her side.

It was only when the new-comer and Robin were out of hearing that the
jeers broke out aloud, and even then several of the on-lookers, noting
the breeding along with the powerful muscles and flat bone, asserted
that it was "a good horse, all the same." They had eyes for a good
horse.

II

As the old trainer led the horse away around the long stables, the low
rumble of far-off thunder grumbled along the western horizon--Robin
glanced in that direction. It might mean a change in the chances of
every horse that was to run next day. The old man looked downcast; the
boy's countenance cleared up. He scanned the sky long and earnestly
where a dull cloud was stretching across the west; then he followed the
horse among the long lines of low buildings with a quickened step.

It was not till they had reached a box-stall in an old building far off
in one corner of the grounds that the old negro stopped. When he had
been expecting another horse--the horse of which he had boasted to his
entire acquaintance--he had engaged in advance a box in one of the big,
new stables, where the descendant of the kings would be in royal and
fitting company. He could not bring himself now to face, with this
raw-boned, sunburnt colt, the derisive scrutiny of the men who had heard
him bragging for a week of what his young master would show them when he
came. Yet it was more on his young master's account than on his own that
he now slunk away to this far-off corner. He remembered his old master,
the king of the turf, the model of a fine gentleman, the leader of men;
whose graciousness and princely hospitality were in all mouths; whose
word was law; whose name no one mentioned but with respect.

He remembered his young master as he rode away to the war on one of the
thoroughbreds, a matchless rider on a matchless horse. How could he now
allow their grandson and son, in this rusty suit, with this rusty colt
at which the stable-boys jeered, to match himself against the finest men
and horses in the country? He must keep him from entering the horse.

But as the old fellow stopped before the stall and glanced at the horse
he had been leading, his face changed. It took on the first look of
interest it had worn since the horse had appeared on the road in a cloud
of dust. He was standing now directly in front of him. His eyes opened.
The deep chest, the straight, clean legs with muscles standing out on
the forearms in big knots, the fine he