‘Voila! bully boy! tank the bon Dieu, Sandy; you not keel, heh? Ah! you are one grand chevalier,’ exclaimed Baptiste, hauling Sandy in and thrusting the lines into his hands. And so they came back, the sleigh box still dragging behind, the pintos executing fantastic figures on their hind legs, and Sandy holding them down. The little Frenchman struck a dramatic attitude and called out—
‘Voila! What’s the matter wiz Sandy, heh?’
The roar that answered set the bronchos off again plunging and kicking, and only when Baptiste got them by the heads could they be induced to stand long enough to allow Sandy to be proclaimed winner of the race. Several of the lumbermen sprang into the sleigh box with Sandy and Baptiste, among them Keefe, followed by Nelson, and the first part of the great day was over. Slavin could not understand the new order of things. That a great event like the four-horse race should not be followed by ‘drinks all round’ was to him at once disgusting and incomprehensible; and, realising his defeat for the moment, he fell into the crowd and disappeared. But he left behind him his ‘runners.’ He had not yet thrown up the game.
Mr. Craig meantime came to me, and, looking anxiously after Sandy in his sleigh, with his frantic crowd of yelling admirers, said in a gloomy voice, ‘Poor Sandy! He is easily caught, and Keefe has the devil’s cunning.’
‘He won’t touch Slavin’s whisky to-day,’ I answered confidently.
‘There’ll be twenty bottles waiting him in the stable,’ he replied bitterly, ‘and I can’t go following him up.’
‘He won’t stand that, no man would. God help us all.’ I could hardly recognise myself, for I found in my heart an earnest echo to that prayer as I watched him go toward the crowd again, his face set in strong determination. He looked like the captain of a forlorn hope, and I was proud to be following him.