Reaching the sergeant, he looked up at him, his face white. Behind and above the sergeant he saw the judge.

“… charged with galloping a horse in a public park. Guilty or not guilty?” the sergeant asked.

“Guilty,” Alec said, but his voice was little more than a whisper.

“Guilty or not guilty?” the sergeant repeated.

“Guilty!” Alec shouted, and his voice thundered throughout the room.

The judge and sergeant were smiling as Alec walked to the cashier’s desk.

He stood in line, very conscious of the many eyes upon him.

“You sure made no bones about it,” the man in front of him said.

“About what?” Alec asked, moistening his lips.

“About your being guilty,” the man replied, grinning. “You rocked the room like you meant it.”

“I did?”

“You sure did.” The man moved forward to pay his fine.

His hands trembling, Alec reached for his wallet. If only he could get out of here now. If he could just pay his fine and run. It seemed an hour before the man in front paid his fine and was gone. Now the cashier, too, was smiling as Alec faced him.

“That’ll be fifteen dollars,” the cashier said.

Alec gave the money to the man and turned away hurriedly. With downcast eyes he moved toward the door. He slipped outside into the corridor, walking faster. He had reached the stairway and his hand was on the rail when a voice behind said, “Just a second, son.”

He didn’t stop or look around until he felt a hand grasp his arm. A slight man in a gray suit stood there.

“I’m from the News,” he said. “You’re Alec Ramsay, the jockey, aren’t you?”

Alec jerked his arm from the man’s grasp and continued down the stairs. But the man was beside him.

“Take it easy, Alec,” he said. “All I want to know is why you’ve given up the track for riding hacks in a public park.”

Alec reached the bottom of the stairs with the reporter still beside him. “Why weren’t you up on Satan in Chicago? Henry Dailey told the press you weren’t feeling well. How does that account for your galloping a horse in a public park at dawn?”

When Alec reached the door he burst into a run, and as he went outside and down the front steps of the building he heard the man shout, “I’ll be seeing you, Alec.”

Still running, Alec went down Flushing’s Main Street. He weaved in and out among the people on the crowded sidewalk, unaware of their startled calls as he swept by, narrowly missing them.

He knew what the reporter would do. He’d call his city desk and acquaint his editor with what had happened in the Flushing courthouse. His editor would in all probability send his sports reporter to follow up on the story. And, somehow, editors of other newspapers and press services would hear of it. They’d all come to Flushing … to the barn. They’d pin him down, and he’d have to answer their questions. He wouldn’t be able to run away as he’d done from the police reporter.

He’d tell them he’d given up the track … that he wouldn’t be riding Satan anymore. That was the story they’d be after. But he wouldn’t tell them it was the Black he had ridden in the park. They had no idea as to the identity of the horse he had ridden, and he wasn’t going to help them find out!

Twenty minutes later Alec turned down his block, and his running strides lengthened as the barn came into view. He passed his house, going directly to the iron gate. As he pulled it open, he knew what he was going to do, and he didn’t have any time to lose. The reporters would be here within an hour, maybe less.

The Black neighed shrilly as he opened the barn door, but for once Alec passed him by.