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Later in the evening came Doctor Crimmins, very regretful and full of arguments in favor of postponing action. When twilight passed they went out onto the porch with their pipes and glasses. They talked as friends talk on the eve of parting, often of trivial things, with long pauses between. The moon came up over the tree tops, round and full, and flooded the garden with silver.
Crimmins was not given to airing his abortive sense of humor overmuch, and he was a sound judge of horse and man. If he was right but the major had to laugh at such a possibility. Garrison to ride like that! He who had confessed he had never thrown a leg over a horse before! By a freak of nature he might possess the instinct but not the ability.
By the way, if you take an interest in horses, and Crimmins tells me you have an eye for class, you rascal, come out to the track with me to-morrow. I've got a filly which I think will give the colonel's Rogue a hard drive. You know, if the colonel enters for the next Carter, I intend to contest it with him and win." He chuckled.
It's ten years ago since I stood here, Mr. Herrick. Dear me! A fine Christian woman she was, sir. Well! Well! 'Time rolls his ceaseless course. Bless me, I believe I'm getting old!" And the Doctor turned his twinkling gray eyes on Wade with smiling dismay. "Try the rocking chair, Doctor Crimmins. Let me take your hat and cane." "No, no, I'll just lay them here beside me.
A horse streaked its way toward them. Crimmins darted into the underbrush bordering the pike. The horse came fast. It flashed past Garrison. Its rider was swaying in the saddle; swaying with white, tense face and sawing hands. The eyes were fixed straight ahead, vacant. A broken saddle-girth flapped raggedly. Garrison recognized the fact that it was a runaway, with Sue Desha up.
But he would be loyal to her; loyal as Crimmins said she had been loyal to him. Then he would face whatever charges were against him, and seek restoration from the jockey club, though it took his lifetime. And he would seek some way of wiping out, or at least diminishing, the stain he had left behind him in Virginia.
Crimmins eyed him askance as he entered. "Goin' for a canter, sir? Ho, yuss; this 'ere is the 'orse the master said as 'ow you were to ride, sir. It don't matter which side yeh get on. 'E's as stiddy-goin' as a alarum clock. Ho, yuss. I calls 'im Waterbury Watch partly because I 'appen to 'ave a brother wot's trainer for Mr. Waterbury, the turfman, sir."
"But Dan Crimmins has a heart, an' it ain't his way to shake friends, even if they has money. It ain't Crimmins' way." "Take your hand off my shoulder," said Garrison steadily. The other's black brows met, but he smiled genially. "It don't go, Bud. No, no." He shook his head. "Try that on those who don't know you. I know you. You're Billy Garrison; I'm Dan Crimmins.
From the distant town a bell chimed the hour of eight. He had twenty pounds the better of the weights, but he was taking no chances. For Garrison, all his wealth of hard-earned fistic education roused, was waiting; waiting with the infinite patience of the wounded cougar. Crimmins looked up and down the road again.
She had a hundred and twenty-five pounds of grossness to boil down before making track weight, but the opening spring handicap was five months off, and Crimmins believed in the "slow and sure" adage. Major Calvert, his old weather-beaten duster fluttering in the wind, took his accustomed perch on the rail, while Garrison prepared to get into racing-togs.
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