-races were being promoted by the shanty-keeper at the
Overhaul--seven miles from our selection. They were the first of the
kind held in the district, and the stake for the principal event was
five pounds. It was n't because Dad was a racing man or subject to
turf hallucinations in any way that he thought of preparing Bess for
the meeting. We sadly needed those five pounds, and, as Dad put it, if
the mare could only win, it would be an easier and much quicker way of
making a bit of money than waiting for a crop to grow.

Bess was hobbled and put into a two-acre paddock near the house. We
put her there because of her wisdom. She was a chestnut, full of
villainy, an absolutely incorrigible old rogue. If at any time she was
wanted when in the grass paddock, it required the lot of us from Dad
down to yard her, as well as the dogs, and every other dog in the
neighbourhood. Not that she had any brumby element in her--she would
have been easier to yard if she had--but she would drive steadily
enough, alone or with other horses, until she saw the yard, when she
would turn and deliberately walk away. If we walked to head her she
beat us by half a length; if we ran she ran, and stopped when we
stopped. That was the aggravating part of her! When it was only to go
to the store or the post-office that we wanted her, we could have
walked there and back a dozen times before we could run her down; but,
somehow, we generally preferred to work hard catching her rather than
walk.

When we had spent half the day hunting for the curry-comb, which we did
n't find, Dad began to rub Bess down with a corn-cob--a shelled
one--and trim her up a bit. He pulled her tail and cut the hair off
her heels with a knife; then he gave her some corn to eat, and told Joe
he was to have a bundle of thistles cut for her every night. Now and
again, while grooming her, Dad would step back a few paces and look
upon her with pride.

"There's great breeding in the old mare," he would say, "great
breeding; look at the shoulder on her, and the loin she has; and where
did ever you see a horse with the same nostril? Believe me, she'll
surprise a few of them!"

We began to regard Bess with profound respect; hitherto we had been
accustomed to pelt her with potatoes and blue-metal.

The only thing likely to prejudice her chance in the race, Dad
reckoned, was a small sore on her back about the size of a foal's foot.
She had had that sore for upwards of te