st of their kind. "I like horses!" went on Freddie.

One beautiful animal leaned out of its stall and rubbed a velvet nose on
Freddie's shoulder.

"You like me, don't you, horsie?" asked the little chap. The horse
whinnied, which might mean anything, but Freddie took it for "yes."

"I guess maybe you'd like to have me get on your back," he said. "I got
on one of Uncle Dan's horses once. I know how to ride."

The horse was in a large box stall, and the door was not hard to open.
In walked Freddie, and, by standing up on a keg which was in the stall,
he managed to scramble up on the back of the horse. To keep from sliding
off, though, Freddie had to clasp his arms around the neck of the
animal.

Whether the horse took this for a signal to move along, or whether it
just "happened," I don't know. But the horse walked out of the stall,
across the grass of the paddock, and, as the big gate happened to be
open, he walked right out on the race track with Freddie clinging to his
neck.

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE CORNFIELD

Just about this time a race was going to be run. There were a number of
horses, with jockey lads on their backs, waiting for the signal to begin
their fast pace around the track. Up in the booth, where the judges and
the starter were standing to give the signal, everything was in
readiness. The people around the race track were all excited, for they
wanted to see which horse would win.

And then, just as the starter gave the word, and the jockey boys on
their horses' backs called to their steeds to run fast, out on the track
walked the horse to whose neck Freddie was clinging!

At first the little fellow had been so startled when the animal to whose
back he had scrambled walked out of the barn with him that he had not
known what to do. He just clung there.

But, finding that the horse was very gentle and did not try to reach
back and bite his legs, Freddie began rather to like it.

"Go 'long, nice horsie! Go 'long!" called Freddie, and he clapped his
heels against the sides of the animal.

The horse went along all right--fairly out on to the race track, and
just as the race was starting!

"Here! Where you going?"

"Come back with that horse!"

"Look out! Stop him, somebody! That boy will be hurt!"

These were only a few of the many cries that rose from the grandstand
and the space in front of it when the people saw Freddie right in the
path of the rushing horses.

"Ring that bell!" cr