, and then, after an unnecessary
waste of minutes, sat down. The tan overcoat stood over him. It was
Jimmy Drake, and the chameleonlike crowd applauded.

Jimmy was a popular book-maker with educated fists. The crowd surged
closer. It looked as if the fight might change from bantam-heavy to
heavy-heavy. And the odds were on Drake.

"If yeh want to fight kids," said the book-maker, in his slow, drawling
voice, "wait till they're grown up. Mebbe then yeh'll change your mind."

Waterbury was on his feet now. He let loose some vitriolic verbiage,
using Drake as the objective-point. He told him to mind his own
business, or that he would make it hot for him. He told him that
Garrison was a thief and cur; and that he would have no book-maker and
tout--

"Hold on," said Drake. "You're gettin' too flossy right there. When
you call me a tout you're exceedin' the speed limit." He had an
uncomfortable steady blue eye and a face like a snow-shovel. "I stepped
in here not to argue morals, but to see fair play. If Billy Garrison's
done dirt--and I admit it looks close like it--I'll bet that your
stable, either trainer or owner, shared the mud-pie, all right--"

"I've stood enough of those slurs," cried Waterbury, in a frenzy. "You
lie."

Instantly Drake's large face stiffened like cement, and his overcoat was
on the ground.

"That's a fighting word where I come from," he said grimly.

But before Drake could square the insult a crowd of Waterbury's
friends swirled up in an auto, and half a dozen peacemakers, mutual
acquaintances, together with two somnambulistic policemen, managed
to preserve the remains of the badly shattered peace. Drake sullenly
resumed his coat, and Waterbury was driven off, leaving a back draft
of impolite adjectives and vague threats against everybody. The crowd
drifted away. It was a fitting finish for the scotched Carter Handicap.

Meanwhile, Garrison, taking advantage of the switching of the lime-light
from himself to Drake, had dodged to oblivion in the crowd.

"I guess I don't forget Jimmy Drake," he mused grimly to himself. "He's
straight cotton. The only one who didn't give me the double-cross out
and out. Bud, Bud!" he declared to himself, "this is sure the wind-up.
You've struck bed-rock and the tide's coming in--hard. You're all to
the weeds. Buck up, buck up," he growled savage