citement, and all restraint was gone. It was
win--win--burst--die--but _win_! And never jockeys harder rode and never
horses better ran; the test was fair. Red Rover did his best, yet his
rival's legs in that last spurt moved as a rabbit's legs, a maze of
shadowy pounding limbs, and--sickening sight--the buckskin with the
copper rider forged still more ahead--a neck, half a length ahead--and
the race was _won_.

* * * * *

Peaches was in tears. "Colonel," he said, in a broken voice, "it was
that twenty-five pound handicap did it; it wasn't fair."

The Colonel growled something about "a lot of fools to let up on the
training after that Yellowbank trial."

Hartigan was standing near; gloomy, but not so gloomy as the rest; and
when there came a chance to be heard, he said: "Colonel, once I see a
horse close to, in fair daylight, I can always remember him afterward.
I've been looking over their buckskin cayuse, and it's _not the same
one_ we raced in the Yellowbank."

The Colonel turned quickly around. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely certain," was the answer.

"My goodness--you are right. I distrusted the whole business from the
start. You are right; they fooled us on a stool-pigeon; this whole thing
was a put-up job. The simple Red man!"

* * * * *

The "perchers" were gathered at the blacksmith shop next afternoon.
"Well," said Shives, "I've done fifteen dollars' worth of work to-day
and haven't taken in a cent." The audience grunted and he went on.
"Every tap of it was for broken-down bums trying to get out of
town--skinned by the simple Red man. Horses shod, tires set, bolts
fixed, all kinds of cripplements. All they want is help to get out, get
out; at any price get out. Well, it'll do you good, the whole caboodle
of ye. Ye started out to do, and got done--everlastingly soaked." The
blacksmith chuckled. "Serve you all right. I'm glad ye got it."

As Hartigan appeared, swinging a big stick and singing "The Wearing of
the Green," Shives asked: "Well, Jim, how much did you lose?"

"Nothing," sang Hartigan cheerfully; "I don't bet"; and he went on
singing, "'Tis the most distressful country this that ever yet was
seen."

"Lucky dog! All the sports round this neck o' the woods are ruined. They
say no gentleman will bet on a sure thing. H'm, maybe not. Well,
fellows, cheer up; no man ever yet was made, until he had been ruined a
couple of times; and al