The Bishop of Cottontown Part 62

"Cap'n Tom an' s.h.i.+loh, too"--winced the old man. "But I forgot--you don't kno'--yes"--and he smiled triumphantly. "Yes, Col'nel, I'll let him do all that if--if G.o.d'll let it be. But G.o.d won't let it be!"

Colonel Troup arose disgusted--hot. "What do you mean, old man. Are you crazy, sah? Give me back my word--"

"Wait--no--no," said the Bishop. "Col'nel, you're a man of yo'

word--wait!"

And he arose and was gone.

The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and d.a.m.ned everything in sight. He fumbled his pistol in his pocket, and wondered how he could break his word and yet keep it.

There was no way, and he went off to take a drink.

Bud, the tears running down his cheeks--was rubbing Ben Butler down, and saying: "Great hoss--great hoss!"

Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up.

"I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop," said Jack.

"Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit like yeller dogs?

Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight--with G.o.d's help."

Then he thought a moment: "Fetch me some cotton."

He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears.

"It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss,"

said Jack.

"Ben Butler," said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the horse, "Ben Butler, I've got you now where G.o.d's got me--you can't see an' you can't hear. You've got to go by faith, by the lines of faith. But I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as G.o.d guides me--by faith."

The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they scored for the last heat. The old pacer's gallant fight had won them all--and now--now after winning two heats, with only one more to win--now to lose at last. For he could not win--not over a mare as fresh and full of speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, too, had but one heat to win.

But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he drove out on the track.

"Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll strike a bargain with you, sah. You say G.o.d ain't goin' to let him win this heat an'

race an' so forth, sah."

The Bishop smiled: "I ain't give up, Col'nel--not yet."

"Well, sah, if G.o.d does let Travis win, I take it from yo' reasoning, sah, that he's a sorry sort of a G.o.d to stand in with a fraud an'

I'll have nothin' to do with Him. I'll tell all about it."

"If that's the way you think--yes," said the old man, solemnly--"yes--tell it--but G.o.d will never stan' in with fraud."

"We'll see," said the Colonel. "I'll keep my word if--if--you win!"

Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man had done something to steady the pacer, for how like a steadied s.h.i.+p did he fly along!

Driving, driving, driving--they flew--they fought it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that Travis heard him: "It's G.o.d's way, Ben Butler, G.o.d's way--faith,--the lines of faith--'He leadeth me--He leadeth me'!"

Up--up--came the pacer fearless with frictionless gait, pacing like a wild mustang-king of the desert, gleaming in sweat, white covered with dust, rolling like a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and low:

"He leadeth me, O blessed thought, O word with heavenly comfort fraught, Whate'er I do, whate'er I be, Still 'tis G.o.d's hand that leadeth me."

Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, and the old pacer well up, collaring the flying mare and pacing her neck to neck.

Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip and circling it around his head, uttered again, amid fierce crackling, his Indian yell: "Hi--hi--there--ho--ha--ho--hi--hi--e--e!"

But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, white and frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear that tightened around his heart and flashed in his eyes like the first swift crackle of lightning before the blow of thunder, brought his whip down on his own mare, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate chance.

Gamely she responded and forged ahead--the old pacer was beaten!

They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at every stride. She stood it like the standard-bred she was, and never winced, then she forged ahead farther, and farther, and held the old pacer anch.o.r.ed at her wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away!

There was nothing left for the old man to do--with tears streaming down his cheeks he shouted--"Ben Butler, Ben Butler--it's G.o.d's way--the chastening rod--" and his whip fell like a blade of fire on the old horse's flank.

It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him, the old man he loved, and who never struck! He shook his great ugly head like a maddened bull and sprang savagely at the wire, where the silken thing flaunted in his face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor could the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down on his knees--gently, gently, then--he rolled over!

His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew except he heard Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground where the old horse lay, and saying: "_Great hoss--great hoss!_"

Then he remembered saying: "Now, Bud, don't cry--if he does die, won't it be glorious, to die in harness, giving his life for others--Cap'n Tom--s.h.i.+loh? Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his race won, his work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not love to go like Ben Butler?"

But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack Bracken spring forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey flask gleamed above Ben Butler's fluttering nostrils and Jack's terrible gruff voice said: "Wait till he's dead fust. Stand back, give him air," and his great hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping nostrils of the struggling horse.

The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his throat that was half a shout of joy.

Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the old horse for breath.

"Well, I've killed him," he said, laconically.

There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He turned and looked into the eyes of the old man and saw a tragic light there he had never seen before.

"Don't--for G.o.d's sake don't, Richard Travis, don't tempt me here, wait till I pray, till this devil goes out of my heart."

And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled Richard Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own pulsing heart, as if the owner of The Gaffs had been a child, burying his great hardened fingers in the man's arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words: "If he dies--Richard Travis--remember he died for you ... it tuck both yo' mares to kill him--no--no--don't start--don't turn pale ...

you are safe ... I made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd not expose you ... if Ben Butler won an' he saved his money. I knew what it 'ud mean ... that last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but I drove it to save you ... to keep Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got his word. An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that G.o.d will touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as quickening fire to the dead honor that is in you.... Go! Richard Travis.... Go ... don't tempt me agin...."

He remembered later feeling very queer because he held so much gold in a bag, and it was his. Then he became painfully acute to the funny thing that happened, so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and shaking himself with that long powerful shake he had seen so often after wallowing. And the funniest thing!--two b.a.l.l.s of cotton flew out of his ears, one hitting Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other Colonel Troup in the eye.

"By Gad, sah," drawled Colonel Troup, "but now, I see. I thought he cudn't ah been made of flesh an' blood, sah, why damme he's made of cotton! An' you saved my money, old man, an' that d.a.m.ned rascal's name by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman an'

his word--but--but--" he turned quickly on the old man--excitedly, "ah, here--I'll give you the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if you'll give me back my promise--d.a.m.ned if I don't! Won't do it? No?

Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo' charity, it's not of this world."

And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the old cart driving Ben Butler home and telling everybody what they now knew: "_Great hoss--G-r-e-a-t hoss!_"

And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, and Jack followed the Bishop carrying the gold.

And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened at a mule braying in his ear, ran away and threw Bud out!