“SEVENTY!” she gasped.
Carter nodded. “All we have,” he said. “We have sixty cents left, to start life over again!”
As though to encourage him, Dolly placed her finger on her race-card.
“His colors,” she said, “are ‘green cap, green jacket, green and white hoops.’”
Through a maze of heat, a half-mile distant, at the starting-gate, little spots of color moved in impatient circles. The big, good-natured crowd had grown silent, so silent that from the high, sun-warmed grass in the infield one could hear the lazy chirp of the crickets. As though repeating a prayer, or an incantation, Dolly’s lips were moving quickly.
“Green cap,” she whispered, “green jacket, green and white hoops!”
With a sharp sigh the crowd broke the silence. “They’re off!” it cried, and leaned forward expectant.
The horses came so fast. To Carter their conduct seemed outrageous. It was incredible that in so short a time, at a pace so reckless, they would decide a question of such moment. They came bunched together, shifting and changing, with, through the dust, flashes of blue and gold and scarlet. A jacket of yellow shot out of the dust and showed in front; a jacket of crimson followed. So they were at the half; so they were at the three-quarters.
The good-natured crowd began to sway, to grumble and murmur, then to shout in sharp staccato.
“Can you see him?” begged Dolly.