In Old Kentucky Part 36

"Everybody's at the races," she thought, comforting herself. "I'm perfectly safe. No one in the world will see me.... But where _is_ that blessed knot-hole?"

Suddenly her eye chanced on it, and, an instant later, was applied to it, the while the Colonel paused, with his back to her, still anxiously inspecting the tree.

"Ah!" said Miss Alathea, aloud, as she caught a glimpse of something interesting inside the fence.

Instantly the Colonel turned and looked down at her, startled. Then: "A woman!" he exclaimed, beneath his breath. "A woman at my knot-hole!"

Firmly determined to maintain his right he sternly approached her.

"Madam!" he exclaimed, as incensed by her usurpation of the knot-hole as he would have been, at ordinary times, by theft of watch or pocket-book, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

She shrank back from the knot-hole, startled and indignant. "Sir!" she cried, and then, as he recognized her, she turned and saw who had addressed her.

"Colonel Sandusky Doolittle!" she exclaimed, amazed.

"Miss Alathea Layson!" cried the Colonel, equally amazed, at first, but winding up his gesture of surprise with a low and courtly bow.

"Colonel, what are you doing here?"

"Madame," he countered, "what are _you_ doing here?"

Miss Alathea's dignity forsook her. "Colonel," she confessed, "I couldn't wait to hear the result."

"No more could I," he somewhat sheepishly admitted.

"But I didn't enter the race-track," she explained in haste.

"I was equally firm."

"And Neb told me of this knot-hole."

"The rascal--he told me of it, too."

"Colonel," she said, smiling, "we must forgive each other. If you really must look, there is the knot-hole."

"No, Miss 'Lethe," he said gallantly, "_I_ resign the knot-hole to you.

I shall climb the tree." Without delay (for sounds from the barrier's far side hinted to his practiced ear that matters of much moment were progressing, there) he scrambled with much more difficulty than dignity into the spreading crotch.

"Oh, be careful Colonel!" Miss Alathea cried, alarmed. "Don't break your neck!" But she added, as an afterthought: "But be sure to get where you can see."

"Ah, what a gallant sight!" he cried as he found himself in a position whence he could command a view of the exciting scene within the barrier.

"There's Catalpa ... and Evangeline ... and ... yes, there is Queen Bess!"

A burst of cheering rose from the crowd within.

Miss Alathea was on tip-toe with excitement. "What's that?" she begged.

"A false start," he answered, scarcely even glancing down at her.

"They'll make it this time, though," he added, and she could see his knuckles whiten with the strain as he gripped a rough limb of the tree with vise-like fingers.

A moment later and the shouting became a very tempest of sound.

"They're off!" he cried, staring through his field gla.s.ses in an excitement which promised, if he did not curb it, to send him tumbling from his shaky foothold. "Oh, what a splendid start!"

"Who's ahead?" inquired Miss Alathea, very much excited. "Colonel, who's ahead?"

"Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back."

"Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front?" Miss Alathea cried, as if he were to blame for the disquieting news he had reported to her. "Oh," she exclaimed, to the Colonel's great astonishment, "if I were only on that mare!"

"At the half," the Colonel shouted, beside himself with worry, "Evangeline takes the lead ... Catalpa next ... the rest are bunched."

Miss Alathea, at the moment, was trying to see satisfactorily, through the very knot-hole which the Colonel had abandoned. She sprang from it hastily, however, and to the foot of the tree which acted as his pedestal, when he exclaimed:

"Oh, great heavens! There's a fall ... a jam ... and Queen Bess is left behind three lengths!" He leaned so far out that he heard the limb beneath him crack, and, in hastening to a firmer footing, almost lost his balance. This startled him, and, for an instant, took his eager gaze away from the struggling horses on the track within, but he quickly regained poise. "She hasn't the ghost of a show!" he cried, disheartened. "Look! Look!"

Miss Alathea hugged the tree and looked, not at the horses, for that was quite impossible, but up at him with wide, imploring eyes.

"She's at it again, though, now!" he cried. "It's beyond anything mortal, but she's gaining ... gaining!"

Miss Alathea's excitement now was every bit as great as his. She had never seen a race in all her life, yet, now, she performed there at the foot of the great tree, a series of evolution not unlike those of many a "rooter" at the track within. She jumped up and down upon her toe's, clenched her hands and cried: "Oh, keep it up! Keep it up!"

"At the three-quarters she's only five lengths behind the leader and still gaming!" cried the Colonel, in excited optimism.

Miss Alathea could no longer endure the agony of waiting on the ground for his reports. Instead she tried to scramble to his side, but, failing, utterly, to accomplish this unaided, held her hands up to him, crying: "Oh, pull, pull! I can't stand it! I've just got to see!"

The Colonel turned upon his perch and looked down at her, smiling.

"Coming up, Miss 'Lethe?" he inquired. "All right, don't break your neck, but get where you can see." Hastily he gave her such a.s.sistance as his absorbed attention to the events within the fence permitted, and, with a wild scramble, she found herself close by his side, holding half to him, half to a curving branch.

"Look! Look!" he cried, again. "In the stretch! Her head is at Catalpa's crupper ... now at her saddle-bow ... but she can't gain another inch.

Still ... yes ... yes ... she lifts her! See!... See!... Great G.o.d! She wins!"

Within the fence wild pandemonium broke loose. The crowd went mad with shouting. Hats, handkerchiefs, canes, umbrellas, flew into the air as if blown upward by the mad explosion of the crowd's enthusiasm. The band was playing "Dixie."

Frank and Neb rushed forward to lift from the winner the victorious jockey, who by such superb riding as that track had never seen before, had s.n.a.t.c.hed victory from defeat after the mare had been delayed in the bad pocket which, from his distant point of survey, had alarmed the Colonel. The jockey eluded them, however and, with face averted, hurried with the splendid mare back to the paddock, and there disappeared, disregarding the crowd's wild shouts of acclamation.

Holton stood near Frank, white-faced and angry. Old Neb, as he ran beside Queen Bess, looked back at him and grinned.

CHAPTER XVIII

Miss Alathea, on the day after the great race, sat waiting for the Colonel in the handsome old library of Woodlawn, worrying about her unconventionalities of the preceding day. When she heard his voice, out in the hall, telling Neb to carry certain bundles into the library and knew, of course, that he would follow after them almost immediately, her heart throbbed fiercely in her bosom. She shrank back into a window recess, too embarra.s.sed to face him without first pausing to gather up her courage.

"Put 'em there, Neb," said the Colonel, pointing to the table, and then, after the packages had been arranged to suit him: "Here, take this, and drink to the jockey that rode Queen Bess."