Neb’s spirits had instantly revived.  Six inches droop was gone from his old shoulders.  “It’ll be de grandest race eber run in ol’ Kentucky!  Lawsy, Cunnel, won’t it tickle you to death to see Queen Bess romp in a winnuh?”

Instantly the Colonel’s high elation faded.  More than the droop which had been in Neb’s shoulders now oppressed the horseman’s.  His face clouded.  “There he goes, too!” he cried.  “Neb, another word like that and I shall brain you!  Do you hear me?  I—­I shan’t be there!”

“Not be dar!” Neb exclaimed.  “Kain’t swaller dat, suh.  Ef you should miss dat race, why, you’d drop daid.”

“I believe you, Neb—­believe you.  I say, Neb, look here.  I have promised on the honor of a Kentuckian, never to enter another race-track.  I must keep my word; but, for the Lord’s sake, isn’t there a knot-hole, that you know of, somewhere in the fence, which would let me see the race without going inside?”

Neb knew that race-track as he knew the plot of hard-trodden ground before the little cabin where he had been born back of the big house out at Woodlawn.  Many a race had he seen surreptitiously when he had not funds to buy admission to the track.  He grinned, remembering talk which he had heard between the Colonel and Miss ’Lethe, and understanding, now.  He laughed.  “Oh, I yi!” he cried.  “Marse Cunnel, dar ain’t nobody’ll git ahead of you!  You bet dar is a knot-hole, not fur off frum de gran’-stan’, neither, an’ a tree, too, you could climb, stan’s mighty handy.”

The Colonel groaned.  “I climb a tree to peek above a race-track fence!” said he.  “No; never.  They’d think I was trying to save my admission fee!  The knot-hole will have to do for me, Neb.  You’ve saved me.  Heaven bless you!  Have a cigar—­they’re good.”

“T’ankee, suh,” said Neb, reaching for the weed the Colonel now held toward him.  “Lawsy, ain’t dat jus’ a whoppuh?  Whah you-all git sech mon’sous big cigahs as dat?”

“I’m only smoking half as many, now, so I get ’em double size,” the Colonel answered, sighing but not wholly miserable.

Neb did not see the humor of this detail.  He was thinking of the race and of Queen Bess.  “Hooray fo’ de Cunnel!” he exclaimed, irrelevantly, to a little group of colored men who had been gathering.  “Whatever he says yo’ kin gamble on.  Lawsy, ain’t I glad I’s got my money on Queen Bess?  Golly, won’t Marse Holton jes’ feel cheap when he done heahs dis news?  Seen him down dar in de pool-room, not so long ago, a-puttin’ up his money plumb against Queen Bess.  Goin’ to lose it, suah, he will.”  He went off, muttering, and shaking his old head.  “Somehow I jes’ feels it in mah bones dat he ain’t true to Marse Frank, yessuh.  If I evah fin’s it out fo’ suah, I’ll jes’ paralyse him!”

He had quite forgotten that he had come out to find Miss Alathea, and was not looking for her when he actually stumbled into her.

“Why, Neb, what are you doing?” she said, recoiling.