Part 5

Tim started up and edged toward the aisle. His racing feet carried him in panic half way down to the lawn. One idea possessed him--to get away--to hide himself, he didn't care where--anywhere where he couldn't see the horses run.

A hand seized him by the shoulder and spun him around.

"Hey, kid," said a voice, "how you feelin'? All to the mustard, hey?"

It was Bud Noble, star jockey of the Holland stable, radiant with all the prestige that comes with twenty thousand a year and the adulation of the racing public.

"I reck'n," said Tim, and fled again.

He had no notion of flight. His feet bore him along unsentiently. Suddenly they stopped. And then he knew that he couldn't run away. He must see that race. Something within him that would not be denied commanded it. Slowly he retraced his steps, muttering unconsciously: "I gotter do it. I gotter do it."

Presently he found himself back in the top row of the grandstand. As in a dream, he watched the parade of brilliant colors to the post. As in a dream, he saw the barrier flash up. The old-time roar "They're off!" came faint and faraway to his ears. Dreamlike, the field drifted up the back stretch, rounded the turn, and straightened out for home. He dug the fingers of his one good hand into the hard wooden bench and held his eyes upon the horses.

"I gotter do it. I gotter do it," he muttered still.

They were years in reaching the wire. No mortal thoroughbreds ever ran so slowly before since time began. But at last, at the end of the world, they finished. And up on the highest bench of the grandstand a little boy, with white face and wide eyes, sat back, limp and still.

Tim's arm was still in a sling when he got back to Lexington, and it was January before he could use it to any effect. The intervening weeks he spent at home, helping his mother as best he could in the round of her hard life, running her errands and bearing to and fro the various washings by which she lived. For the first time in his life it worried him to see her work so hard.

"Nivver mind, Tim," she would say, lifting her bent back from the tub in the corner of the kitchen, "soon you'll be the famous jockey wid thousands a year. Thin it's your ould mother that'll be wearin' the fine duds and wurruk no more."

And then the boy, sick with shame and fear, would steal from the house--anywhere to be out of the sight of her and the sound of her voice.

Sometimes the Terror would grip him in his sleep, in the middle of the winter night, when the wind shrieked under the shingles on the cabin roof or the cold rain drove against the window-pane. More than once he started up, broad awake, with the smell of sweating horseflesh sharp and agonizing in his nostrils. Once it was the sound of his own voice that woke him, and he was crying out:

"Come on, yew baby, come, come, yew gal!"

Then he sat on the edge of his cot, with the blanket over his shoulders, until daybreak, with such thoughts as a boy may know.

But on a sunny morning in February, it was Tim who stood in the great doorway of the stallion stable at The Vale, saying to the Colonel:

"Thought mebbe I could help yew with the two-year-olds."

Day by day he strove with himself. Little by little he fought the Terror down. The very smell of the stables turned him faint for a week. He used to creep into King Faraway's box-stall when the big horse stood, wet under his blanket, after his morning gallop, and bury his face in the stallion's mane and rub his nose along the giant withers, till at last the horrible smell of sweating horseflesh had power to terrify him no more. It was weeks before he could mount without trembling, but at last he came to do it and--to hope.

At last came April, and one evening, as Tim was helping with the feeding, he heard the Colonel's voice calling him. He trembled a little, for he knew what was coming.

"I've a letter from Faulkner," said the Colonel, "and he's asking for you, Tim. Shall I tell him you'll be up with the new batch of youngsters?" It was the cast of the die.

"I reck'n," said Tim stoutly.

But it wasn't quite the same old Sheepshead Bay that Tim went back to. He did his work as faithfully and skilfully as ever. His hand was just as light and sure; he had not lost his sense of pace. But the first pale light of day did not send him out to the stables with every nerve in his lithe body tingling for very joy of the work that was coming. And once, when he saw a stable-boy thrown--the Terror rose at him again; not with the old terrible leap, to be sure, but he saw Its face for an instant.

He will never forget his first race that spring. Again he rode a two-year-old, and he won without difficulty, nobody guessed at what expense. As the season went on, he rode again and again, and sometimes he won, and oftener not.

But Faulkner saw and shook his head. If Tim's horse won, it was because its own speed and the judgment of its rider did it. Nobody ever saw Tim take a chance. Other boys might leave him space to squeeze through if they liked. He never did it. It was the longest way 'round and plain sailing for Tim. No mad, brilliant rush for the rail. No fine finishes from unlucky beginnings.

And Faulkner watched and saw it all. Once the boy caught the trainer looking at him, thoughtful and puzzled. A big lump rose in his throat and strangled him, and he stumbled away with his grief. It seemed to him that he could not live on any longer. He grew even more grave and silent as the days went on, shunned the other stable-boys, and kept stolidly to himself.

It had to end sometime, somehow, and the ending of it was notable--because Tim was Tim, I suppose.

For the Suburban Handicap, with the Brooklyn the greatest of the classic races for the older horses, the Holland stable had two candidates. The first was the five-year-old Gladstone, son of Juniper and winner of fifteen races, one of them a Metropolitan. The second was Kate Greenaway, a three-year-old filly by King Faraway, whose only claim to distinction was that she had won third place in the Futurity of the preceding year. But, though Gladstone was the stable's main reliance, the filly's work had been dazzling, and the shrewd Faulkner had hopes of her.

Bud Noble, as stable jockey, was to ride Gladstone, while the trainer relied on the light-weight Ban Johnson, on whom the stable had second call, to handle Kate Greenaway. Tim knew the filly as no one else knew her or could know her. Down at The Vale, before ever he came to the races, he had been the first to put halter and bridle on her; his small legs were the first to bestride her; he had broken her to the barrier until she seemed actually to like the thing, and in her work she had been his especial charge. But he had never ridden her in a race.

The running of a big handicap at a Metropolitan track is an impressive event, even to the man who knows nothing of horses. To him who loves the thoroughbred it is inspiring. To Tim it was something more than that--a thing to make you tremble.

All morning the boy hung uneasily about the stable. He ate scarcely any dinner and roved restlessly about until it was time to take the filly to the paddock. He got her there just as the horses were going to the post for the third race. The Suburban was the fourth. Up and down under the great shed he walked his charge, blanketed and hooded, in the wake of towering, black Gladstone. Soon a shouting from the grandstand announced that the third race was over.

Then came a rush of hundreds to see the Suburban horses saddled. One by one, the candidates filed out to the track for their warming-up gallops--Boston, top-weight, favorite and winner of the Metropolitan, and second in the Brooklyn; Carley, winner of the Advance the season before; Catchall, the speedy Hastings mare; and all the rest--all save Kate Greenaway. Once, in a warming-up gallop, she had run away, and Faulkner would never take chances with her after that. So Tim walked her up and down by herself, thankful, yet ashamed, that somebody else was to ride her.

Suddenly the stable foreman ran up.

"Hi, you Tim," he shouted, "hustle over to the dressin' room an' git on yer duds. Skin along, now, no time to lose."

Tim stood gaping.

"Git a move on--git a move! My Gawd! You ain't got no time to lose. Ban's fell down an' sprained his ankle."

Tim trudged over to the jockey's house, his eyes on the ground. Over in the paddock, Faulkner listened stubbornly to the foreman.

"I tell you," the latter was saying, "the kid's lost his nerve. Ain't you seen it all along? He ain't took a chance sence his tumble. Why dontcher give the mount to Tyson or Biff Barry? They ain't neither of 'em got a mount."

"Nothin' doin'," rejoined the trainer. "The kid knows the filly--brought her up, almost. He can ride, too, if he don't get in a tight place, an' that ain't likely. Tyson can't make the weight. B'sides, I told the Colonel I'd give the kid a chance. An'," he concluded, "this is it."

"All right," said the foreman, "but you'll see. He's lost his nerve. Why, he got white eraoun' the gills when I tol' him."

Tim had grown like a weed since he first saw Sheepshead Bay, but it was a slender, fragile figure that the trainer tossed into the chestnut filly's saddle when the bugle blew.

"Now, kid," said Faulkner quietly, throwing one arm over the crupper, "you're third from the rail. You know the filly as well as I do. She's fit to the minute. She'll run in 2.03, if she ain't rushed in the first half. Hold yer place an' let the sprinters do their sprintin'. They'll come back. Keep her goin' her pace for a mile, an' if you have to ride her the last quarter, make her sweat for it. She's game fer a drive. They don't make 'em no gamer."

The lad heard scarcely a word. He wasn't frightened. He was sullen, rebellious against--against everything. It was one more race to him--commonplace, perfunctory, tiresome. He was going to get through with it in the easiest way he could. He thought with relief of the wide spaces and easy turns of the great track.

"Keep up yer nerve, kid," said Bud Noble, turning in his saddle and looking back at Tim as the field filed through the paddock gate.

Tim grinned scornfully. What a notion! Why should anybody need nerve to gallop a horse around a track? He had only one idea--to keep out of trouble. So, perfectly calm and very much bored, he danced to the starting-gate on the chestnut filly. He paid little attention to the fretful doings there. He was haunted by no fear that he might be left. It was a nuisance to have to keep an eye on the vicious heels of Baldy, the swayback gelding at his left--that was all.

But Kate Greenaway had no intention of being left. She kept her dainty nose on the webbing from the instant she got it there, for hadn't Tim taught her that? And when, at last, all the fussing and fuming was over, and the whips of the starter's assistants had ceased their hissing, and the pleadings and threats of the starter himself were done, and the gate swished up before the fourteen racers, the filly's first bound beat the gate by half a length.

Tim was a trifle disgusted. "Blast the filly, anyhow!" he thought. It was no part of his plan to lead that roaring field. He took a double wrap on the reins, and his mount came back till two lithe, lean forms slid up abreast her on the rail, and a third on the outside. That was better, thought Tim, and the sprinters drew out ahead of him. Contentedly he fell in on the rail behind them.

A storm of dirt clods smote the filly in the face. Another pelted Tim on the forehead. He took a tighter hold on Kate Greenaway, and the sprinters drew away another length. It would have been an easy thing for him to choke her back still further, but somehow a surge of generous feeling for the game creature beat down his sullen selfishness, and he hadn't the heart to strangle her.

The leaders had by this time swung around the first turn, and as they passed the half-mile mark two noses intruded themselves on Tim's vision on the outside.

"Hello," he thought, "old long-distance Boston is movin' up. An' Carley, to keep him from gettin' lonesome." But the track was wide, they ran straight and true and kept their distance.

Suddenly the sprinters began to come back. In five seconds Tim would have to pull up behind them. This was disgusting! If only he were on the outside! A clod of earth struck his breast. Instinctively he let out a wrap on the reins.

The filly went up to the sprinters in ten jumps. As he ranged alongside, Tim took another hold on her. No more front positions for him. He was outside, and he meant to stay there and be derned to 'em!

Then one of the sprinters fell back, beaten already, and as Boston somehow sifted into the vacant place Tim noted with a gasp that here was the far turn already, and he was with the leaders. This surprised him so much that the last turn leaped past before he realised that there were only two horses between him and the rail. One of them was black Boston, top-weight at one hundred and twenty-nine; the other was Carley.

He was getting a bit interested in spite of himself. The boys on the older horses began to urge them a bit, and as they swung around the turn and into the stretch they drew away a couple of lengths. Tim sat still. He was in that delightful outside place, with acres of room. He even glanced over at the in-field where the patrol judge stood with his glasses to his eyes. He remembered afterward that that official's weird whiskers amused him. Then something happened.

Kate Greenaway became mistress of herself. As she swung round the turn, a wide space confronted her, left by the leaders between themselves and the rail. Kate Greenaway had been taught to hunt that rail as a homing pigeon its cote. She sought it now so sharply that Tim all but lost his seat.

Instantly the boy awoke. He remembered the prize he was riding for--the Suburban! the Suburban! Straight before him for a quarter of a mile gleamed the track, yellow in the June sunlight. Nothing to do but ride--straight--straight to the wire.

All the slumbering life in his body awoke from its sullen sleep. He blessed the splendid filly racing so true and so strong beneath him, and he sat down for the first time to help her with every ounce of his power and every trace of his skill.

He knew she could win. He knew she had been going well within herself, and still she was where she could strike. Now was the time to ride, and he rode as he had never ridden before, standing in the stirrups, crouched over the gallant filly's neck, rising and falling in perfect rhythm with her every stride. And, bless her! that stride had not begun to shorten yet.

Steadily she crept up on the older horses fighting their duel before her. Tim could see from the tail of his eye that both their riders were working for dear life--and he had only just begun to ride. His heart bounded again beneath his brilliant jacket, and again he urged the filly.

But what was that? Surely, surely his path was growing narrower. In six strides more he was sure of it. Carley, on the outside, was boring in under the drive, and Boston was pulling in to keep from fouling.

There's no time to pick daisies in the last furlong of the Suburban. All the months of Tim's purgatory called to him to pull up before they squeezed him against that deadly rail. He tried to do it, but his wrists had gone limp. The next instant the bay and the black were running stride for stride half a length before the filly--and closing in.

Then rose the Terror and gripped Tim by the throat. The moment had come. They had pinned him on the rail.

Under the gruelling drive Carley staggered again. He bumped Boston. Tim felt the big horse graze his boot as he wavered. Instantly that pungent smell of sweating horseflesh stung his nostrils, and with it flashed the memory of that awful day to smite him helpless.

Again he tried to pull up, and again he failed. His wrists were palsied. Why didn't he fall! Oh, why didn't he fall!

Under his quaking knees the withers of the gallant filly still rose and fell, mightily, rhythmically; her lean, beautiful neck stretched out as if to meet the goal, her nostrils wide and blood-red, through which the air came and went, roaring, like the escape of steam from a mighty valve, her eyeballs starting from their sockets.

Then sickening shame smote him on his quivering lips. He seemed to realise for the first time that the filly was waging her terrible fight alone.

The Terror dropped from the boy like a bad dream when one awakes. A frenzy of pride and love for the filly swept over him. He had no hope. The next instant he would hear that terrified roar of the crowd, the track would leap up to meet him, that flash of red would smite him, and blackness would fold him about. But the beautiful filly should not go down with a coward astride her! He found himself talking to her as of old, crouching low till his lips all but brushed her fine, straight ears:

"Come on, yew gal! Katie--yew Katie! Come on! Almos' home! Almos'! Come--come, yew darlin'!"

Closer pressed the driven Boston, till his rider's stirrup locked Tim's. And then the boy knew that the last moment had come. It was fall or win and instantly. In his ears was the creak and protest of the straining saddles and girths, the roar from thirty thousand throats in the grandstand, the whistle of the breath of three great horses locked in a desperate struggle, the thunder of the flying hoofs behind him. He had the right of way--let them unbar it, or crash to destruction--all three!

Gripping the reins with his right hand, he raised his whip in his left and let it fall, once--twice--three times. Somewhere in her straining, breathless, driven body the filly had one ounce more left. Gallantly, instantly, she gave it. The rail grazed the boy's left boot. His right was driven up to the filly's loins.

She faltered--but she was through--through that strangling pocket, reeling, staggering, half-blind and splendid, and the Suburban was hers by a nod.

They lifted Tim in the famous floral horse-shoe, and they cheered and cheered him again. "Grandest finish I ever see," said Faulkner, and "My Gawd! what a drive!" said the stable foreman, gaping.

But to little Tim it meant only one thing--the greatest, most beautiful thing that could be--the Terror was gone forever. He took a deep breath and looked about him on a new world.

JAPAN'S STRENGTH IN WAR

BY GENERAL KUROPATKIN

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE KENNAN

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

Although the trial of war through which our country and our army passed in 1904-5 is now a subject for history, the material thus far collected is not sufficiently abundant to enable the historian to estimate fairly the events that preceded the war, nor to give a detailed explanation of the defeats that we sustained in the course of it. It is urgently necessary, however, that we should make immediate use of our recent experience, because by ascertaining the nature of our mistakes and the weaknesses of our troops we may learn what means should be adopted to increase, hereafter, the material and spiritual strength of our military force.

In times past, when wars were carried on by small standing armies, defeats did not affect the every-day interests of the whole nation so profoundly as they affect them now, when the obligation to render military service is general, and when, in time of war, most of our soldiers are drawn from the great body of the people. If a war is to be successful, in these days, it must be carried on, not by an army, but by an armed nation, and in such a contest all sides of the national life are more seriously affected and all defeats are more acutely felt than they were in times past.

When the national pride has been humiliated by failure in war, attempts are usually made to ascertain what brought about the failure and who was responsible for it. Some persons attribute it to general causes, others to special causes. Some censure the system, or the régime, while others throw the blame on particular individuals. I have been so closely connected with immensely important events in the Far East, and have been responsible to such an extent for the failure of our military operations there, that I can hardly hope to take an absolutely dispassionate and objective view of the persons and matters that I shall deal with in the present work; but my object is not so much to justify myself by replying to the charges that have been brought against me personally as to furnish material that will make it easier for the future historian to state fairly the reasons for our defeat, and thus render possible the adoption of measures that will prevent such defeats hereafter. The army that Russia put into the field in 1904-5 was unable, in the time allowed, to conquer the Japanese; and yet Japan, only a short time before the war began, had no regular army and was regarded by us as a second-class Power. How was she able to win a complete victory over Russia at sea, and to defeat a powerful Russian army on land? Many writers will study this question and, in time, they will give us a comprehensive answer to it; but I shall confine myself, in the present work, to an enumeration of the most broad and general reasons for Japanese success. Among the most important of such reasons is the following:--we did not fully appreciate the material and moral strength of Japan and did not regard a conflict with her seriously enough.[A]

_The Secret Growth of Japan's Army_

The Japanese first became our neighbors when, in the reign of Peter the Great, we acquired the peninsula of Kamchatka. In 1860, by virtue of the Treaty of Peking, we took peaceful possession of the extensive Usuri territory; moved down to the boundary of Korea; and obtained an outlet on the Sea of Japan. This sea, which is almost completely enclosed by Korea and the Japanese islands, was immensely important to the whole adjacent coast of the main land; but as the straits that connected it with the ocean were in the hands of the Japanese, we might easily be prevented by them from getting free access to the Pacific. When we acquired the island of Sakhalin, we obtained an outlet through the Tartar Strait; but that was all we had, and during a large part of the time it was frozen over.

For a long time, Japan lived a life that was wholly apart from ours and did not particularly attract our attention. We knew the Japanese as extremely skilful and patient artisans; we were fond of the things that they made; and we were charmed with the delicacy and bright coloring of their artistic products; but, from a military point of view, we took no interest in them and regarded them as a weak nation. Our sailors always spoke with sympathetic appreciation of the country and its inhabitants, and were delighted to stay in Japanese ports--especially Nagasaki, where they were liked and favorably remembered; but our travellers, diplomats, and naval officers entirely overlooked the awakening of an energetic, independent people.