dly smile on her motherly face.
"But she has a good heart has poor Mandy."

"But why 'poor'?" enquired the M.P.P.

"Oh, well," answered Mrs. Freeman with hesitation, "you see she is so
very plain--and--well, not like other girls. But she is a good worker
and has a kind heart."

Once more the runners face the starter, La Belle gay, alert, confident;
Cameron silent, pale, and grim.

"All set? Go!" La Belle is away ere the word is spoken. The bell,
however, brings him back, wrathful and less confident.

Once more they stand crouching over the scratch. Once more the word
releases them like shafts from the bow. A beautiful start, La Belle
again in the lead, but Cameron hard at his heels and evidently with
something to spare. Thus for fifty yards, sixty, yes, sixty-five.

"La Belle! La Belle! He wins! He wins!" yell his backers frantically,
the thin-faced man dancing madly near the finishing tape. Twenty yards
to go and still La Belle is in the lead. High above the shouting rises
Mack's roar.

"Now, Cameron! For the life of you!"

It was as if his voice had touched a spring somewhere in Cameron's
anatomy. A great leap brings him even with La Belle. Another, another,
and still another, and he breasts the tape a winner by a yard, time ten
and three fifths seconds. The Maplehill folk go mad, and madder than all
Isa and her company of girl friends.

"I got--one--bad--start--me! He--pull--me back!" panted La Belle to his
backers who were holding him up.

"Who pulled you back?" indignantly cried the thin-faced man, looking for
blood.

"That sacre startair!"

"You ran a fine race, La Belle!" said Cameron, coming up.

"Non! Peste! I mak heem in ten and one feeft," replied the disgusted La
Belle.

"I have made it in ten," said Cameron quietly.

"Aha!" exclaimed La Belle. "You are one black horse, eh? So! I race no
more to-day!"

"Then no more do I!" said Cameron firmly. "Why, La Belle, you will beat
me in the next race sure. I have no wind."

Under pressure La Belle changed his mind, and well for him he did; for
in the two hundred and twenty yards and in the quarter mile Cameron's
lack of condition told against him, so that in the one he ran second to
La Belle and in the other third to La Belle and Fullerton.

The Maplehill folk were gloriously satisfied, and Fatty in an ecstasy of
delight radiated good cheer everywhere. Throughout the various contests
the interest continued to deepen, the secretary, with able