He did not
feel his defeat in the first race for the Presidency nearly so deeply
and keenly as this; and then that was afterward retrieved by a most
brilliant victory. But, as a friend once said of him--although he went
on achieving great victories of many kinds, overcoming powerful enemies,
conquering the Indians, subduing the lawless, defying the Spanish and
the French, vanquishing the British and slaying single-handed the Dragon
of the Bank--he could never find a horse to beat Maria.
But he was still trying everywhere and under all circumstances however
unpromising. On that day he cast anxious glances through the open door
of the log court-house at the horses which Tommy Dye, in a forlorn hope,
was having paraded up and down the forest path. He turned away with a
sigh, and went on talking to the United States Attorney for Kentucky at
whose request he had come to the court-house that day. He had done for
his own territory in a lesser degree, the identical thing which Joseph
Hamilton Daviess was desperately striving to do for this country; and he
had consented to give him the benefit of his own experience, and to
advise him as to ways and means.
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