egular jockey and was forced to give the mount
to a bad little boy about whom he knew nothing.

The real truth he uncovered to Jockey Shea, a freckled young savage
who had taken up the burden where Mulligan laid it down.

"Listen, kid, and don't make any mistakes with this colt. I'm down on
him hook, line, and sinker to win and place, so give him a nice ride
and I'll declare you in with a piece of the dough. Eh? Never you
mind; it'll be _enough_. Now, then, this is a mile race, and Calloway
will go out in front--he always does. Lay in behind him and stay
there till you get to the head of the stretch, then shake up the colt
and come on with him. He can stand a long, hard drive under whip and
spur, so give it to him good and plenty from the quarter pole home.
Don't try to draw a close finish--win just as far as you can with
him, because Hartshorn will be coming from behind."

This was the race as programmed; this was the Pitkin annual clean-up
as planned. Imagine, then, Pitkin's sheer, dumb amazement at the
spectacle of Shea, going to the bat at the rise of the barrier in
order to keep his mount within striking distance of the tail end of
the procession! Imagine his wrath as the colt continued to lag in
last place, losing ground in spite of the savage punishment
administered by Shea. Imagine his sensations when he thought of the
Pitkin bank roll, scattered in all the pool rooms between Seattle and
San Francisco, tossed to the winds, burned up, gone forever, bet on a
colt that would not or could not make a respectable fight for it!

Let us drop the curtain over the rest of the race--Hartshorn won it
in a neck-and-neck drive with Calloway just as Shea was flogging the
bay colt past the sixteenth pole--and we will lift the curtain again
at the point where the judges summoned Pitkin into the stand to ask
him for an explanation of Sergeant Smith's pitiful showing.

"Now, sir," said the presiding judge; "we've been pretty lenient with
you, Mr. Pitkin. We've overlooked a lot of things that we didn't
like--a lot of things. I figured this colt to have a fair chance to
win to-day, or be in the money at least. He ran like a cow. How do
you account for that?"

"Why, judges," stammered Pitkin, "I--I don't account for it. I
_can't_ account for it. The colt's been working good, and--and----"

"And you thought he had a chance, did you?"

"Why sure, judges, and I----"

"Well, then, why did you tell your friends that the colt was