thunder on the level turf! How the
jockeys' silk jackets rustle in the wind they make! How muscle and
sinew strain as they pretty near fly through the air! No wonder us young
fellows, and the girls too, feel it's worth a year of their lives to
go to a good race. Yes, and will to the world's end. 'O you darling
Rainbow!' I heard Aileen say. 'Are you going to win this race and
triumph over all these grand horses? What a sight it will be! I didn't
think I could have cared for a race so much.'

It didn't seem hardly any time before they were half-way round again,
and the struggle was on, in good downright earnest. One of the Sydney
horses began to shake his tail. The other still kept the lead. Then the
Turon favourite--a real game pebble of a little horse--began to show up.

'Hotspur, Hotspur! No. Bronzewing has it--Bronzewing. It's Bronzewing's
race. Turon for ever!' the crowd kept yelling.

'Oh! look at Rainbow!' says Aileen. And just then, at the turn, old
Jacob sat down on him. The old horse challenged Bronzewing, passed
him, and collared Hotspur. 'Darkie! Darkie!' shouts everybody. 'No!
Hotspur--Darkie's coming--Darkie--Darkie! I tell yer Darkie.' And as
old Jacob made one last effort, and landed him a winner by a clear head,
there was a roar went up from the whole crowd that might have been heard
at Nulla Mountain.

Starlight jumps off the drag and leads the old horse into the weighing
yard. The steward says 'Dismount.' No fear of old Jacob getting down
before he heard that. He takes his saddle in his lap and gets into the
scales. 'Weight,' says the clerk. Then the old fellow mounts and rides
past the judge's box. 'I declare Mr. Benton's horse Darkie to be the
winner of the Turon Grand Handicap, Bronzewing second horse, Hotspur
third,' says he.

Well, there was great cheering and hollering, though none knew exactly
whose horse he was or anything about him; but an Australian crowd always
likes to see the best horse win--and they like fair play--so Darkie was
cheered over and over again, and old Jacob too.

Aileen stroked and petted him and patted his neck and rubbed his nose,
and you'd raly thought the old horse knew her, he seemed so gentle-like.
Then the Commissioner came down and said Mrs. Hautley, the police
magistrate's wife, and some other ladies wanted to see the horse that
had won the race. So he was taken over there and admired and stroked
till old Jacob got quite crusty.

'It's an odd thing, Dawson,'