n a thousand; then
you can save Alan Porter--can keep this misery from the girl that is to
you as your own life."

Mortimer listened eagerly; to the babbler at his side; to the whisper in
his ear; to himself, that spoke within himself. Even if it were not
all true, if Lauzanne were beaten, what of it? He would lose a hundred
dollars, but that would not ruin him; it would cause him to save and
pinch a little, but he was accustomed to self-denial.

"Will the betting men take a hundred dollars from me on this horse,
Lauzanne?" he asked, after the minute's pause, during which these
thoughts had flashed through his mind.

"Will dey take a hundred? Will dey take a t'ousand! Say, what you givin'
me?"

"If Lauzanne won, I'd win a thousand, would I?"

"If you put it down straight; but you might play safe--split de hundred,
fifty each way, win an' show; Larcen'll be one, two, tree, sure."

"I want to win a thousand," declared Mortimer.

"Den you've got to plump fer a win; he's ten to one."

Mortimer could hardly understand himself; he was falling in with the
betting idea. It was an age since he stood at his desk in that bank,
abhorrent of all gambling methods, to the present moment, when he was
actually drawing from his pocket a roll of bills with which to bet on a
horse.

He took a despairing look through the thicket of human beings that made
a living forest all about, in a last endeavor to discover Alan Porter.
Not three paces away a uniquely familiar figure was threading in and out
the changing maze-it was Mike Gaynor.

Mortimer broke from his friend, and with quick steps reached the
trainer's side.

"I want to find Alan Porter," he said, in answer to Gaynor's surprised
salutation.

"He was in the paddock a bit ago," answered Mike; "he moight be there
still."

Almost involuntarily Mortimer, as he talked, had edged back toward his
friend of disconsolate raggedness.

"I wanted to go in there--I'd like to go now to find him, but they won't
let me through the gate."

"No more they will," answered Mike, with untruthful readiness, for all
at once it occurred to him that if Mortimer got to the paddock he might
run up against Allis and recognize her.

"De gent could buy a badge and get in," volunteered Old Bill.

The lid of Mike's right eye drooped like the slide of a lantern, as he
answered: "He couldn't get wan now--it's too late; just wait ye here,
sir, and if the b'y's there wit' the nags, I'll sind him out.