TOD SLOAN 



People could see me now. Everyone yelled to me 

 to stick on. Part of the journey was over rough 

 cobbles, and the grey must have stumbled half-a-dozen 

 times. I swore to myself that, if I ever got off alive, 

 I would only look for a horse after that in a zoo- 

 logical gardens. He seemed to go faster with every 

 furlong he went. At last he hesitated and slackened, 

 and I steered him to a fence and a fellow rushed out 

 and grabbed him. 



" You're all right now, Tod," he said. " I'll lead 

 him home; but you stick in the saddle just to show 

 'em that you didn't come off." 



" You take him home," I said. " I've done 

 enough jockey business for one day. You don't 

 catch me on a horse again in a hurry." 



It was a darned funny thing that, years after, when 

 riding in a big race in England, having had already two 

 successes that day, the whole incident of the grey 

 broncho came back to me. I was showing the way 

 home on that English track on another grey, and the 

 memory suddenly came into my head so vividly that 

 I began to laugh. The fellow who was on the horse 

 that was running second, just at the shoulder of mine, 

 shouted : " You're laughing : you haven't won yet." 

 He thought I was jeering him. 



This is all a sort of start to my life's experiences, 

 but here the introduction will not bother you. There 

 will be many other things to say about all those I 

 met, for, before I came to England and saw for the 

 first time the Prince of Wales and all the nobility and 

 great owners of the country, I came next to many of 

 the celebrities in my own land. The great Buffalo 

 Bill (Colonel Cody) nursed me on his knee when almost 

 a baby, and it was he that made me crazy for fire- 

 arms of all kinds. I remember that he let me try one 



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