“I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop,” said Jack.
“Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit like yeller dogs? Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight—with God's help.”
Then he thought a moment: “Fetch me some cotton.”
He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears.
“It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss,” said Jack.
“Ben Butler,” said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the horse, “Ben Butler, I've got you now where God's got me—you can't see an' you can't hear. You've got to go by faith, by the lines of faith. But I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me—by faith.”
The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they scored for the last heat. The old pacer's gallant fight had won them all—and now—now after winning two heats, with only one more to win—now to lose at last. For he could not win—not over a mare as fresh and full of speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, too, had but one heat to win.
But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he drove out on the track.
“Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll strike a bargain with you, sah. You say God ain't goin' to let him win this heat an' race an' so forth, sah.”
The Bishop smiled: “I ain't give up, Col'nel—not yet.”