y
let him down fur a full mile. Man! he _just gallops_ in _forty flat_!
Then I know I've got somethin'!

"His first race I'm as nervous as a dame. I don't bet a dollar on him
fur fear I'll queer it. Anyway, he ain't a good price--you can't keep
him under cover, he's too flashy-lookin'.

"Well, he comes home alone, just playin' along, the jock lookin' back
at the bunch.

"'How much has he got left?' I says to the jock after the race.

"'Him!' says the jock. 'Enough to beat anybody's hoss!'

"I starts him the next week, 'n' he repeats, but it ain't till his
_third_ race that I know fur sure he's a great hoss, with a racin'
heart.

"Sweeney has the mount, 'n' he don't get him away good--the colt's
layin' a bad seventh at the quarter. Banjo's out in front, away
off--'n' she's a real good mare. That pin-head Sweeney don't make a
move till the stretch, then he tries to come from seventh all at
once . . . 'n' by God, he does it! That colt comes from nowhere to the
Banjo mare while they're goin' an eighth! The boy on Banjo goes to the
bat, but the colt just gallops on by 'n' breezes in home.

"'You bum!' I says to Sweeney. 'What kind of a trip do you call that?
Did you get off 'n' shoot a butsy at the stretch bend?'

"'If I has a match I would,' says Sweeney. 'I kin smoke it easy, 'n'
then _back_ in ahead of them turtles.'

"I know then the colt's good enough fur the stakes, 'n' I writes Miss
Goodloe to see if I can use the fourteen hundred he's won to make the
first payments. She's game as a pebble, 'n' says to stake him the
limit. So I enters him from New Awlins to Pimlico.

"I've had all kinds of offers fur the colt, but I always tell 'em
nothin' doin'. One day a lawyer named Jack Dillon, who owns a big
stock farm near Lexington, comes to me 'n' says he wants to buy him.

"'He ain't fur sale,' I tells him.

"'Everything's for sale at a price,' he says. 'Now I want that colt
worse than I do five thousand. What do you say?'

"'I ain't sayin' nothin',' I says.

"'How does eight thousand look to you?' he says.

"'Big,' I says. 'But you'll have to see Miss Goodloe at Goodloe,
Kentucky, if you want this colt.'

"Oh, General Goodloe's daughter,' he says. 'Does she own him? When I
go back next week I'll drop over and see her.'

"Well, Salvation starts in the Crescent City Derby, 'n' when he comes
under the wire Miss Goodloe's five thousand bucks better off. He wins
another stake, 'n' then I s