h, keep it up! Keep it up!"

"At the three-quarters she's only five lengths behind the leader and
still gaming!" cried the Colonel, in excited optimism.

Miss Alathea could no longer endure the agony of waiting on the ground
for his reports. Instead she tried to scramble to his side, but,
failing, utterly, to accomplish this unaided, held her hands up to him,
crying: "Oh, pull, pull! I can't stand it! I've just got to see!"

The Colonel turned upon his perch and looked down at her, smiling.
"Coming up, Miss 'Lethe?" he inquired. "All right, don't break your
neck, but get where you can see." Hastily he gave her such assistance as
his absorbed attention to the events within the fence permitted, and,
with a wild scramble, she found herself close by his side, holding half
to him, half to a curving branch.

"Look! Look!" he cried, again. "In the stretch! Her head is at Catalpa's
crupper ... now at her saddle-bow ... but she can't gain another inch.
Still ... yes ... yes ... she lifts her! See!... See!... Great God! She
wins!"

Within the fence wild pandemonium broke loose. The crowd went mad with
shouting. Hats, handkerchiefs, canes, umbrellas, flew into the air as if
blown upward by the mad explosion of the crowd's enthusiasm. The band
was playing "Dixie."

Frank and Neb rushed forward to lift from the winner the victorious
jockey, who by such superb riding as that track had never seen before,
had snatched victory from defeat after the mare had been delayed in the
bad pocket which, from his distant point of survey, had alarmed the
Colonel. The jockey eluded them, however and, with face averted, hurried
with the splendid mare back to the paddock, and there disappeared,
disregarding the crowd's wild shouts of acclamation.

Holton stood near Frank, white-faced and angry. Old Neb, as he ran
beside Queen Bess, looked back at him and grinned.

CHAPTER XVIII

Miss Alathea, on the day after the great race, sat waiting for the
Colonel in the handsome old library of Woodlawn, worrying about her
unconventionalities of the preceding day. When she heard his voice, out
in the hall, telling Neb to carry certain bundles into the library and
knew, of course, that he would follow after them almost immediately, her
heart throbbed fiercely in her bosom. She shrank back into a window
recess, too embarrassed to face him without first pausing to gather up
her courage.

"Put 'em there, Neb," said the Colonel, pointing to the ta