grimly. "Cut it out. You don't
understand, and it's no good talking. When you have reached the top of
the pile, Red, you'll travel with as fast a mob as I did. But I never
threw a race in my life. That's on the level. Somehow I always get blind
dizzy in the stretch, and it passed when I crossed the post. I never
knew when it was coming on. I felt all right other times. I had to make
the coin, as you say, for I lived up to every cent I made. No, I never
threw a race--Yes, you can smile, Red," he finished savagely. "Smile if
your face wants stretching. But that's straight. Maybe I've gone back.
Maybe I'm all in. Maybe I'm a crook. But there'll come a time, it may
be one year, it may be a hundred, when I'll come back--clean. I'll make
good, and if you're on the track, Red, I'll show you that Garrison
can ride a harder, straighter race than you or any one. This isn't my
finish. There's a new deal coming to me, and I'm going to see that I get
it."

Without heeding Red's pessimistic reply. Garrison turned on his heel
and entered the stall where Sis, the Carter Handicap favorite, was being
boxed for the coming Belmont opening.

Crimmins, the trainer, looked up sharply as Garrison entered. He was a
small, hard man, with a face like an ice-pick and eyes devoid of pupils,
which fact gave him a stony, blank expression. In fact, he had been
likened once, by Jimmy Drake, to a needle with two very sharp eyes,
and the simile was merited. But he was an excellent flesh handler; and
Waterbury, an old ex-bookie, knew what he was about when he appointed
him head of the stable.

"Hello, Dan!" said Garrison, in the same tone he had used to greet Red.
He and the trainer had been thick, but it was a question whether that
thickness would still be there. Garrison, alone in the world since he
had run away from his home years ago, had no owner as most jockeys have,
and Crimmins had filled the position of mentor. In fact, he had trained
him, though Garrison's riding ability was not a foreign graft, but had
been bred in the bone.

"Hello!" echoed Crimmins, coming forward. His manner was cordial, and
Garrison's frozen heart warmed. "Of course you'll quit the game," ran
on the trainer, after an exchange of commonalities. "You're queered for
good. You couldn't get a mount anywhere. I ain't saying anything about
your pulling Sis, 'cause there ain't no use now. But you've got me and
Mr. Waterbury in trouble. It looked as if we were in on the deal. I