The chain was buried deep beneath the stump and refused to move, and before he could swing his team about and turn the stump over, he heard Aleck's shout of victory.
But as he dropped his chain and was leisurely backing his horses, he heard old Farquhar cry, "Hurry, man! Hurry, for the life of you!" Without waiting to inquire the reason, Ranald wheeled his team, gave the stump a half turn, released his chain, and drove off from the pile, to find Aleck still busy hooking his chain to his whiffletree.
Aleck had had the same difficulty in freeing his chain as Ranald, but instead of trying to detach it from the stump, he had unhooked the other end, and then, with a mighty backward jerk, had snatched it from the stump.

But before he could attach it to his place on the whiffletree again, Ranald stood ready for work.
"A win, lad! A win!" cried old Farquhar, more excited than he had been for years.
"It is no win," said Aleck, hotly.
"No, no, lads," said Macdonald Bhain, before Farquhar could reply.

"It is as even a match as could well be.

It is fine teams you both have got, and you have handled them well." But all the same, Ranald's friends were wildly enthusiastic over what they called his victory, and Don could hardly keep his hands off him, for very joy.
Aleck, on the other hand, while claiming the victory because his team was at the pile first, was not so sure of it but that he was ready to fight with any one venturing to dispute his claim.

But the men all laughed at him and his rage, until he found it wiser to be good-humored about it.
"Yon lad will be making as good a man as yourself," said Farquhar, enthusiastically, to Macdonald Bhain, as Ranald drove his team to the stable.
"Aye, and a better, pray God," said Macdonald Bhain, fervently, looking after Ranald with loving eyes.