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“He has got to make the Liverpool, and he ‘ll never do it,” said Mr. Newby. “There he goes now. Watch him. Jupiter! he ‘s over!”

“Did you see that jump? He ‘s got stuff in him!”

“But not enough. He ‘s got to go around once and a half yet.”

“The blue is leading.” “Red-jacket is coming up.” “The green is done for,” etc.

So it went, with the horses coming around the curve for the second time. The favorite and about half the others were running well, their riders beginning to take the pace they proposed to keep to the end. Several others were trailing along behind at various distances, among them the two horses that had shot out in the lead at first, and behind all but the last one, which was manifestly already beaten, the big brown horse, galloping with head still up and ears still pointed forward, bent on catching the horses ahead of him.

The field swept by the stands, most of them getting safely over the big water-jump, though several of the horses struck hard, and one of them went on his knees, pitching his rider over his head. The country horse had still to take the leap, and all eyes were on him, for it was the jump he had refused. Bets were offered that he would refuse again, or that after his killing chase he would be too winded to clear it and would go down. At any rate, they agreed the boy who was riding him was crazy, and he could never last to come in.

Old Robin ran across the track to try and stop him. He waved his arms wildly.

“Pull out. You ‘ll kill him! Save him for another time. Don’t kill him!” he cried.

But the young rider was of a different mind. The vision of two girls was in his thoughts–one a young girl down on an old plantation, and the other a girl in white in a front box in the club. She had looked at him with kind eyes and backed him against the field. He would win or die.

The horse, too, had his life in the race. Unheeding the wild waving of the old trainer’s arms, he swept by him with head still up and ears still forward, his eyes riveted on the horses galloping in front of him. Once or twice his ears were bent toward the big fence as if to gauge it, and then his eyes looked off to the horses running up the slope beyond it. When he reached the jump he rose so far from it that a cry of anxiety went up. But it changed to a wild shout of applause as he cleared everything in his stride and lighted far beyond the water. Old Robin, whose arms were high in the air with horror as he rose, dropped them, and then, jerking off his hat, he waved it wildly around his head.

“He can fly. He ain’t a hoss at all; he ‘s a bud!” he shouted. “Let him go, son; let him go! You ‘ll win yet.”

But horse and rider were beyond the reach of his voice, galloping up the slope.

Once more they all disappeared behind the hill, and once more the leaders came out, one ahead of the others, then two together, then two more, running along the inside of the fence toward the last jumps, where they would strike the clear track and come around the turn into the home stretch. The other horses were trailing behind the five leaders when they went over the hill. Now, as they came out again, one of the second batch was ahead of all the others and was making up lost ground after the leaders. Suddenly a cry arose: “The yellow! The orange! It ‘s the countryman!”

“Impossible! It is, and he is overhauling ’em!”

“If he lives over the Liverpool, he ‘ll get a place,” said one of the gentlemen in the club box.