Just as he spoke old Neb returned, with the superb mare behind him, saddled, bridled, ready for the race, fretting at her bit, impatient of the crowds and noise.
"Who knows whether he's coming, at all?" said Holton, a bit dashed at sight of the fine mare's superb condition, but still sneering. "Nobody's seen him."
Neb looked off toward the weighing-room. "Yo' 're wrong," he shouted, capering with amazing spryness for one whose limbs were old and stiff, "fo' heah he comes!"
Every member of the party turned, in haste, to look in the direction whence Neb pointed.
They saw a slight, graceful figure, dressed in the brilliant colors of the Layson stable, which, without so much as glancing at them, ran to Queen Bess and took a place upon the far side of the mare, where, stooping as if to look carefully to the saddle-girths, its face was quickly hidden. But, even as the jockey stooped, one of his hands held out to Frank, across the saddle, a little folded paper.
Without paying much attention to the jockey, Layson took this note and hastily unfolded it. "It's from the Colonel," he announced. "I knew he'd never fail me."
Then he read, aloud, so all might hear:
"This will be handed to you by a jockey I have just engaged. He comes from the east and is highly recommended. I know his endorser. Regretting that the promise of a Kentuckian prevents me from being with you, I am yours regretfully, on the outside, SANDUSKY DOOLITTLE."
"It's all right!" Frank shouted, gleefully, and then, to the strange jockey: "Quick, on the mare and off to the post!"
Without a word, without a second's pause, Madge, for the unknown jockey was, of course, the little mountain girl, jumped upon Queen Bess and hastily rode off, to be greeted, with a mighty outburst of cheering and applause as the favorite appeared before the waiting crowds in unmistakably fine condition and mounted by a rider whose every movement showed a perfect knowledge of the work and complete sympathy with the beautiful animal he rode.