Even such noted steeplechasers as Mr. Galloper's Swallow, Colonel
Snowden's Hurricane, and Tim Rickett's Carrier Pigeon, which had
international reputations, were on hand for it, and had been sent "over
the sticks" every morning for a week in hopes of carrying off such a
prize.
There was, however, one other reason for the unwonted unanimity. Old Man
Robin--"Col-onel-Theodoric-Johnston's-Robin-suh"--said it was to be the
biggest day that was ever seen on that track, and in the memory of the
oldest stable-boss old Robin had never admitted that any race of the
present could be as great, "within a thousand miles," as the races
he used to attend "befo' de wah, when hosses ran all de way from
Philidelphy to New Orleans." Evil-minded stable-men and boys who had
no minds--only evil--laid snares and trapfalls for "Colonel Theodoric
Johnston's Robin, of Bull-field, suh," as he loved to style himself, to
trip him and inveigl-
e him into admissions that something was as good now
as before the war; but they had never succeeded. The gang had followed
him to the gate, where he had been going off and on all the afternoon,
and were at their mischief now while he was looking somewhat anxiously
out up the parched and yellow dusty road.
"Well, I guess freedom 's better 'n befo' d' wah?" hazarded one of his
tormentors, a hatchet-faced, yellow stable-boy with a loud, sharp voice.
He burst into a strident guffaw.
"Maybe, you does," growled Robin. He edged off, rubbing his ear. "Befo'
de wah you 'd be mindin' hawgs--what you ought to be doin' now, stidder
losin' races an' spilin' somebody's hosses, mekin' out you kin ride." A
shout of approving derision greeted this retort.
Old Robin was a man of note on that circuit. It was the canon of that
crowd to boast one's self better than everyone else in everything, but
Robin was allowed to be second only