Page:Palo'mine (1925).pdf/40

 injected into the race, one that made the riders gasp and rub their eyes to be sure that they had seen aright. For with a thunder of hoofs, the Colonel's nephew, young Halsey Eaton, himself but a lad of fourteen, tore frantically by Charley mounted upon Sultan; the unmountable, untamable prize stallion of the plantation; the horse that none of the negroes dared ride, and that was kept merely for breeding purposes.

The stallion had been a famous hunter when young yet had not had a saddle on him in five years. But all of his youth and fleetness seemed to have suddenly come back to him, for young Eaton was clinging desperately to the noble horse's mane with one hand, while he tugged frantically at the reins with the other. But the old fury was having it all his own way. He seemed unmindful of rider, and his every intent was bent on the racing pack, and his every ounce of racing strength was put forth in overtaking the hounds. Fences, stone walls, ditches were all alike to the wild stallion as he raced frantically after the pack.