This was Shin Bone’s idea exactly, and he rode out of the fairgrounds and hitched his horse in front of the Hen-Scratch saloon to hold an executive session with Skeeter Butts. He strode into the saloon like a personified calamity, and dropped down in a chair beside the table where Skeeter sat. “Skeeter,” he howled, “you shore made a awful miscue about dat Nigger Blackie hoss you bought fer me. He’s so nigh nothin’ dat nobody cain’t tell de diffunce betwix’ him _an’_ nothin’!” “’Tain’t so,” Skeeter replied, continuing to count some money he had spread out on the table. “Dat’s a dandy lookin’ hoss.” “Suttinly,” Shin retorted bitterly. “He’s a looker, but he runs like a lan’ tarrapin travelin’ in a plowed field.” “Ain’t it awful!” Skeeter snickered. “I’d druther try to win a race ridin’ straddle of a mud scow whut I borrered outen de ribber dan to put up dat hoss fer a winner.” Shin grunted and relapsed into an outraged silence, looking at the unperturbed Skeeter now and then with glaring eyes. Finally Skeeter asked: “Did you gib Nigger Blackie a tryout?” “Yep. An’ I loss de onlies’ ten dollars I’m got in de worl’ tryin’ to beat Pap’s Doodlebug.” “Dat’s whut I loant you dat ten fer,” Skeeter said, handing Shin ten dollars more from the pile on the table. “Ef you hadn’t lost it, I’d ’a’ fit you!” “Huh,” Shin grunted. “You ain’t tellin’ me as much as I oughter know.” “Naw, suh, not quite as much. You see, you’s gwine marry into Pap’s fambly, an’ you’s got one of dese here open-work minds an’ cain’t keep nothin’ secret.” “Dat ain’t no reason why I don’t want to rob Pap of all his dollars,” Shin declared belligerently. “But I don’t expeck to git much of Pap’s money wis Nigger Blackie to run fer it.” “Mebbe you didn’t know how to ride him, Shin,” Skeeter suggested. “’Taint dat, Skeeter,” Bone said earnestly. “Dat hoss jes’ nachelly ain’t got no speed in him.” “I’s heerd tell dat he had racin’ blood in him,” Skeeter replied. “Mebbe so, he did had--one time,” Shin responded gloomily. “But a stable flea bit him an’ got it all.” Skeeter stood up and reached for his hat. “I’s glad to git dat repote from you, Shin,” he said. “Now I wants you to tend dis bar fer me till I gits back. I’s gwine ride Nigger Blackie aroun’ a little an’ see kin I limber up his racin’ speed.” VI BY THREE LENGTHS. On the morning of the second day of the Tickfall Negro Fair, Colonel Tom Gaitskill, the chief promoter of the negro uplift movement, received a shock. A delegation of wailing women waited upon him and tearfully told their tale of woe. All the canned fruits and vegetables, all the preserves and jams, all the cakes and pies which they had brought to the Fair and entered in the competition for prizes had disappeared from the hall! Investigation revealed the fact that the hungry negroes had helped themselves, sampling everything until nothing of the sample remained.