Ihe Trotter. 171 



"Game to the last, old boy," I thought j "I only wish your old 

 master was here to see you now 3" and I walked away. This i? 

 the last I saw of old JMorgan Rattler. 



As to the little mare, she did me good service. I kept her for 

 rvvo years, during which time I got a good deal of gig work 

 out of her, besides running fifteen matches, winning eleven. It 

 was true they were most of them country matches, and for no 

 great stakes. Occasionally, however, she flew at higher game. 

 I ran her one year for tlie Manchester Trotting Sweepstakes, and 

 although she did not win, she finished well up with Lady Sale. 

 I was getting her ready for this race on the following year when 

 she broke down incurably, and I chopped her away to old Jones for 

 a slab-sided, spindle-shanked, three-cornered blood filly, which the 

 old man always fancied would do great things. For once in his life, 

 however^ he was mistaken. I kept her for two years, and, with old 

 Jones up, ran her for many little country stakes 3 but she never got 

 higher than No. 2, generally 4 or 5, and she managed to lose me 

 more money than Patty Morgan had ever won for me. Old Jones 

 kept the httle Welsh mare for breeding, and she threw a colt to 

 Mulatto, which he sold for a long price. 



And what became of Sam West? Well, if the reader is not 

 already tired out, I will tell him. I said he went to Australia, and 

 about fifteen years afterwards, when the diggings had broken out, 1 

 followed him. I was not long on tlie gold-fields, but went into tlie 

 bush kangarooing. I was camped with two mates, about thirty 

 miles south of Melbourne. 



Now, we rarely had more than one change of clothes in a bush 

 tentj we used to buy a suit of ready-made ones in Melbourne, which 

 ^e wore till they were no longer decent, and then went up to Mel- 

 bourne again for a nev/ rig. There was something very comical in 

 tlie manner in which a digger or a bushman at that day used to 

 *'cast his skin." He would come down to Melbourne in his old 

 suit, walk into a ready-made clothes shop, and select a whole new 

 suit, even to shirt, boots, and stockings. He tlien walked off into 



