"What do you say, Everett?" asked Mr. Gilfeather. A good many people heard it and noted that Gilfeather called Morton Everett. "Shall we let 'em go?"
Everett nodded again, and Mr. Gilfeather took off one wrap of the reins. The nervous horse sprang ahead, but Sawny did not. He knew what was expected of him. Everett had not been keeping a tight hold on him; not tight enough to worry him, although, to be sure, it was not easy to worry Sawny. So, when Everett tightened a little upon his bit, Sawny responded by increasing his stride just enough to keep his nose even with Mr. Gilfeather. He could look over Mr. Gilfeather's shoulder and see what he was doing with the reins. Perhaps he did. Sawny was a knowing horse and he almost raced himself.
Mr. Gilfeather's horse had drawn ahead with that first burst of speed, and now, seeing that Everett was apparently content, for the time, with his place, Mr. Gilfeather tried to check him, for he knew Everett's methods—or shall I say Sawny's?—and there was three quarters of a mile to go. But Sawny's nose just over his shoulder made him nervous; and the rhythmical sound of Sawny's sharp shoes cutting into the ice—always just at his ear, it seemed—made him almost as nervous as his horse, although Mr. Gilfeather did not look like a nervous man. So he let his horse go a little faster than he should have done, which was what the horse wanted; anything to get away from that crash—crash of hoofs behind him.
But always Sawny held his position, lengthening his stride as much as the occasion called for. He could lengthen it much more, if there were need, as he knew very well; as he knew there soon would be. Mr. Gilfeather's horse—and Mr. Gilfeather himself—got more nervous every second. The horse, we may presume, was in despair. Every effort that he had made to shake Sawny off had failed. He hung about Mr. Gilfeather's shoulder with the persistence of a green-head.
In these positions, the horses passed down between the yelling crowds. Mr. Gilfeather may have heard the yelling, but Everett did not. It fell upon his ears unheeded, like the sound of the sea or of the wind in the trees. He was intent upon but one thing now, and that thing was not the noise of the multitude.
When there was but a quarter of a mile to go, Sawny felt a little more pressure upon the bit and heard Everett's voice speaking low.
"Now, stretch yourself, Sawny," said that voice cheerfully.
And Sawny stretched himself to his full splendid stride and the sound of that crash of hoofs came a little faster. It passed Mr. Gilfeather's shoulder and he had a sight of red nostrils spread wide; then of Sawny's clean-cut head and intelligent eye. Did that eye wink at him? Then came the lean neck and then the shoulder: a skin like satin, with the muscles working under it with the regularity of a machine; then the body—but Mr. Gilfeather had no time for further observation out of the corner of his eye. His horse had heard, too, and knew what was happening; and when Mr. Gilfeather urged him on to greater speed, he tried to go faster and he broke.
That was the end of it. He broke, he went into the air, he danced up and down; and Sawny, who never was guilty of that crime, went by him like a streak.
Everett smiled as he passed Mr. Gilfeather, and his smile was a little less bored than usual. "If I had known that this was to be a running-race," he said; but Mr. Gilfeather lost the rest of Everett's remark, for Sawny had carried him out of hearing.