publicly smirching himself--for who would believe his protestations of
innocency?--losing his license at the bar together with the certainty of
a small fortune, for the sake of over-working a tool that might snap in
his hand or cut both ways. So Garrison decided to disregard the letter.

But with Waterbury it was a different proposition. Garrison was unaware
what his own relations had been with his former owner, but even if they
had been the most cordial, which from Major Calvert's accounts they had
not been, that fact would not prevent Waterbury divulging the rank fraud
Garrison was perpetrating.

The race-track annual had said Billy Garrison had followed the ponies
since boyhood. Waterbury would know his ancestry, if any one would.
It was only a matter of time until exposure came, but still Garrison
determined to procrastinate as long as possible. He clung fiercely,
with the fierce tenacity of despair, to his present life. He could not
renounce it all--not yet.

Two hopes, secreted in his inner consciousness, supported indecision.
One: Perhaps Waterbury might not recognize him, or perhaps he could
safely keep out of his way. The second: Perhaps he himself was not Billy
Garrison at all; for coincidence only said that he was, and a very
small modicum of coincidence at that. This fact, if true, would cry his
present panic groundless.

On the head of conscience, Garrison did not touch. He smothered it. All
that he forced himself to sense was that he was "living like a white man
for once"; loving as he never thought he could love.

The reverse, unsightly side of the picture he would not so much as