'No—sir!' the Colonel got out in the breaks of his laughing explosions; 'you can't hedge on me in that manner. I'll go a dollar that you can't do it, and your mare is the fastest on the road. She won me a thousand not a month ago.'
'Well, I'll do it; Sandy to have the stakes.'
'Agreed,' said the Colonel, and away we went.
The swinish racer was about a hundred yards ahead when I gave the mare the reins, and told her to go. And she did go. She flew against the wind with a motion so rapid that my face, as it clove the air, felt as if cutting its way through a solid body, and the trees, as we passed, seemed taken with a panic, and running for dear life in the opposite direction.
For a few moments I thought the mare was gaining, and I turned to the Colonel with an exultant look.
'Don't shout till you win, my boy,' he called out from the distance where I was fast leaving him and Sandy.
I did not shout, for spite of all my efforts the space between me and the pig seemed to widen. Yet I kept on, determined to win, till, at the end of a short half-mile, we reached the Waccamaw—the swine still a hundred yards ahead! There his pig-ship halted, turned coolly around, eyed me for a moment, then quietly and deliberately trotted off into the woods.
A bend in the road kept my companions out of sight for a few moments, and when they came up I had somewhat recovered my breath, though the mare was blowing hard, and reeking with foam.
'Well,' said the Colonel, 'what do you think of our bacon 'as it runs'?'
'I think the Southern article can't be beat, whether raw or cooked, standing or running.'