n years to our knowledge, but
Dad hoped to have it cured before the race came off with a
never-failing remedy he had discovered--burnt leather and fat.

Every day, along with Dad, we would stand on the fence near the house
to watch Dave gallop Bess from the bottom of the lane to the
barn--about a mile. We could always see him start, but immediately
after he would disappear down a big gully, and we would see nothing
more of the gallop till he came to within a hundred yards of us. And
would n't Bess bend to it once she got up the hill, and fly past with
Dave in the stirrups watching her shadow!--when there was one: she was
a little too fine to throw a shadow always. And when Dave and Bess had
got back and Joe had led her round the yard a few times, Dad would rub
the corn-cob over her again and apply more burnt-leather and fat to her
back.

On the morning preceding the race Dad decided to send Bess over three
miles to improve her wind. Dave took her to the crossing at the
creek--supposed to be three miles from Shingle Hut, but it might have
been four or it might have been five, and there was a stony ridge on
the way.

We mounted the fence and waited. Tommy Wilkie came along riding a
plough-horse. He waited too.

"Ought to be coming now," Dad observed, and Wilkie got excited. He
said he would go and wait in the gully and race Dave home. "Race him
home!" Dad chuckled, as Tommy cantered off, "he'll never see the way
Bess goes." Then we all laughed.

Just as someone cried "Here he is!" Dave turned the corner into the
lane, and Joe fell off the fence and pulled Dad with him. Dad damned
him and scrambled up again as fast as he could. After a while Tommy
Wilkie hove in sight amid a cloud of dust. Then came Dave at scarcely
faster than a trot, and flogging all he knew with a piece of greenhide
plough-rein. Bess was all-out and floundering. There was about two
hundred yards yet to cover. Dave kept at her--THUD! THUD! Slower and
slower she came. "Damn the fellow!" Dad said; "what's he beating her
for?" "Stop it, you fool!" he shouted. But Dave sat down on her for
the final effort and applied the hide faster and faster. Dad crunched
his teeth. Once--twice--three times Bess changed her stride, then
struck a branch-root of a tree that projected a few inches above
ground, and over she went--CRASH! Dave fell on his head and lay spread
out, motionless. We picked him up and carried him inside, and when
Mother saw