“Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from yo' reasoning, sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to stand in with a fraud an' I'll have nothin' to do with Him. I'll tell all about it.”
“If that's the way you think—yes,” said the old man, solemnly—“yes—tell it—but God will never stan' in with fraud.”
“We'll see,” said the Colonel. “I'll keep my word if—if—you win!”
Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man had done something to steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship did he fly along!
Driving, driving, driving—they flew—they fought it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that Travis heard him: “It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's way—faith,—the lines of faith—'He leadeth me—He leadeth me'!”
Up—up—came the pacer fearless with frictionless gait, pacing like a wild mustang-king of the desert, gleaming in sweat, white covered with dust, rolling like a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and low:
“He leadeth me, O blessed thought,
O word with heavenly comfort fraught,
Whate'er I do, whate'er I be,
Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.”
Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, and the old pacer well up, collaring the flying mare and pacing her neck to neck.
Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip and circling it around his head, uttered again, amid fierce crackling, his Indian yell: “Hi—hi—there—ho—ha—ho—hi—hi—e—e!”
But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, white and frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear that tightened around his heart and flashed in his eyes like the first swift crackle of lightning before the blow of thunder, brought his whip down on his own mare, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate chance.