who suggested this, that
and the other race, who sought to find men to cover their bets.

It would be an all day meet; the Bar L-M outfit would entertain
generously; there would be barbecued beef; every one was welcome; big
wagons would be busy a week beforehand bringing in enough food for a
small army. Any man had the opportunity of entering his own horse with
these provisos: this was to be a Western race in all essentials; the
horse must be Western, born and bred, the man who owned it must ride
his own horse. There would be no professional jockeys; there would be
no bookmakers.

News of the race, before the winter had come, more than six months
before the day set in June, had gone over the crest of the Sierra and
appeared in the papers at Reno. It had flashed across telegraph wires
to Sacramento; had been talk for a day in many a place where sporting
men foregather in San Francisco. Men who had never heard of them
before came to know of Sledge Hume and Wayne Shandon, of Endymion and
Little Saxon. And still Little Saxon was but a half broken colt.

"It's all right," grunted Willie Dart to himself, kicking his heels
from the top of the corral and watching his Noble Benefactor risking
his life in the company of a great, belligerent red-bay horse. "It's
all right, seeing I'm here. Suppose I wasn't, suppose I was still
dodging cops on Broadway, then what? Then Sledgehammer Hume would put
some death-on-rats in Hell Fire's hay, or pick Red off with a shot gun,
and who cops onto the five thou? A man don't have to have a fortune
teller for a mother to get wised up to that."

Little by little the proud spirited horse learned his lesson. He came
to see that his destiny lay in the hands of the man who came out to him
daily. He gave over trying to beat the man to death with his flying
heels; he no longer sought to tear at him with bared teeth; he
recognised that it was as futile to seek to hurl the man from his back
as to break the strong cinch which held the saddle; that he might run
until he killed himself, but that he could not run away from the man
who rode him and laughed. He learned that in this world that had been
so utterly free for him there was one single being who was his master
in all things, whom he must obey. And, when obedience came, pleasure
in that obedience followed, and trust and faith and love.

That year winter came in as it had not come to these mountains for
twenty-seven years, early, unh