The major commenced to doubt. And his wife"s words: "It"s not like Sue to permit William to go like that. Nor like her to ever have said such a thing even unthinkingly. There"s more than that on the girl"s mind.
She is wasting away"--but served to strengthen the doubt. Still, he was impotent. He could not understand. If his nephew did not wish to return, all the advertising in creation could not drag him back.
Yes, his wife was right. There was more on the girl"s mind than that.
And it was not like Sue to act as she affirmed she had. Still, he could not bring himself to doubt her. He was in a quandary. It had begun to tell on him, on his wife; even as it had already told on the girl.
And old Colonel Desha was likewise breasting a sea of trouble.
Waterbury"s death had brought financial matters to a focus. Honor imperatively demanded that the mortgage be settled with the dead man"s heirs. It was only due to Sue"s desperate financiering that the interest had been met up to the present. That it would be paid next month depended solely on the chance of The Rogue winning the Carter Handicap.
Things had come to as bad a pa.s.s as that.
The colonel frantically bent every effort toward getting the thoroughbred into condition. How he hated himself now for posting his all on the winter books! Now that the great trial was so near, his deep convictions of triumph did not look so wonderful.
There were good horses entered against The Rogue. Major Calvert"s Dixie, for instance, and Speedaway, the wonderful goer owned by that man Drake.
Then there were half a dozen others--all from well-known stables. There could be no doubt that "cla.s.s" would be present in abundance at the Carter. And only he had so much at stake. He had entered The Rogue in the first flush consequent on his winning the last Carter. But he must win this. He must. Getting him into condition entailed expense. It must be met. All his hopes, his fears, were staked on The Rogue. Money never was so paramount; the need of it so great. Fiercely he hugged his poverty to his breast, keeping it from his friend the major.
Then, too, he was greatly worried over Sue. She was not looking well.
He was worried over Garrison"s continued absence. He was worried over everything. It was besetting him from all sides. Worry was causing him to take the lime-light from himself. He awoke to the fact that Sue was in very poor health. If she died--He never could finish.
Taken all in all, it was a very bad time for the two oldest families in Cottonton. Every member was suffering silently, stoically; each in a different way. One striving to conceal from the other. And it all centered about Garrison.
And then, one day when things were at their worst, when Garrison, unconscious of the general misery he had engendered, had completed Speedaway"s training for the Carter, when he himself was ready for the fight of his life, a stranger stepped off the Cottonton express and made his way to the Desha homestead. He knew the colonel. He was a big, quiet man--Jimmie Drake.
A week later and Drake had returned North. He had not said anything to Garrison regarding what had called him away, but the latter vaguely sensed that it was another attempt on the indefatigable turfman"s part to ferret out the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark. And when Drake, on his return, called Garrison into the club-house, Garrison went white-faced.
He had just sent Speedaway over the seven furlongs in record time, and his heart was big with hope.
Drake never wasted ammunition in preliminary skirmishing. He told the joke first and the story afterward.
"I"ve been South. Seen Colonel Desha and Major Calvert," he said tersely.
Garrison was silent, looking at him. He tried to read fate in his inscrutable eyes; news of some description; tried, and failed. He turned away his head. "Tell me," he said simply. Drake eyed him and slowly came forward and held out his large bloodshot hand.
"Billy Garrison--"Bud"--"Kid"--William C. Dagget," he said, nodding his head.
Garrison rose with difficulty, the sweat on his face.
"William C. Dagget? Me? Me? Me?" he whispered, his head thrown forward, his eyes narrowed, starting at Drake. "Just G.o.d, Jimmie! Don"t play with me----" He sat down abruptly covering his quivering face with his hands.
Drake laid a hand on the heaving shoulders. "There, there, kid," he murmured gruffly, as if to a child, "don"t go and blow up over it. Yes, you"re Dagget. The luckiest kid in the States, and--and the d.a.m.nedest.
You"ve raised a muss-pile down South in Cottonton. Dagget or no Dagget, I"m talking straight. You"ve been selfish, kid. You"ve only been thinking of yourself; your regeneration; your past, your present, your future. You--you--you. You never thought of the folks you left down home; left to suffocate with the stink you raised. You cleared out scot-free, and, say, kid, you let a girl lie for you; lie for you. You did that. A girl, by heck! who wouldn"t lie for the Almighty Himself.
A girl who--who----" Drake searched frantically for a fitting simile, gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk handkerchief, and flumped into a chair. "Well, say, kid, it"s just plain h.e.l.l. That"s what it is."
"Lied for me?" said Garrison very quietly.
"That"s the word. But I"ll start from the time the fur commenced to fly.
In the first place, there"s no doubt about your ident.i.ty. I was right.
I"ve proved that. I couldn"t find Snark--I guess the devil must have called him back home. So I took things on my own hook and went to Cottonton, where I moseyed round considerable. I know Colonel Desha, and I learned a good deal in a quiet way when I was there. I learned from Major Calvert that his half-sister"s--your mother"s--name was Loring.
That cinched it for me. But I said nothing. They were in an awful stew over your absence, but I never let on, at first, that I had you bunked.
"I learned, among other things, that Miss Desha had taken upon herself the blame of your leaving; saying that she had said something you had taken exception to; that you had gone to prove your manhood, kid. Your manhood, kid--mind that. She"s a thoroughbred, that girl. Now, I would have backed her lie to the finish if something hadn"t gone and happened." Drake paused significantly. "That something was that the major received a letter--from your father, kid."
"My father?" whispered Garrison.
"Um-m-m, the very party. Written from "Frisco--on his death-bed. One of those old-timey, stage-climax death-bed confessions. As old as the mortgage on the farm business. As I remarked before some right-meaning chap says somewhere something about saying nothing but good of the dead.
I"m not slinging mud. I guess there was a whole lot missing in your father, kid, but he tried to square himself at the finish, the same as we all do, I guess.
"He wrote to the major, saying he had never told his son--you, kid--of his real name nor of his mother"s family. He confessed to changing his name from Dagget to Garrison for the very reasons I said. Remember?
He ended by saying he had wronged you; that he knew you would be the major"s heir, and that if you were to be found it would be under the name of Garrison. That is, if you were still living. He didn"t know anything about you.
"There was a whole lot of repentance and general misery in the letter.
I don"t like to think of it overmuch. But it knocked Cottonton flatter than stale beer. Honest. I never saw such a time. I"m no good at telling a yarn, kid. It was something fierce. There was nothing but knots and knots; all diked up and tangles by the mile. And so I had to step in and straighten things out. And--and so, kid, I told the major everything; every sc.r.a.p of your history, as far as I knew it. All you had told to me. I had to. Now, don"t tell me I kicked in. Say I did right, kid. I meant to."
"Yes, yes," murmured Garrison blankly. "And--and the major? What--did he say, Jimmie?"
Drake frowned thoughtfully.
"Say? Well, kid, I only wish I had an uncle like that. I only wish there were more folks like those Cottonton folks. I do. Say? Why, Lord, kid, it was one grand hallelujah! Forgive? Say," he finished, thoughtfully eyeing the white-faced, newly christened Garrison, "what have you ever done to be loved like that? They were crazy for you. Not a word was said about your imposition. Not a word. It was all: "When will he be back?"
"Where is he?" "Telegraph!" All one great slambang of joy. And me? Well, I could have had that town for my own. And your aunt? She cried, cried when she heard all you had been through. Oh, I made a great press-agent, kid. And the old major--Oh, fuss! I can"t tell a yarn nohow," grumbled Drake, stamping about at great length and vigorously using the lurid silk handkerchief.
William C. Dagget was silent--the silence of great, overwhelming joy. He was shivering. "And--and Miss Desha?" he whispered at length.
"Yes--Miss Desha," echoed Drake, planting wide his feet and contemplating the other"s bent head. "Yes, Miss Desha. And why in blazes did you tell her you were married, eh?" he asked grimly. "Oh, you thought you were? Oh, yes. And you didn"t deny it when you found it wasn"t so? Oh, yes, of course. And it didn"t matter whether she ate her heart out or not? Of course not. Oh, yes, you wanted to be clean, first, and all that. And she might die in the meantime. You didn"t think she still cared for you? Now, see here, kid, that"s a lie and you know it.
It"s a lie. When a girl like Miss Desha goes so far as to--Oh, fuss! I can"t tell a yarn. But, see here, kid, I haven"t your blood. I own that.
But if I ever put myself before a girl who cared for me the way Miss Desha cares for you, and I professed to love her as you professed to love Miss Desha, than may I rot--rot, hide, hair, and bones! Now, cuss me out, if you like."
Garrison looked up grimly.
"You"re right, Jimmie. I should have stood my ground and taken my dose.
I should have written her when I discovered the truth. But--I couldn"t.
I couldn"t. Listen, Jimmie, it was not selfishness, not cowardice.
Can"t you see? Can"t you see? I cared too much. I was so unworthy, so miserable. How could I ever think she would stoop to my level? She was so high; I so horribly low. It was my own unworthiness choking me. It was not selfishness, Jimmie, not selfishness. It was despair; despair and misery. Don"t you understand?"
"Oh, fuss!" said Drake again, using the lurid silk handkerchief. Then he laid his hand on the other"s shoulder. "I understand," he said simply.
There was silence. Finally Drake wiped his face and cleared his throat.
"And now, with your permission, we"ll get down to tacks, Mr. William C.
Dagget--"
"Don"t call me that, Jimmie. I"m not that--yet. I"m Billy Garrison until I"ve won the Carter Handicap--proven myself clean."
"Right, kid. And that"s what I wished to speak about. In the first place, Major Calvert knows where you are. Colonel and Miss Desha do not.
In fact, kid," added Drake, rubbing his chin, "the major and I have a little plot hatched up between us. Your ident.i.ty, if possible is not to be made known to the colonel and his daughter until the finish of the Carter. Understand?"
"No," said Garrison flatly. "Why?"
"Because, kid, you"re not going to ride Speedaway. You"re not going to ride for my stable. You"re going to ride Colonel Desha"s Rogue--ride as you never rode before. Ride and win. That"s why."
Garrison only stared as Drake ran on. "See here, kid, this race means everything to the colonel--everything in the world. Every cent he has is at stake; his honor, his life, his daughter"s happiness. He"s proud, cussed proud, and he"s kept it mum. And the girl--Miss Desha has bucked poverty like a thoroughbred. I got to know the facts, picking them up here and there, and the major knows, too. We"ve got to work in the dark, for the colonel would die first if he knew the truth, before he would accept help even indirectly. The Rogue must win; must. But what chance has he against the major"s Dixie, my Speedaway, and the Morgan entry--Swallow? And so the major has scratched his mount, giving out that Dixie has developed eczema.
"Now, the colonel is searching high and low for a jockey capable of handling The Rogue. It"ll take a good man. I recommended you. He doesn"t know your ident.i.ty, for the major and I have kept it from him. He only thinks you are _the_ Garrison who has come back. I have fixed it up with him that you are to ride his mount, and The Rogue will arrive to-morrow.