"and he'll show you some of the tallest running you ever saw in your
life."

Away they went. At first the pig, seeming not exactly to comprehend the
programme, cantered off at a leisurely pace, though he held his own.
Soon, however, he cast an eye behind him--halted a moment to collect his
thoughts and reconnoitre--and then, lowering his head and elevating his
tail, put forth all his speed. And such speed! Talk of a deer, the wind,
or a steam-engine--they are not to be compared with it. Nothing in
nature I ever saw run--except, it may be, a Southern tornado, or a Sixth
Ward politician--could hope to distance that pig. He gained on the horse
at every step, and it was soon evident that my dollar was gone!

"'In for a shilling, in for a pound,' is the adage, so, turning to the
Colonel, I said, as intelligibly as my horse's rapid pace and my excited
risibilities would allow:

"I see I've lost, but I'll go you another dollar that _you_ can't beat
the pig!"

"No--sir!" the Colonel got out in the breaks of his laughing explosions;
"you can't hedge on me in that manner. I'll go a dollar that _you_ can't
do it, and your mare is the fastest on the road. She won me a thousand
not a month ago."

"Well, I'll do it--Sandy to have the stakes."

"Agreed," said the Colonel, and away _we_ went.

The swinish racer was about a hundred yards ahead when I gave the mare
the reins, and told her to go. And she _did_ go. She flew against the
wind with a motion so rapid that my face, as it clove the air, felt as
if cutting its way through a solid body, and the trees, as we passed,
seemed struck with panic, and running for dear life in the opposite
direction.

For a few moments I thought the mare was gaining, and I turned to the
Colonel with an exultant look.

"Don't shout till you win, my boy," he called out from the distance
where I was fast leaving him and Sandy.

I _did not shout_, for spite of all my efforts the space between me and
the pig seemed to widen. Yet I kept on, determined to win, till, at the
end of a short half-mile, we reached the Waccamaw--the swine still a
hundred yards ahead! There his pigship halted, turned coolly around,
eyed me for a moment, then with a quiet, deliberate trot, turned off
into the woods.

A bend in the road kept my companions out of sight for a few moments,
and when they came up I had somewhat recovered my breath, though the
mare was blowing hard, and reeking with foam.

"Well," said the Co