He passed under the wire and started around the track again. In spite of the frantic efforts of his jockey to stop him Skipper made the second mile in record time. As he passed the grandstand the negro who operated the big bass drum brought down the drumstick on the stretched pigskin with a loud “Boom!” Skipper promptly jumped the fence, ran far over in the field, bucked his jockey off, ran splashing through the little artificial pond in the middle of the green, and finally lay down in the water and rolled over and over like a muskrat, kicking and squealing and splashing the water and making waves like Pharaoh’s army drowning in the sea! “Lawdymussy!” Whiffle whined, watching the antics of the crazed horse and wringing her hands in nervous distress. “I knowed Skipper was a hop-hoss, but I didn’t ax nobody how much tea to gib him. I figger dat I doped Skipper too high!” The crowd was on its way home a long time before they rescued Skipper from the pond and persuaded the mud-begrimed winner to return to his stall and be cleaned off. At the head of the homeward-bound procession walked Skeeter Butts and Shin Bone. Words cannot describe their distress. “Dis is a sad an’ sorrerful day fer me, Shin,” Skeeter wept. “At de eend of de secont race I owned all de money in de worl’. But now----” “Hush, Skeeter!” Shin said impatiently. “Yo’ mouf is jes’ like a gramophome--you sets it runnin’ an’ goes off an’ leaves it.” “All right,” Skeeter snarled. “I’ll shet up. But fust I tells you dis, solemn an’ specific: I ain’t never gwine bet on nothin’ no more! Dis here expe’unce is done broke me from suckin’ eggs!” “Hush, Skeeter!” Shin pleaded. “Lemme medjertate!” IX ONE DOLLAR, ONE CENT, ONE WORM. Next morning, as Shin busied himself about the stable of Colonel Tom Gaitskill, he was in the depths of despair. The day before had been one of wild betting, of wonderful winnings, and of most disastrous and heartbreaking losses. And this was the last day of the fair, and Shin found himself in a condition where there was no possibility of recovering even a part of his lost fortune. One by one he brought out Gaitskill’s handsome horses and cleaned them until a man might rub a silk handkerchief over their shiny coats and not pick up a speck of dust. Finally Shin brought out the beautiful sorrel with the blazed face and the stiff, snake-bitten leg. The animal was painfully lame, and Shin spent an hour with various remedies striving to get some of the rigidity out of the wounded leg. Colonel Tom Gaitskill sauntered out from his house to the stables, carrying his morning newspaper in his hand. “Mawnin,’ Kunnel!” Shin exclaimed. “Dis old rattlesnake hoss is shore disencouragin’. It ’pears like his leg ain’t limberin’ up a-tall!” “Is that so?” Gaitskill asked, slapping at the gnats which flew annoyingly close to his face with the newspaper and making a shrill, rattling sound.