Part 28 (1/2)

”We call them Carolina race-horses,” said the Colonel, as he finished an account of their peculiarities.

”Race-horses! Why, are they fleet of foot?”

”Fleet as deer. I'd match one against an ordinary horse at any time.”

”Come, my friend, you're practising on my ignorance of natural history.”

”Not a bit of it. See! there's a good specimen yonder. If we can get him into the road, and fairly started, I'll bet you a dollar he'll beat Sandy's mare on a half-mile stretch--Sandy to hold the stakes and have the winnings.”

”Well, agreed,” I said, laughing, ”and I'll give the pig ten rods the start.”

”No,” replied the Colonel, ”you can't afford it. He'll _have_ to start ahead, but you'll need that in the count. Come, Sandy, will you go in for the pile?”

I'm not sure that the native would not have run a race with Old Nicholas himself, for the sake of so much money. To him it was a vast sum; and as he thought of it, his eyes struck small sparks, and his enormous beard and mustachio vibrated with something that faintly resembled a laugh.

Replying to the question, he said:

”Kinder reckon I wull, Cunnel; howsomdever, I keeps the stakes, ony how?”

”Of course,” said the planter, ”but be honest--win if you can.”

Sandy halted his horse in the road, while the planter and I took to the woods on either side of the way. The Colonel soon manoeuvred to separate the selected animal from the rest of the herd, and, without much difficulty, got him into the road, where, by closing down on each flank, we kept him till he and Sandy were fairly under way.

”He'll keep to the road when once started,” said the Colonel, laughing: ”and he'll show you some of the tallest running you ever saw in your life.”

Away they went. At first the pig, seeming not exactly to comprehend the programme, cantered off at a leisurely pace, though he held his own.

Soon, however, he cast an eye behind him--halted a moment to collect his thoughts and reconnoitre--and then, lowering his head and elevating his tail, put forth all his speed. And such speed! Talk of a deer, the wind, or a steam-engine--they are not to be compared with it. Nothing in nature I ever saw run--except, it may be, a Southern tornado, or a Sixth Ward politician--could hope to distance that pig. He gained on the horse at every step, and it was soon evident that my dollar was gone!

”'In for a s.h.i.+lling, in for a pound,' is the adage, so, turning to the Colonel, I said, as intelligibly as my horse's rapid pace and my excited risibilities would allow:

”I see I've lost, but I'll go you another dollar that _you_ can't beat the pig!”

”No--sir!” the Colonel got out in the breaks of his laughing explosions; ”you can't hedge on me in that manner. I'll go a dollar that _you_ can't do it, and your mare is the fastest on the road. She won me a thousand not a month ago.”

”Well, I'll do it--Sandy to have the stakes.”

”Agreed,” said the Colonel, and away _we_ went.

The swinish racer was about a hundred yards ahead when I gave the mare the reins, and told her to go. And she _did_ go. She flew against the wind with a motion so rapid that my face, as it clove the air, felt as if cutting its way through a solid body, and the trees, as we pa.s.sed, seemed struck with panic, and running for dear life in the opposite direction.

For a few moments I thought the mare was gaining, and I turned to the Colonel with an exultant look.

”Don't shout till you win, my boy,” he called out from the distance where I was fast leaving him and Sandy.

I _did not shout_, for spite of all my efforts the s.p.a.ce between me and the pig seemed to widen. Yet I kept on, determined to win, till, at the end of a short half-mile, we reached the Waccamaw--the swine still a hundred yards ahead! There his pigs.h.i.+p halted, turned coolly around, eyed me for a moment, then with a quiet, deliberate trot, turned off into the woods.

A bend in the road kept my companions out of sight for a few moments, and when they came up I had somewhat recovered my breath, though the mare was blowing hard, and reeking with foam.

”Well,” said the Colonel, ”what do you think of our bacon 'as it runs?'”

”I think the Southern article can't be beat, whether raw or cooked, standing or running.”