E-text prepared by David Garcia, Roger Frank, Sam W., and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Kentuckiana Digital Library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 33759-h.htm or 33759-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33759/pg33759-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33759/33759-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Kentuckiana Digital Library. See http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;view=toc;idno=b92-178-30418568 Transcriber's Note Image captions in {curly brackets} have been added by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader. THE KEY TO YESTERDAY by CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers Copyright, 1910, by W. J. Watt & Company [Illustration: {Saxon and Duska with her portrait}] CONTENTS CHAPTER I 1 CHAPTER II 22 CHAPTER III 37 CHAPTER IV 55 CHAPTER V 70 CHAPTER VI 88 CHAPTER VII 102 CHAPTER VIII 119 CHAPTER IX 134 CHAPTER X 156 CHAPTER XI 172 CHAPTER XII 186 CHAPTER XIII 207 CHAPTER XIV 221 CHAPTER XV 238 CHAPTER XVI 255 CHAPTER XVII 270 CHAPTER XVIII 285 CHAPTER XIX 304 CHAPTER XX 315 CHAPTER XXI 333 The Key to Yesterday CHAPTER I The palings of the grandstand inclosure creaked in protest under the pressure. The shadows of forward-surging men wavered far out across the track. A smother of ondriving dust broke, hurricane-like, around the last turn, sweeping before it into the straightaway a struggling mass of horse-flesh and a confusion of stable-colors. Back to the right, the grandstand came to its feet, bellowing in a madman's chorus. Out of the forefront of the struggle strained a blood-bay colt. The boy, crouched over the shoulders, was riding with hand and heel to the last ounce of his strength and the last subtle feather-weight of his craft and skill. At his saddleskirts pressed a pair of distended nostrils and a black, foam-flecked muzzle. Behind, with a gap of track and daylight between, trailed the laboring "ruck."