Sometimes a jockey carries an electric battery in one of his riding boots, and the battery is connected with copper wire to his spurs; sometimes the battery is hidden in the saddle and the saddle is stitched and lined with copper wire; sometimes the battery is concealed in the butt end of the riding whip. These methods often lead to the detection of dishonesty. A better way is to carry a hand buzzer and apply the juice until the race is won; then the jockey can toss the hand buzzer over the fence and defy the inspection of the judges. Sometimes a groom or rubber pours a bottle of liquid called “High Life” over the horse’s back, or administers a dose of dope; in that case the jockey has the struggle of his life to prevent his horse from climbing into the judges’ stand before he can get a start. But Shin Bone pulled the most unique stunt ever attempted on a race-track. The best speed extractor in the world for white flesh, colored flesh, or horse flesh is Fright. Fear will make a lame man walk, a crippled horse run, and a paralyzed negro sprout wings and fly. Shin rode Rattlesnake without spurs, or whip, or dope, or high life, or electricity. All in the world that he had to induce his horse to run was a handful of toy baby rattles which he had swiped from the nursery of Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s grandchild. Woven in Rattlesnake’s plaited mane were half a dozen celluloid balls, containing two or three buckshot each and marks outside of a baby’s tiny teeth. As Rattlesnake stumped about on his stiff leg they made no disturbing sound; but Shin had learned by experiment that a little burst of speed started the rattling, and the big horse did the rest! The fifteen horses trotted down toward the starter’s stand in a pretty fair alignment. Vinegar Atts, the starter, was tired of his week’s work and easy to please. “Go!” he whooped. Rattlesnake broke into an awkward gallop. Then Shin Bone reached back and pulled a string in the rear of his saddle. Four noisy celluloid baby rattles, each suspended from a strong string, dropped down around the legs of Rattlesnake. The horse heard that deadly, venomous rattle, and felt something touch his flanks and drop further and tap him on the legs; right behind his ears he heard a dreadful whirring sound, as if a snake were entwined in his mane! He uttered a scream so shrill, so horrible, that every negro in the grandstand shuddered. Then he leaped forward, and the pop-eyed negroes had never seen such running in their lives! Rattlesnake’s body lay out in a level line, nose, shoulder, back, and his flying legs were a yellow blur beneath his straining body. But not all the thunder of his going could deaden the sound of that fearful rattle, which whirred like the wind in his ears, stirring the remembrance of suffering and sickness and the agony of the cauterizing iron!