reached
out his long neck, chin level against the wind like a swimmer, and ran
as no horse ever had run on that race-course before. Every horseman
there knew that the Duke was still holding him in, allowing the train
to creep up on him as if he scorned to take advantage of the handicap.

The engineer saw that this was going to be a different kind of race from
the yelling, chattering troop of wild riders which he had been
outrunning with unbroken regularity. In that yellow streak of horse,
that low-bending, bony rider, he saw a possibility of defeat and
disgrace. His head disappeared out of the window, his derisive hand
vanished. He was turning valves and pulling levers, trying to coax a
little more power into his piston strokes.

The Duke held Whetstone back until his wind had set to the labor, his
muscles flexed, his sinews stretched to the race. A third of the race
was covered when the engine came neck and neck with the horse, and the
engineer, confident now, leaned far out, swinging his hand like the oar
of a boat, and shouted:

"Come on! Come on!"

Just a moment too soon this confidence, a moment too soon this defiance.
It was the Duke's program to run this thing neck and neck, force to
force, with no advantage asked or taken. Then if he could gather speed
and beat the engine on the home stretch no man, on the train or off,
could say that he had done it with the advantage of a handicap.

There was a great whooping, a great thumping of hoofs, a monstrous swirl
of dust, as the riders at the side of the race-course saw the Duke's
maneuver and read his intention. Away they swept, a noisy troop, like a
flight of blackbirds, hats off, guns popping, in a scramble to get up as
close to the finishing line as possible.

Never before in the long history of that unique contest had there been
so much excitement. Porters opened the vestibule doors, allowing
passengers to crowd the steps; windows were opened, heads thrust out,
every tongue urging the horseman on with cheers.

The Duke was riding beside the engineer, not ten feet between them. More
than half the course was run, and there the Duke hung, the engine not
gaining an inch. The engineer was on his feet now, hand on the throttle
lever, although it was open as wide as it could be pulled. The fireman
was throwing coal into the furnace, looking round over his shoulder now
and then at the persistent horseman who would not be outrun, his eyes
white in his grimy face.