r species of race-track hangers-on
which swarm at such times to the front, were everywhere in evidence;
touts with shifty eyes slipped, here and there, among the sightseers,
looking for some credulous one who might be willing to pay well for
doubtful information. Every minute amidst the throng the words "Queen
Bess" might be heard at any chosen point, as the crowd gossipped eagerly
about the horse which had been looked on as the favorite, but which,
many positively now declared, had been so injured in the fire that she
would run but poorly in the race which, it had been thought, would be
the most sensational effort of her life.

Frank, nervous and excited, stood in the paddock, watch in hand, with
old Neb by his side.

"Why doesn't that jockey come?" he asked, for the hundredth time, almost
beside himself with worry as the moments slipped away.

"He'll come, Marse Frank," said Neb. "You kin gamble on de Cunnel."

"If I only knew what kind of a jockey he is!" Then, as Horace Holton
came up, smiling greetings: "Holton, how's the betting?"

"Can't you hear?" said Holton, as a vagrant breeze brought to their ears
bits of the vocal tumult from the betting-ring.

"Ten to nine against Queen Bess," Frank heard a voice call loudly,
although the crowd's great murmur made the words come indistinctly to
his ears. "Even on Catalpa," was the next penetrating cry, and then:
"Two to one, Evangeline!"

The young owner shuddered. Could it be possible that Neb was right and
that the Colonel's jockey would appear on time, or were the dire
predictions of defeat which, he knew, were being made everywhere around
him, true prophecies? Tales of all but fatal injuries to the handsome
mare had been freely circulated, and, despite denials in the newspapers,
were still alive, and these he knew to be quite false; but he knew of
the other dire disaster--the defection of his jockey--of which the crowd
was also well aware. He had not the slightest doubt that if Queen Bess
should run at all she would do all that her best friends expected of her
and more; but it seemed to him a possibility that he would find it
necessary, at the last minute, to withdraw her from the race entirely,
for sheer lack of a rider.

Again the breeze brought from the betting-ring the loud shouts of the
book-makers. The message that they told was most depressing to the
worried owner.

"Why, this morning she was the favorite," he said, "and now the odds are
all against h