``Do you know,'' he said, ``them fellers
I made bets with in the tournament got together
this morning and decided, all of 'em,
that they wouldn't let me off? Jerusalem,
it's most five hundred dollars!'' And,
looking the picture of dismay, he told me
his dilemma.
It seems that his ``dark horse'' was
none other than the Wild Dog, who had
been practising at home for this tournament
for nearly a year; and now that the
Wild Dog was an outlaw, he, of course,
wouldn't and couldn't come to the Gap.
And said the Hon. Sam Budd:

``Them fellers says I bet I'd BRING IN a
dark horse who would win this tournament,
and if I don't BRING him in, I lose just the
same as though I had brought him in and
he hadn't won. An' I reckon they've got
me.''

``I guess they have.''

``It would have been like pickin' money
off a blackberry-bush, for I was goin' to let
the Wild Dog have that black horse o'
mine--the steadiest and fastest runner in
this country--and my, how that fellow can