The Terror dropped from the boy like a bad dream when one awakes. A frenzy of pride and love for the filly swept over him. He had no hope. The next instant he would hear that terrified roar of the crowd, the track would leap up to meet him, that flash of red would smite him, and blackness would fold him about. But the beautiful filly should not go down with a coward astride her! He found himself talking to her as of old, crouching low till his lips all but brushed her fine, straight ears:
"Come on, yew gal! Katie—yew Katie! Come on! Almos' home! Almos'! Come—come, yew darlin'!"
Closer pressed the driven Boston, till his rider's stirrup locked Tim's. And then the boy knew that the last moment had come. It was fall or win and instantly. In his ears was the creak and protest of the straining saddles and girths, the roar from thirty thousand throats in the grandstand, the whistle of the breath of three great horses locked in a desperate struggle, the thunder of the flying hoofs behind him. He had the right of way—let them unbar it, or crash to destruction—all three!
Gripping the reins with his right hand, he raised his whip in his left and let it fall, once—twice—three times. Somewhere in her straining, breathless, driven body the filly had one ounce more left. Gallantly, instantly, she gave it. The rail grazed the boy's left boot. His right was driven up to the filly's loins.
She faltered—but she was through—through that strangling pocket, reeling, staggering, half-blind and splendid, and the Suburban was hers by a nod.
They lifted Tim in the famous floral horse-shoe, and they cheered and cheered him again. "Grandest finish I ever see," said Faulkner, and "My Gawd! what a drive!" said the stable foreman, gaping.
But to little Tim it meant only one thing—the greatest, most beautiful thing that could be—the Terror was gone forever. He took a deep breath and looked about him on a new world.