Taken all in all, it was a very bad time for the two oldest families in Cottonton.  Every member was suffering silently, stoically; each in a different way.  One striving to conceal from the other.  And it all centered about Garrison.

And then, one day when things were at their worst, when Garrison, unconscious of the general misery he had engendered, had completed Speedaway’s training for the Carter, when he himself was ready for the fight of his life, a stranger stepped off the Cottonton express and made his way to the Desha homestead.  He knew the colonel.  He was a big, quiet man—­Jimmie Drake.

A week later and Drake had returned North.  He had not said anything to Garrison regarding what had called him away, but the latter vaguely sensed that it was another attempt on the indefatigable turfman’s part to ferret out the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark.  And when Drake, on his return, called Garrison into the club-house, Garrison went white-faced.  He had just sent Speedaway over the seven furlongs in record time, and his heart was big with hope.

Drake never wasted ammunition in preliminary skirmishing.  He told the joke first and the story afterward.

“I’ve been South.  Seen Colonel Desha and Major Calvert,” he said tersely.

Garrison was silent, looking at him.  He tried to read fate in his inscrutable eyes; news of some description; tried, and failed.  He turned away his head.  “Tell me,” he said simply.  Drake eyed him and slowly came forward and held out his large bloodshot hand.

“Billy Garrison—­’Bud’—­’Kid’—­William C. Dagget,” he said, nodding his head.

Garrison rose with difficulty, the sweat on his face.

“William C. Dagget?  Me?  Me?  Me?” he whispered, his head thrown forward, his eyes narrowed, starting at Drake.  “Just God, Jimmie!  Don’t play with me——­” He sat down abruptly covering his quivering face with his hands.

Drake laid a hand on the heaving shoulders.  “There, there, kid,” he murmured gruffly, as if to a child, “don’t go and blow up over it.  Yes, you’re Dagget.  The luckiest kid in the States, and—­and the damnedest.  You’ve raised a muss-pile down South in Cottonton.  Dagget or no Dagget, I’m talking straight.  You’ve been selfish, kid.  You’ve only been thinking of yourself; your regeneration; your past, your present, your future.  You—­you—­you.  You never thought of the folks you left down home; left to suffocate with the stink you raised.  You cleared out scot-free, and, say, kid, you let a girl lie for you; lie for you.  You did that.  A girl, by heck! who wouldn’t lie for the Almighty Himself.  A girl who—­who——­” Drake searched frantically for a fitting simile, gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk handkerchief, and flumped into a chair.  “Well, say, kid, it’s just plain hell.  That’s what it is.”

“Lied for me?” said Garrison very quietly.