clenching fingers, his straight
brows knotted.

"Gerard," burst forth the racing official, excitedly urgent in his
suspense. "Your tires wrecked you? That's your last word? Gerard, if you
can speak, do!"

The amber eyes re-opened in answer, to meet the fixed gaze of the eager
men who waited opposite.

"Yes," gasped Gerard, casually definite. "What else? Corrie, leave me
your smokes, they're a better brand----"

If there had been any doubt left the witnesses, that comrade request
beat it down. The surgeon flung out his hand in a sweeping gesture of
dismissal, as he sprang toward his fainting patient. Gerard had
finished.

Mr. Rose went out with the other men. Some of his florid color had come
back, he walked more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness. On
the narrow porch the referee from the racing association held out his
hand with frank congratulation.

"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before they got any further, Mr.
Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in
the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country,
crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank.
They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up
to-morrow sane as ever. Nice way your son took it."

"Oh, Corwin B. is straight," declared Mr. Rose, proudly self-contained
in his relief. "I guess there wasn't much need to worry about that part.
I'll wait here and take him home with me, now; he's had about all of
that room he ought to stand, fond of Gerard as he is."

"He looked done up, yes. Well----"

A long shout sounded down the course, a clamor of excited speech. A
troup of men appeared, running toward the house in the wake of a
chauffeur who held up some object that glittered in the sun.

"I've got it!" the leader called ahead. "I've got it where he said,
beside the road!"

The thing in his hand was a small, heavy nickel wrench. The men on the
porch and the men in the yard stared at each other, mute. After a moment
Mr. Rose drew out his handkerchief, passed it across his forehead and
lips, then went down to his limousine, got in and sank back against the
cushions.

"Home," he issued his order.

"Mr. Corwin is not coming, sir?"

"Home."

VII

"THE GREATEST OF THESE"

It was nearly two hours after the Mercury car had crashed into ruin
under the aromatic apple-trees, before knowledge of the disaster came to
Flavia. Breakfast was