iting scene within the barrier.
"There's Catalpa ... and Evangeline ... and ... yes, there is Queen
Bess!"

A burst of cheering rose from the crowd within.

Miss Alathea was on tip-toe with excitement. "What's that?" she begged.

"A false start," he answered, scarcely even glancing down at her.
"They'll make it this time, though," he added, and she could see his
knuckles whiten with the strain as he gripped a rough limb of the tree
with vise-like fingers.

A moment later and the shouting became a very tempest of sound.

"They're off!" he cried, staring through his field glasses in an
excitement which promised, if he did not curb it, to send him tumbling
from his shaky foothold. "Oh, what a splendid start!"

"Who's ahead?" inquired Miss Alathea, very much excited. "Colonel, who's
ahead?"

"Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back."

"Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front?" Miss Alathea cried, as if he
were to blame for the disquieting news he had reported to her. "Oh," she
exclaimed, to the Colonel's great astonishment, "if I were only on that
mare!"

"At the half," the Colonel shouted, beside himself with worry,
"Evangeline takes the lead ... Catalpa next ... the rest are bunched."

Miss Alathea, at the moment, was trying to see satisfactorily, through
the very knot-hole which the Colonel had abandoned. She sprang from it
hastily, however, and to the foot of the tree which acted as his
pedestal, when he exclaimed:

"Oh, great heavens! There's a fall ... a jam ... and Queen Bess is left
behind three lengths!" He leaned so far out that he heard the limb
beneath him crack, and, in hastening to a firmer footing, almost lost
his balance. This startled him, and, for an instant, took his eager gaze
away from the struggling horses on the track within, but he quickly
regained poise. "She hasn't the ghost of a show!" he cried,
disheartened. "Look! Look!"

Miss Alathea hugged the tree and looked, not at the horses, for that was
quite impossible, but up at him with wide, imploring eyes.

"She's at it again, though, now!" he cried. "It's beyond anything
mortal, but she's gaining ... gaining!"

Miss Alathea's excitement now was every bit as great as his. She had
never seen a race in all her life, yet, now, she performed there at the
foot of the great tree, a series of evolution not unlike those of many a
"rooter" at the track within. She jumped up and down upon her toe's,
clenched her hands and cried: "O