On the morning preceding the race Dad decided to send Bess over three miles to improve her wind. Dave took her to the crossing at the creek--supposed to be three miles from Shingle Hut, but it might have been four or it might have been five, and there was a stony ridge on the way.
We mounted the fence and waited. Tommy Wilkie came along riding a plough-horse. He waited too.
"Ought to be coming now," Dad observed, and Wilkie got excited. He said he would go and wait in the gully and race Dave home. "Race him home!"Dad chuckled, as Tommy cantered off, "he'll never see the way Bess goes."Then we all laughed.
Just as someone cried "Here he is!" Dave turned the corner into the lane, and Joe fell off the fence and pulled Dad with him. Dad damned him and scrambled up again as fast as he could. After a while Tommy Wilkie hove in sight amid a cloud of dust. Then came Dave at scarcely faster than a trot, and flogging all he knew with a piece of greenhide plough-rein.
Bess was all-out and floundering. There was about two hundred yards yet to cover. Dave kept at her--THUD! THUD! Slower and slower she came.
"Damn the fellow!" Dad said; "what's he beating her for?" "Stop it, you fool!" he shouted. But Dave sat down on her for the final effort and applied the hide faster and faster. Dad crunched his teeth.
Once--twice--three times Bess changed her stride, then struck a branch-root of a tree that projected a few inches above ground, and over she went--CRASH! Dave fell on his head and lay spread out, motionless. We picked him up and carried him inside, and when Mother saw blood on him she fainted straight off without waiting to know if it were his own or not.
Both looked as good as dead; but Dad, with a bucket of water, soon brought them round again.
It was scarcely dawn when we began preparing for a start to the races.
Dave, after spending fully an hour trying in vain to pull on Mother's elastic-side boots, decided to ride in his own heavy bluchers. We went with Dad in the dray. Mother would n't go; she said she did n't want to see her son get killed, and warned Dad that if anything happened the blame would for ever be on his head.
We arrived at the Overhaul in good time. Dad took the horse out of the dray and tied him to a tree. Dave led Bess about, and we stood and watched the shanty-keeper unpacking gingerbeer. Joe asked Dad for sixpence to buy some, but Dad had n't any small change. We remained in front of the booth through most of the day, and ran after any corks that popped out and handed them in again to the shanty-keeper. He did n't offer us anything--not a thing!
"Saddle up for the Overhaul Handicap!" was at last sung out, and Dad, saddle on arm, advanced to where Dave was walking Bess about. They saddled up and Dave mounted, looking as pale as death.
"I don't like ridin' in these boots a bit," he said, with a quiver in his voice.
"Wot's up with 'em?" Dad asked.
"They're too big altogether."
"Well, take 'em off then!"
Dave jumped down and pulled them off-leaving his socks on.
More than a dozen horses went out, and when the starter said "Off!"did n't they go! Our eyes at once followed Bess. Dave was at her right from the jump--the very opposite to what Dad had told him. In the first furlong she put fully twenty yards of daylight between herself and the field--she came after the field. At the back of the course you could see the whole of Kyle's selection and two of Jerry Keefe's hay-stacks between her and the others. We did n't follow her any further.
After the race was won and they had cheered the winner, Dad was n't to be found anywhere.
Dave sat on the grass quite exhausted. "Ain't y' goin' to pull the saddle off?" Joe asked.
"No," he said. "I AIN'T. You don't want everyone to see her back, do you?"Joe wished he had sixpence.
About an hour afterwards Dad came staggering along arm-in-arm with another man--an old fencing-mate of his, so he made out.
"Thur yar," he said, taking off his hat and striking Bess on the rump with it; "besh bred mare in the worl'."The fencing-mate looked at her, but did n't say anything; he could n't.
"Eh?" Dad went on; "say sh'ain't? L'ere-ever y' name is--betcher pound sh'is."Then a jeering and laughing crowd gathered round, and Dave wished he had n't come to the races.
"She ain't well," said a tall man to Dad--"short in her gallops." Then a short, bulky individual without whiskers shoved his face up into Dad's and asked him if Bess was a mare or a cow. Dad became excited, and only that old Anderson came forward and took him away there must have been a row.
Anderson put him in the dray and drove it home to Shingle Hut.
Dad reckons now that there is nothing in horse-racing, and declares it a fraud. He says, further, that an honest man, by training and racing a horse, is only helping to feed and fatten the rogues and vagabonds that live on the sport.
