The country horse
had still to take the leap, and all eyes were on him, for it was the
jump he had refused. Bets were offered that he would refuse again, or
that after his killing chase he would be too winded to clear it and
would go down. At any rate, they agreed the boy who was riding him was
crazy, and he could never last to come in.

Old Robin ran across the track to try and stop him. He waved his arms
wildly.

"Pull out. You 'll kill him! Save him for another time. Don't kill
him!" he cried.

But the young rider was of a different mind. The vision of two girls
was in his thoughts--one a young girl down on an old plantation, and the
other a girl in white in a front box in the club. She had looked at him
with kind eyes and backed him against the field. He would win or die.

The horse, too, had his life in the race. Unheeding the wild waving
of the old trainer's arms, he swept by him with head still up and ears
still forward, his eyes riveted on the horses galloping in front of him.
Once or twice his ears were bent toward the big fence as if to gauge it,
and then his eyes looked off to the horses running up the slope beyond
it. When he reached the jump he rose so far from it that a cry of
anxiety went up. But it changed to a wild shout of applause as he
cleared everything in his stride and lighted far beyond the water. Old
Robin, whose arms were high in the air with horror as he rose, dropped
them, and then, jerking off his hat, he waved it wildly around his head.

"He can fly. He ain't a hoss at all; he 's a bud!" he shouted. "Let him
go, son; let him go! You 'll win yet."

But horse and rider were beyond the reach of his voice, galloping up the
slope.

Once more they all disappeared behind the hill, and once more the
leaders came out, one ahead of the others, then two together, then two
more, running along the inside of the fence toward the last jumps, where
they would strike the clear track and come around the turn into the home
stretch. The other horses were trailing behind the five leaders when
they went over the hill. Now, as they came out again, one of the second
batch was ahead of all the others and was making up lost ground after
the leaders. Suddenly a cry arose: "The yellow! The orange! It 's the
countryman!"

"Impossible! It is, and he is overhauling 'em!"

"If he lives over the Liverpool, he 'll get a place," said one of the
gentlemen in the club box.

"But he can't do it. He must be dead," s