obody to boot."

Major Calvert was seated by his desk in the great old-fashioned library,
intently scanning various racing-sheets and the multitudinous data of
the track. A greater part of his time went to the cultivation of his one
hobby--the track and horses--for by reason of his financial standing,
having large cotton and real-estate holdings in the State, he could
afford to use business as a pastime.

He spent his mornings and afternoons either in his stables or at the
extensive training-quarters of his stud, where he was as indefatigable a
rail-bird as any pristine stable-boy.

A friendly rivalry had long existed between his neighbor and friend,
Colonel Desha, and himself in the matter of horse-flesh. The colonel was
from Kentucky--Kentucky origin--and his boast was that his native State
could not be surpassed either in regard to the quality of its horses
or women. And, though chivalrous, the colonel always mentioned "women"
last.

"Just look at Rogue and my daughter, Sue, suh," he was wont to say with
pardonable pride. "Thoroughbreds both, suh."

It was a matter of record that the colonel, though less financially
able, was a better judge of horses than his friend and rival, the major,
and at the various county meets it was Major Calvert who always ran
second to Colonel Desha's first.

The colonel's faith in Rogue had been vindicated at the last Carter
Handicap, and his owner was now stimulating his ambition for higher
flights. And thus far, the major, despite all his expenditures and
lavish care, could only show one county win for his stable. His friend's
success had aroused him, and deep down in his secret heart he vowed he
would carry off the next prize Colonel Desha entered for, even if it was
one of the classic handicaps itself.

Dixie, a three-year-old filly whom he had recently purchased, showed
unmistakable evidences of winning class in her try-outs, and her owner
watched her like a hawk, satisfaction in his heart, biding the time when
he might at last show Kentucky that her sister State, Virginia, could
breed a horse or two.

"I'll keep Dixie's class a secret," he was wont to chuckle to himself,
as, perched on the rail in all sorts of weather, he clicked off her
time. "I think it is the Carter my learned friend will endeavor to
capture again. I'm sure Dixie can give Rogue five seconds in seven
furlongs--and a beating. That is, of course," he always concluded, with
good-humored vexation, "providin