A murmur, increasing rapidly to a roar, swung out from every foot of space. Some one cried “Garrison!” And “Garrison! Garrison! Garrison!” was caught up and flung back like the spume of sea from the surf-lashed coast.
He knew the value of that hail, and how only one year ago his name had been spewed from out those selfsame laudatory mouths with venom and contempt. He knew his public. Adversity had been a mighty master. The public—they who live in the present, not the past. They who swear by triumph, achievement; not effort. They who have no memory for the deeds that have been done unless they vouch for future conquests. The public—fickle as woman, weak as infancy, gullible as credulity, mighty as fate. Yes, Garrison knew it, and deep down in his heart, though he showed it not, he gloried in the welcome accorded him. He had not been forgotten.
But he had no false hopes, illusions. His had been the welcome vouchsafed the veteran who is hopelessly facing his last fight. They, perhaps, admired his grit, his optimism; admired while they pitied. But how many, how many, really thought he was there to win? How many thought he could win?
He knew, and his heart did not quicken nor his pulse increase so much as a beat. He was cool, implacable, and dangerous as a rattler waiting for the opportune moment to spring. He looked neither to right nor left. He was deaf, impervious. He was there to win. That only.
And he would win? Why not? What were the odds of ten to one? What was the opinion, the judgment of man? What was anything compared with what he was fighting for? What horse, what jockey among them all was backed by what he was backed with? What impulse, what stimulant, what overmastering, driving necessity had they compared with his? And The Rogue knew what was expected of him that day.
It was only as Garrison was passing the grand stand during the preliminary warming-up process that his nerve faltered. He glanced up—he was compelled to. A pair of eyes were drawing his. He glanced up—there was “Cottonton”; “Cottonton” and Sue Desha. The girl's hands were tightly clenched in her lap, her head thrown forward; her eyes obliterating space; eating into his own. How long he looked into those eyes he did not know. The major, his wife, Drake—all were shut out. He only saw those eyes. And as he looked he saw that the eyes understood at last; understood all. He remembered lifting his cap. That was all.
“They're off! They're off!” That great, magic cry; fingering at the heart, tingling the blood. Signal for a roar from every throat; for the stretching of every neck to the dislocating point; for prayers, imprecations, adjurations—the entire stock of nature's sentiment factory. Sentiment, unbridled, unleashed, unchecked. Passion given a kick and sent hurtling without let or hindrance.
The barrier was down. They were off. Off in a smother of spume and dust. Off for the short seven furlongs eating up less than a minute and a half of time. All this preparation, all the preliminaries, the whetting of appetites to razor edge, the tilts with fortune, the defiance of fate, the moil and toil and tribulations of months—all brought to a head, focused on this minute and a half. All, all for one minute and a half!
It had been a clean break from the barrier. But in a flash Emetic was away first, hugging the rail. Swallow, taking her pace with all McGloin's nerve and skill, had caught her before she had traveled half a dozen yards. Emetic flung dirt hard, but Swallow hung on, using her as a wind-shield. She was using the pacemaker's “going.”