The Snail’s! Cynthia could have sobbed aloud with despair, with disappointment. Her favorite, out of the race because without a rider. Someone had raised a whip and the Snail’s jockey had been the victim. Oh well, so much for that! Cynthia, disgusted, almost sank back to her seat, but the mass of excitement around her was too strong to resist. The Snail, for some reason, seemed still to be a favorite, his name rose again and again from surrounding throats. Stubbornly he kept to the track, came to the first of the tiny streets that turned off, away from the race track. Gallantly he resisted temptation, clung to the course. Past the next alley, past the next street, and well among the leaders still. Pulling ahead now, faster and faster, because riderless, guideless. The Snail caught up with the horse of the Eagle, passed him, caught up with the horse of the Owl, hitherto the leader. The Owl’s rider plied whip with vigor, but he was a husky youth, quite a burden for the Owl’s little horse to carry. And the Snail was half a head in the lead as the goal post was passed for the second time. “Oh come on ... come _on!_” Regardless now of the fact that the horse was riderless, Cynthia wanted only that he should make the circle the third time. Successfully. Now he was well in the lead, past the wicked flail of the Owl’s malicious rider. Nothing now could stop him, though as he approached for the third time the steep street leading up into the town Cynthia held her breath lest this time he should leave the course and gallop up it. Held her breath so that she was completely unconscious of the broad shoulders in front of her which her eager hands were grasping. For an instant the pony faltered. Then urged on by the pounding hoofs behind him passed the last temptation. And was on the final stretch for the goal post. Faster. Faster! A length, two lengths, three lengths ahead. Cynthia shouted wildly, pounded a fist on the harris tweed shoulder and yelled with the others. “Go on ... Snail ... go on! ... Go on! ... Home! ... _Ah..h..h!_” The race was over. “And quite fitting that it should have been won by the Snail,” dryly remarked the owner of the harris tweed shoulder. Cynthia came out of her daze and gaped at him. It was the nice twinkley man she had seen in the chapel this morning, the one who had come to the monastery with his wife. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gasped, feeling very hot and red in the face. “Did I pound you to a jelly? Races are pretty exciting, aren’t they?” “They certainly are,” he agreed cheerfully. “And that was a most surprising one.” “Do you suppose he really won?” asked Cynthia, carefully following the man down the steep narrow steps. “I don’t imagine it will be allowed like that, without a rider, will it?”