“My guns!  Git on to his togs!  Ain’t he a duke!”

Sandy got Ricks out of the firing-line, around the corner of the courting-box.  His face was crimson with mortification, but it never occurred to him to be angry.

“What brought you back?” he asked huskily.

“Hosses.”

“Are you going to drive this afternoon?”

“Yep.  One of young Nelson’s colts in the last ring.  Say,” he added, “he’s game, all right.  Me and him have done biz before.  Know him?”

“Carter Nelson?  Oh, yes; I know him,” said Sandy, impatient to be rid of his companion.

“Me and him are a winnin’ couple,” said Ricks.  “We plays the races straight along.  He puts up the dough, and I puts up the tips.  Say, he’s one of these here tony toughs; he won’t let on he knows me when he’s puttin’ on dog.  What about you, Sandy?  Makin’ good these days?”

“I guess so,” said Sandy, indifferently.

“You ain’t goin’ to school yet?”

“That I am,” said Sandy; “and next year, too, if the money holds out.”

“Golly gosh!” said Ricks, incredulously.  “Well, I got to be hikin’ back.  The next is my entry.  I’ll look you up after while.  So-long!”

He shambled off, and Sandy watched his broad-checked back until it was lost in the crowd.

That Ricks should have turned up at that critical moment seemed a wilful prank on the part of fate.  Sandy bit his lip and raged inwardly.  He had a wild impulse to rush back to Ruth, seize her hand, and begin where he had left off.  He might have done it, too, had not the promenade happened to land Dr. Fenton before him at that moment.

The doctor was behaving in a most extraordinary and unmilitary way.  He had stepped out of the ranks, and was performing strange manoeuvers about a knothole that looked into the courting-box.  When he saw Sandy he opened fire.

“Look at her!  Look at her!” he whispered.  “Whenever I pass she talks to Jimmy Reed on this side; but the moment she thinks I’m not looking, sir, she talks to Nelson on the other!  Kilday,” he went on, shaking his finger impressively, “that little girl is as slick as—­a blame Yankee!  But she’ll not outwit me.  I’m going right up there and take her home.”

Sandy laughingly held his arm.  It was not the first time the doctor had confided in him.  “No, no, doctor,” he said; “I’ll be the watch-dog for ye.  Let me go and stay with Annette, and if Carter Nelson gets a word in her ear, it’ll be because I’ve forgotten how to talk.”

“Will you?” asked the doctor, anxiously.  “Nelson’s a drunkard.  I’d rather see my little girl dead than married to him.  But she’s wilful, Kilday; when she was just a baby she’d sit with her little pink toes curled up for an hour to keep me from putting on her shoes when she wanted to go barefoot!  She’s a fighter,” he added, with a gruff chuckle that ended in a sigh, “but she’s all I’ve got.”

Sandy gripped him by the hand, then turned the corner into the courting-box.  Instantly his eager eyes sought Ruth, but she did not look up as he passed.