Garrison's Finish Part 10

"You remind me of a person in a dream," she said, after a little, still watching him closely. "Nothing seems real to you--your past, I mean. You only think you have done this and that."

He was silent, biting his lip.

"Come on, I'll race you," she cried suddenly. "To that big poplar down there. See it? About two furlongs. I'll give you twenty yards' start.

Don't fall off."

"I gave, never took, handicaps." The words came involuntarily to Garrison's surprise. "Come on; even up," he added hurriedly. "Ready?"

"Yes. Let her out."

The big bay gelding was off first, with the long, heart-breaking stride that eats up the ground. The girl's laugh floated back tantalizingly over her shoulder. Garrison hunched in the saddle, a smile on his lips.

He knew the quality of the flesh under him, and that it would not be absent at the call.

"Tote in behind, girlie. He got the jump on you. That's it. Nip his heels." The seconds flew by like the trees; the big poplar rushed up.

"Now, now. Make a breeze, make a breeze," sang out Garrison at the quarter minute; and like a long, black streak of smoke the filly hunched past the gelding, leaving it as if anch.o.r.ed. It was the old Garrison finish which had been track-famous once upon a time, and as Garrison eased up his hard-driven mount a queer feeling of exultation swelled his heart; a feeling which he could not quite understand.

"Could I have been a jockey once?" he kept asking himself over and over.

"I wonder could I have been! I wonder!"

The next moment the gelding had ranged up alongside.

"I'll bet that was close to twenty-four, the track record," said Garrison unconsciously. "Pretty fair for dead and lumpy going, eh?

Midge is a comer, all right. Good weight-carrying sprinter. I fancy that gelding. Properly ridden he would have given me a hard ride. We were even up on weight."

"And so you think I cannot ride properly!" added the girl quietly, arranging her wind-blown hair.

"Oh, yes. But women can't really ride cla.s.s, you know. It isn't in them."

She laughed a little. "I'm satisfied now. You know I was at the Carter Handicap last year."

"Yes?" said Garrison, unmoved. He met her eyes fairly.

"Yes, you know Rogue, father's horse, won. They say Sis, the favorite, had the race, but was pulled in the stretch." She was smiling a little.

"Indeed?" murmured Garrison, with but indifferent interest.

She glanced at him sharply, then fell to pleating the gelding's mane.

"Um-m-m," she added softly. "Billy Garrison, you know, rode Sis."

"Oh, did he?"

"Yes. And, do you know, his seat was identical with yours?" She turned and eyed him steadily.

"I'm flattered."

"Yes," she continued dreamily, the smile at her lips; "it's funny, of course, but Billy Garrison used to be my hero. We silly girls all have one."

"Oh, well," observed Garrison, "I dare say any number of girls loved Billy Garrison. Popular idol, you know----"

"I dare say," she echoed dryly. "Possibly the dark, clinging kind."

He eyed her wonderingly, but she was looking very innocently at the peregrinating chipmunk.

"And it was so funny," she ran on, as if she had not heard his observation nor made one herself. "Coming home in the train from the Aqueduct the evening of the handicap, father left me for a moment to go into the smoking-car. And who do you think should be sitting opposite me, two seats ahead, but--Who do you think?" Again she turned and held his eyes.

"Why--some long-lost girl-chum, I suppose," said Garrison candidly.

She laughed; a laugh that died and was reborn and died again in a throaty gurgle. "Why, no, it was Billy Garrison himself. And I was being annoyed by a beast of a man, when Mr. Garrison got up, ordered the beast out of the seat beside me, and occupied it himself, saying it was his.

It was done so beautifully. And he did not try to take advantage of his courtesy in the least. And then guess what happened." Still her eyes held his.

"Why," answered Garrison vaguely, "er--let me see. It seems as if I had heard of that before somewhere. Let me see. Probably it got into the papers--No, I cannot remember. It has gone. I have forgotten. And what did happen next?"

"Why, father returned, saw Mr. Garrison raise his hat in answer to my thanks, and, thinking he had tried to sc.r.a.pe an acquaintance with me, threw him out of the seat. He did not recognize him."

"That must have been a little bit tough on Garrison, eh?" laughed Garrison idly. "Now that you mention it, it seems as if I had heard it."

"I've always wanted to apologize to Mr. Garrison, though I do not know him--he does not know me," said the girl softly, pleating the gelding's mane at a great rate. "It was all a mistake, of course. I wonder--I wonder if--if he held it against me!"

"Oh, very likely he's forgotten all about it long ago," said Garrison cheerfully.

She bit her lip and was silent. "I wonder," she resumed, at length, "if he would like me to apologize and thank him--" She broke off, glancing at him shyly.

"Oh, well, you never met him again, did you?" asked Garrison. "So what does it matter? Merely an incident."

They rode a furlong in absolute silence. Again the girl was the first to speak. "It is queer," she moralized, "how fate weaves our lives. They run along in threads, are interwoven for a time with others, dropped, and then interwoven again. And what a pattern they make!"

"Meaning?" he asked absently.

She tapped her lips with the palm of her little gauntlet.

"That I think you are absurd."

"I?" He started. "How? Why? I don't understand. What have I done now?"

"Nothing. That's just it."

"I don't understand."

"No? Um-m-m, of course it is your secret. I am not trying to force a confidence. You have your own reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng your uncle and aunt to know. But I never believed that Garrison threw the Carter Handicap. Never, never, never. I--I thought you could trust me. That is all."

"I don't understand a word--not a syllable," said Garrison restlessly.

"What is it all about?"

The girl laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Oh, nothing at all. The return of a prodigal. Only I have a good memory for faces. You have changed, but not very much. I only had to see you ride to be certain.

But I suspected from the start. You see, I admit frankly that you once were my hero. There is only one Billy Garrison."

"I don't see the moral to the parable." He shook his head hopelessly.

"No?" She flushed and bit her lip. "William C. Dagget, you're Billy Garrison, and you know it!" she said sharply, turning and facing him.