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They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like … and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

This quote is the first of Wheeler’s anecdotes involving Jim Smiley and his many animals. The description of the nag is a perfect example of the hidden advantages of the underdog. The nag is so sickly and unimpressive that Smiley’s competitors give her a huge head start. But the nag ends up just winning, highlighting the hidden advantage the underdog has in being underestimated.

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, “Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I an't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you.”

This quote comes just prior to the story’s climax and highlights the underdog’s hidden advantages. The stranger plays up his appearance of naïveté by acting doleful about not having a frog to bet on. This encourages Smiley to underestimate him. As a result, the stranger uses his underdog advantage to get time alone with Dan’l Webster and fill him with quail shot, and the underdog prevails again.

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