run.

Through the gay crowd old Neb was wandering, disconsolate, burdened with
the melancholy news of the defection of the miserable jockey, looking,
everywhere, for Miss Alathea Layson, but without success. He stopped
upon a corner, weary of the search and of the woe which weighed him
down.

"Marse Frank," he muttered, "say I war to tell Miss 'Lethe de bad news;
but he didn't tell me how to find a lady out shoppin'. Needle in a
haystack ain't nawthin'! Reckon 'bout de bes' dat I kin do is stand heah
on dis cohnuh an' cotch huh when she comes back to de hotel."

He stood there for fully fifteen minutes, peering in an utter desolation
of woe, at every passing face, but finding nowhere that one which he
sought. Then, at a distance, he saw the Colonel coming. The expression
on the horseman's face amazed him and filled him with an instant hope
that something had turned up to rob the situation of the horror which
had darkened it, for him, ever since he had discovered that the jockey
had disgraced himself.

"Dar come Marse Cunnel," he exclaimed, in his astonishment, "_a-lookin'
mighty happy_! Dat ain't right, now; dat ain't right, unduh de
succumstances."

He hurried to the Colonel, who, instead of seeming sorrowful,
discouraged, wroth, beamed at him with a genial eye.

"What's the matter, Neb?" he asked. "You look like a funeral!"

"Dat's de way I feel, suh; wid no jockey fo' Queen Bess an' Marse Frank
good as ruined."

"Neb," said the Colonel, coolly, "you don't mean to be a liar, but you
are one."

"What?" cried the darkey in delight. "Oh Marse Cunnel, call me anyt'ing
ef tain't so about de mare!"

"Of course it isn't," said the Colonel happily. "I have found a jockey,
Neb; a jockey."

"Praise de Lawd!" cried the old negro.

"One of the best," the Colonel went on, gaily. "Just come in from
the--from the east. I engaged him at once, so you get word to Frank. In
five minutes we'll be on our way out to the track."

Neb's spirits had instantly revived. Six inches droop was gone from his
old shoulders. "It'll be de grandest race eber run in ol' Kentucky!
Lawsy, Cunnel, won't it tickle you to death to see Queen Bess romp in a
winnuh?"

Instantly the Colonel's high elation faded. More than the droop which
had been in Neb's shoulders now oppressed the horseman's. His face
clouded. "There _he_ goes, too!" he cried. "Neb, another word like that
and I shall brain you! Do you hear me? I--I shan't be there!"

"Not