as Jimmy Drake,
and he was looking down at him, a queer gleam in his inscrutable eyes.
Garrison nodded without speaking. He noticed that the book-maker had not
offered to shake hands, and the knowledge stung. The crowd was watching
them curiously, and Drake waved off, with a late sporting extra he
carried, half a dozen invitations to liquidate.

"Kid," he said, lowering his voice, his hand still on Garrison's
shoulder, "what did you come here for? Why don't you get away? Waterbury
may be here any minute."

"What's that to me?" spat out Billy venomously. "I'm not afraid of him.
No call to be."

Drake considered, the queer look still in his eyes.

"Don't get busty, kid. I don't know how you ever come to do it, but it's
a serious game, a dirty game, and I guess it may mean jail for you, all
right."

"What do you mean?" Garrison's pinched face had gone slowly white. A
vague premonition of impending further disaster possessed him, amounting
almost to an obsession. "What do you mean, Jimmy?" he reiterated
tensely.

Drake was silent, still scrutinizing him.

"Kid," he said finally, "I don't like to think it of you--but I know
what made you do it. You were sore on Waterbury; sore for losing. You
wanted to get hunk on something. But I tell you, kid, there's no deal
too rotten for a man who poisons a horse--"

"Poisons a horse," echoed Garrison mechanically. "Poisons a horse.
Good Lord, Drake!" he cried fiercely, in a sudden wave of passion and
understanding, jumping from his chair, "you dare to say that I poisoned
Sis! You dare--"

"No, I don't. The paper does."

"The paper lies! Lies, do you hear? Let me see it! Let me see it! Where
does it say that? Where, where? Show it to me if you can! Show it to
me--"

His eyes slowly widened in horror, and his mouth remained agape, as
he hastily scanned the contents of an article in big type on the
first page. Then the extra dropped from his nerveless fingers, and
he mechanically seated himself at the table, his eyes vacant. To his
surprise, he was horribly calm. Simply his nerves had snapped; they
could torture him no longer by stretching.

"It's not enough to have--have her die, but I must be her poisoner," he
said mechanically.

"It's all circumstantial evidence, or nearly so," added Drake, shifting
from one foot to the other. "You were the only one who would have a
cause to get square. And Crimmins says he gave you permission to see her
alone. Even the stable-hands