Carter shoved his fifty at
the man, and to that sum added the twenty dollars still in his
pocket. They were the last dollars he owned in the world. And
though he knew they were his last, he was fearful lest the
book-maker would refuse them. But, mechanically, the man passed
them over his shoulder.
"And twenty-one hundred to seventy," he chanted.
When Carter took his seat beside Dolly, he was quite cold. Still,
Dolly did not speak. Out of the corner of her eyes she questioned
him.
"I got fifty at twenty to one," replied Carter, and seventy at
thirty!"
In alarm, Dolly turned upon him.
"SEVENTY!" she gasped.
Carter nodded. "All we have," he said. "We have sixty cents left,
to start life over again!"
As though to encourage him, Dolly placed her finger on her
race-card.
"His colors," she said, "are 'green cap, green jacket, green and
white hoops.'"
Through a maze of heat, a half-mile distant, at the starting- gate,
little spots of color moved in impatient circles. The big,
good-natured crowd had grown silent, so silent that from the high,
sun-warmed grass in the infield one could hear the lazy chirp of
the crickets. As though repeating a prayer, or an incantation,
Dolly's lips were moving quickly.
"Green cap," she whispered, "green jacket, green and white hoops!"
With a sharp sigh the crowd broke the silence.
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