ited
punishment. It had always been that way in his two-year-old days; first,
the general hustle--small legs and arms working with concentric swing;
then the impatient admonishment of fierce-jabbing spurs; and finally
the welt-raising cut of a vicious, unreasoning whip. It was not a
pleasurable prospect; and at the first shake-up, Lauzanne pictured it
coming. All thoughts of overtaking the horses in front fled from
his mind; it was the dreaded punishment that interested him most;
figuratively, he humped his back against the anticipated onslaught.

Redpath felt the unmistakable sign of his horse sulking; and he promptly
had recourse to the jockey's usual argument.

Sitting in the stand Allis saw, with a cry of dismay, Redpath's
whip-hand go up. That Lauzanne had been trailing six lengths behind the
others had not bothered her in the slightest--it was his true method;
his work would be done in the stretch when the others were tiring, if at
all.

"If the boy will only sit still--only have patience," she had been
saying to herself, just before she saw the flash of a whip in the
sunlight; and then she just moaned. "It's all over; we are beaten again.
Everything is against us--everybody is against us," she cried, bitterly;
"will good fortune never come father's way?"

By the time the horses had swung into the stretch, and Lauzanne had not
in the slightest improved his position, it dawned upon Redpath that his
efforts were productive of no good, so he desisted. But his move had
cost the Porters whatever chance they might have had. Left to himself,
Lauzanne undertook an investigating gallop on his own account. Too much
ground had been lost to be made up at that late stage, but he came
up the straight in gallant style, wearing down the leaders until he
finished close up among the unplaced horses.

Allis allowed no word of reproach to escape her when Redpath spoke of
Lauzanne's sulky temper. It would do no good--it would be like crying
over spilt milk. The boy was to ride Lucretia in the Derby; he was on
good terms with the mare; and to chide him for the ride on Lauzanne
would but destroy his confidence in himself for the other race.

"I'm afraid the Chestnut's a bad actor," Dixon said to Allis, after the
race. "We'll never do no good with him. If he couldn't beat that lot
he's not worth his feed bill."

"He would have won had I been on his back," declared the girl, loyally.

"That's no good, Miss; you can't ride him, yo