'Well, agreed,' I said, laughing, 'and I'll give the pig ten rods the start.'
'No,' replied the Colonel, 'you can't afford it. He'll have to start ahead, but you'll need that in the count. Come, Sandy, will you go in for the pile?'
I'm not sure that the native would not have run a race with Old Nicholas himself, for the sake of so much money. To him it was a vast sum; and as he thought of it, his eyes struck small sparks, and his enormous beard and mustachio vibrated with something that faintly resembled a laugh. Replying to the question, he said:
'Kinder reckon I wull, Cunnel; howsomdever, I keeps the stakes, anyhow?'
'Of course,' said the planter, 'but be honest—win if you can.'
Sandy halted his horse in the road, while the planter and I took to the woods on either side of the way. The Colonel soon maneuvered to separate the selected animal from the rest of the herd, and, without much difficulty, got him into the road, where, by closing down on each flank, we kept him till he and Sandy were fairly under way.
'He'll keep to the road when once started,' said the Colonel, laughing, 'and he'll show you some of the tallest running you ever saw in your life.'
Away they went. At first the pig seemed not exactly to comprehend the programme, for he cantered off at a leisurely pace, though he held his own. Soon, however, he cast an eye behind him—halted a moment to collect his thoughts and reconnoiter—and then, lowering his head and elevating his tail, put forth all his speed. And such speed! Talk of a deer, the wind, or a steam-engine—their gait is not to be compared with it. Nothing in nature I have ever seen run—except, it may be, a Southern tornado, or a Sixth Ward politician—could hope to distance that pig. He gained on the horse at every pace, and I soon saw that my dollar was gone!
'In for a shilling in for a pound,' is the adage, so turning to the Colonel, I said, as intelligibly as my horse's rapid steps, and my own excited risibilities would allow:
'I see I've lost, but I'll go you another dollar that you can't beat the pig!'