The Morgan was away toward the goal like an arrow from an Indian’s bow--his small extended muzzle and deep wide chest seemed to cut the air. In the short length of the course he thought of Flying Childers winning his historic race against the runner Fox, about seventy-five years before, of which his father told him. Perhaps this memory and the strain of this great ancestor awakened possibilities within him--the road ran past, his small, well shaped black feet spurned the earth, and before he knew it he was at the finish almost a length ahead of the horse who had won so many races on The Plains of Abraham. The chagrin of his antagonist’s rider was not lessened by the laughs and cheers of the farmers, as they clustered about Morgan and patted his round, deep body and oblique shoulders. The Coxcomb took his defeat ungracefully and having settled his bets rode impatiently away with his friends. FOOTNOTES: [9] Morgan Horses, Linsley, page 137. CHAPTER XII. OLD GREY TELLS PIONEER TALES. Many events similar to the one related in the last chapter spread the Morgan’s fame throughout the Valley, and when Evans finished his clearing Justin Morgan once more took possession of the horse, for his health was sufficiently restored to take up school-teaching again. The change from hard farm-work was very agreeable to True, and they cantered from place to place right gaily, albeit the horse missed the sweet singing of Master Morgan, who coughed now incessantly, and often had to dismount and rest in the shade of an oak on the roadside. He was scarce forty years old, but seemed much more on account of his grievous malady. Regularly they went to Royalton, some ten miles to the southward, and True grazed about until school let out. Through the window he sometimes saw the gentle, delicate face of the teacher at his desk, his Continental coat slightly open at the throat, showing a bit of fresh white linen, his queue, in the fashion of the day, tied with a stiff bow of black ribband. He was a master of whom any horse might have been proud. One day, while waiting for his owner, True wandered into the woods to escape the flies and dust of the highway, and there he met his friend, Old Grey, who told him how the Indians had burned Royalton in 1780; and among the anecdotes relating to this time there was one which amused the young horse no little. It ran as follows: For some unaccountable reason the Indians had failed to burn the hut of one Jones, who had a wife known far and wide as a scold and a shrew. To get a day’s rest from her abuse, poor Jones oft-times had to go hunting or trapping, and when he saw an especially bad tantrum coming he would snatch his gun from the mantel-shelf and, calling his dog, rush forth into the forest, a storm of reviling in his wake. Sometimes he remained away for days. Nobody ever remembered having seen Jones smile.