The tout swaggered across the green.

"See here, Silver," he said. "None of that. You're not in the position to come it over me now you've joined the great company of gentlemen-adventurers. There's nothing in it since the Bank broke. We both stand together on the common quicksands of economic insecurity."

Silver wound up the wire.

"Common quicksands of economic insecurity is good," he said deliberately. "Distinctly good."

"Yes," replied the other. "I learned it at Oxford, where I learned a lot besides. Or to put it straight, we're both naked men now—stripped to the world. And I'm as good a man as you are."

Silver dropped the wire and advanced leisurely.

"Are you?" he said. "I doubt it. But we'll soon see."

The fat man produced a mallet from behind his back.

"No —— nonsense," he snarled.

"I thought you said we were both naked men," replied Silver, folding his arms.

"Never mind what I said," the other answered. "Keep your —— distance, or I'll puddle you into a pulp."

Jim regarded the other with admiring eyes.

"You learned more at Oxford than I did," he said. "Learned to express yourself at least. If I'd that command of language I'd be in the pulpit or in Parliament to-morrow."

There was the sound of a horse's feet behind them.

Boy was walking Four-Pound-the-Second toward them.

"Good morning, Miss Woodburn," called Joses cheerily. "So you're up to-day."

"Yes," said the girl.

"Going to take him for a spin?"

Boy did not answer.

"Mr. Joses has been doing the spinning this morning," interposed Silver urbanely, holding up the wire.

"Oh," said the fat man. "I'll leave him to spin his yarn, Miss Woodburn. But don't you believe all he says. You'll hear the truth when I bring the case into court. He'll want all the money you can win him by the time I've done with him."

He disappeared down the hillside.

The girl came close and leaned down over the shoulder of the great horse.

"What is it?" she asked.

Jim Silver showed her.

"Only this," he said. "Right across the track."

The girl took it as all in the day's work.

"Did you catch him at it?" she asked.

"No; he was lying doggo near by—to watch results."

She examined the wire.

"He means business all right," she said. "We must look a bit lively. I'll have the track patrolled."

"I shall patrol it," said Jim.



CHAPTER XLII

The Doper

In her darker moods Maudie held that the world to-day only possessed one man who could take his place beside the knights of old; and that man, to be sure, was Monkey Brand.

The lads teased or ignored her; the various Four-legs were uncouth to a degree; and the Monster-without-Manners was, of course, just himself.

Therefore Maudie passed all the time she could on the shoulder of Putnam's Only Gentleman. Perched up there, aloof, lofty, and disdainful, she would purr away like a kettle on the simmer.

That evening she was enthroned in Paradise, when Joses shambled by.

Monkey Brand, stroking her back as he stood at the gate of the yard exchanging greetings with the passers-by in the road, shook his head disapprovingly as Joses passed.

"Mug's game, Mr. Joses," he said sotto voce.

The fat man, who had not seen the jockey in the dusk, drew up short.

"What's that?" he said keenly.

"That wire business," continued the little man in the same monotonous undertone without moving his lips. "Ought to be able to do a little better than that with an edication like yours. Where's the good of Oxford else?"

Joses came closer swiftly.

"See here, Monkey Brand," he said. "Do you mean business, or don't you?"

The jockey's face was inscrutable.

"I never said no to good business yet," he answered.

"This is good business all right," laughed the tout. "Big money, and safe as houses."

At the moment a voice called from the office.

"Comin,' sir," answered the little jockey. "That's the Gov'nor. Back o' Lads' Barn. Eight o'clock," he whispered, and was gone.

* * * * *

Joses kept the tryst, and went straight to the point.

He had burned his boats now.

"When do they box him to Liverpool?" he asked.

"Monday," answered the other, who seemed very surly. "If you want to do anything, you must move sharp, Mr. Joses. It's here or nowhere, mind. You won't get no chance at Aintree. Too many cops around."

"Who's watching him at night?"

"Monkey."

"Does Monkey ever nod?"

The little man looked at the stars.

"No sayin' but he might—if he was to took a drop o' soothin' syrup."

"What about the dog?"

"He could 'ave some soothin' syrup, too. 'Elp him with his teethin'."

The tout turned his back with a somewhat unnecessary regard for decency, produced a bank-note and flourished it.

"What's that?" asked Monkey.

"Little bit o' crumpled paper."

"Let's see it."

"You may smell it. Only don't touch."

"Will it drop to pieces?"

Joses swept away the other's appropriating hand.

"Might burn your fingers," he said. "That's what I'm thinking of. That's to buy you a bottle of Mother Siegel's soothing syrup. There's only one thing," he went on, brandishing the note in the moon. "Looks a wistful little thing, don't you think? That's because he's lonely. He's left four little brothers and sisters same as himself at home. And he's pining for 'em to join him. And join him they will to-morrow night—if you'll let me in to his loose-box."

Jaggers at his best never looked more self-righteous than Monkey Brand as he made reply:

"I couldn't let you into his loose-box, Mr. Joses," he said quietly. "Wouldn't be right. Only the door'll be on the latch, and if you choose to come in—why, who's to stop you?"

"Right," laughed the other. "I'm an artist, I am, as you may recall. I'd like to paint you in your sleep. Study of Innocence I should call it."

He dropped away into the darkness.

A whistle stopped him.

The little jockey was limping after him.

"Say to-night," he said.

"No," said the fat man. "To-morrow night. Sunday night. That's the night for good deeds."

* * * * *

At ten that night Jim Silver escorted Boy Woodburn across the yard to the foot of the ladder.

For a moment the two stood at the foot of the ladder in talk. Then the girl disappeared into the loft.

As Silver turned away he was whistling.

Monkey Brand, who was standing in the stable-door near by, lantern in hand, preparatory to taking up his watch in the young horse's box, coughed.

Silver turned and saw him.

"Good-night," he said.

"Yes, sir," said the little man, gazing up at the moon. "There is some good in him after all. Some good in us all, I s'poses."

Jim Silver approached him. He knew the little man well enough by now to know that he was always most round-about in his methods when he had something of importance to convey.

"In who?" he asked.

Monkey looked surprised and somewhat resentful.

"Why, Mr. Joses, o' cos."

"What's he done now?" asked the young man.

Monkey withdrew into the shadow of the door.

"That," he said, producing the five-pound note.

Jim handled it.

"What did he give you that for?"

"Why, for lookin' down me nose and sayin A-a men. The rest's to follow to-morrow midnight—five of 'em—if I'm a good boy, as I 'opes to be. Goin' to drop into me lap same as manners from the ceilin' when Moses was around—while I sleeps like a suckin' innocent."

The young man thought.

"Have you told Mr. Woodburn?"

"No, sir. I told no one—only you."

"Shall you tell the police?"

"Never!" cried Monkey, genuinely indignant. "Are I a copper's nark?"

Whether because of childhood memories, or for some other reason, the copper was still for Monkey Brand the enemy of the human race; and the little jockey had his own code of honour, to which he scrupulously adhered.

"What shall you do?" asked Jim.

The jockey jerked his head mysteriously. Then he limped away down the gangway, behind sleeping horses, into the loose-box at the end where stood Four-Pound-the-Second.

Carefully he closed the door behind the young man and put his lantern down.

"See, you thought I was on the crook, didn't you, sir?" he said ironically, pursing his eye-lids.

"So you are," replied the young man.

Monkey wagged his head sententiously.

"Oh, I'm on the crook all right in a manner o' speakin'," he admitted. "Only where it is, there's crooks and crooks. There's crooks that is on the straight—"

"And there's straights that is on the crook," interposed Jim. "As per item, Monkey Brand."

* * * * *

Next morning Silver went to see Old Mat in his office and opened to him a tale; but the trainer, who seemed very sleepy these days, refused to hear him.

"I knows nothin' about nothin'," he said almost querulously, pursing his lips, and sheathing his eyes. "As to rogues and rasqueals, you knows my views by now, Mr. Silver. Same as the Psalmist's, as I've said afore. As for the rest, I'm an old man—older nor I can recollect. All I asks is to lay down and die quiet and peaceable with nothin' on me conscience only last night's cheese."



CHAPTER XLIII

The Loose-box

Next night Boy Woodburn was unusually late to bed.

Sunday nights she always devoted to preparing the Bible-lesson for next week.

Of old she had always retired to her room in the loft after supper on Sunday to wrestle with her labours; but as her mother grew into years, the girl had adopted the habit of working in the parlour.

On this Sunday she worked on long after her father and mother had gone to bed, reading and making notes. Once the door opened, and she was dimly aware of Mr. Silver standing in it. He departed quietly as he had come without a word, but her subconsciousness noted vaguely and with surprise that he was wearing a greatcoat and muffler as if he was going out.

It was eleven o'clock when she closed her book and crossed the yard.

Under the ladder to the loft a door led to a woodshed at the end of the stable.

As she went up the ladder she heard somebody moving in the shed.

"Who's that?" she asked sharply.

There was no answer.

She descended and tried the door.

It was locked.

"That's all right, Boy," called a quiet voice. "It's only me."

"Mr. Silver," she cried. "What on earth are you up to?"

"After a rat."

"A queer time to choose."

"Yes," he said. "He's a big 'un. I'm sitting for him."

"Good-night then," she called, and ran up the ladder, heralded by the swift and ghostly Maudie.

The trap-door over Four-Pound-the-Second's box was open as always. She peeped down on to the back of the horse and Monkey Brand, busy by the light of his lantern, arranging a pile of horse-blankets in the corner on which to sleep.

"Where's Billy Bluff?" she asked.

"Just gone outside a minute, Miss."

Four-Pound-the-Second moved restlessly.

"Give him some water," she directed, "and settle him down as soon as you can."

"Very good, Miss," the little jockey answered.

* * * * *

It was an hour later that the stable-door clicked and Joses entered.

He was wearing rope-soled shoes, and he moved softly behind the long line of horses.

In his slouch hat and loose cloak he looked like a stage conspirator.

Monkey Brand was nodding on an upturned bucket.

As the fat man entered the loose-box, the great horse turned a shining eye on him and whinnied.

Monkey blinked, stirred, and grunted:

"'Ello!"

He smelt strongly of whiskey.

The tout, unheeding him, produced a twitch.

But Monkey rose with heavy eyes and jerked it irritably out of the other's hand.

"None o' that," he said.

He nodded to the open trap-door overhead.

"She sleeps up there, don't she?" whispered the fat man.

"She never sleeps," muttered the other. "Got the stuff?" he asked drowsily.

Joses produced a bottle from the pocket of his cloak.

Monkey looked around.

"Where's a blurry bucket?" he asked, and with faltering hands inverted the one on which he had been sitting.

"Put a drop of water in," urged the fat man.

The little man obeyed, moving uncertainly.

"Is he dry?" asked Joses.

"I wish I'd only 'alf his thirst," drowsed the other.

The fat man removed the cork from the bottle. Monkey seized it rudely and sniffed it.

"What is it?" he asked sullenly.

"Nothing to hurt him," said Joses soothingly. "Just take the shine out of him for a day or two."

The jockey was so drunk that he needed humouring. The tout cursed his faulty judgment in having given the little man money to spend before the deed had been done.

Monkey let his heavy-lidded eyes rest on the other. He was breathing almost stertorously. Then he pushed the bottle back toward Joses.

"I mush trush you," he said, "same as you trush me. You wouldn't deceive me, Oxford genelman and all."

"What d'you take me for?" answered Joses.

He poured the stuff into the bucket that Monkey held. It was dark and sweet-smelling. Four-Pound-the-Second sniffed with inflated nostrils.

"Hist!" cried Monkey.

"What's that?"

"Somebury at the door."

"The door's all right. I locked it."

"He's got a key."

"Who has?"

"Silver."

"Is he on the ramp?"

"Ain't he?" snorted Monkey. "Hundred thousand—and the gal." He added with a snort: "Thought I were a copper's nark. Good as told me so."

Joses stole down the gangway to the door.

When he came back Monkey was holding the bucket to Four-Pound-the-Second, who was drinking noisily.

"It was only the cat," he said. "I heard her scuttle."

"Don't it smell funny?" whispered Monkey, swirling the bucket gently under the horse's muzzle.

Joses patted the drinking horse.

"There's the beauty," he said. "Suck it down. It'll give you pleasant dreams."

Four-Pound-the-Second had his fill by now and moved away.

Joses picked up his twitch and made for the door.

Monkey placed himself between the fat man and the exit, heavy-lidded, stertorous, and menacing.

"One thing," he said.

"What's that?"

"Them little bits o' paper there was some talk about."

"Oh, aye, I was forgettin' them."

"Was you, then? I wasn't," said Monkey brutally. "Dole 'em out."

The fat man obeyed with a snigger; then shuffled softly down the passage and out.

Monkey Brand heard him open the door and cross the yard.

Then a voice called:

"Hi at him!"

There was a scurry of pursuing feet, a scuffle, and a yell.

The jockey rushed out into the yard.

Joses was disappearing over the gate, flinging something behind him, and Billy Bluff was smothered in a cape which he was worrying.

Jim Silver, racing across the yard, snatched the cape from the dog.

A window flung open.

Boy looked out.

"What is it?" she cried.

"It's all right, Miss," answered Monkey. "No 'arm done."

The girl came swiftly down the ladder in the moonlight. She was in her wrapper, her short hair massed.

"Is the horse all right?" she cried.

"Yes, Miss."

"Where's Billy Bluff?"

"There."

Silver turned his electric torch on to a far corner of the yard, where the dog was seen chewing a lump of meat.

Boy flung herself on him and tore it away.

"Hold him!" she cried to Jim. "Between your knees! Force his mouth open! Mind yourself now."

She brought the stable-hose to bear upon the dog's extended mouth. He wrestled hugely in the grip of the young man's knees, gasping, spluttering, whining for mercy. But mercy there was none. The girl drenched him with the hose, and the man who was holding him.

"Go and get the tandem whip!" she cried.

Monkey ran.

"Now stand at the gates, both of you, and don't let him through."

Boy seized the whip and hunted the dog about the yard. He fled madly. For five minutes the girl pursued him remorselessly. Then he was violently sick.

"That's better," panted the girl. "Bring that meat, Brand."

She led the way into Four-Pound-the-Second's horse-box, followed by Silver, torch in hand.

"He's not taken much harm," she said, patting the horse in her deliberate way.

A delicious little figure she made in her striped pyjamas, her wrapper girt about her, her feet bare in shining black pumps, and her short hair thick and curling about her neck.

Suddenly she was aware of her companion and withdrew into herself as she felt him watching her.

"Sweetheart honey," he purred, reaching out tender hands toward her.

She put up a warning finger.

"There's no one looking," he answered her.

"Yes, there is."

"Who?"

"Four-Pound."

"He don't matter."

"I'm not sure," she answered gravely. "He's a funny little look in his eye."

He was making passes close to her face and throat. She restrained him.

"Wait," she said gently.

He dropped his hands.

"I shall go back to bed now," she continued. "You'd better turn in, too—now you've caught your rat."

"I've cut off his tail anyway," laughed the young man, showing the cloak.

Swathed in her light wrapper, the little creature shuffled swiftly down the gangway behind the line of sleeping horses, her pumps, too big for her bare feet, clacking on the pavement.

He followed her heavily, his eyes brimming laughter and delight.

A few minutes later Silver joined Monkey Brand in the loose-box.

"Good little try-on, sir," said the jockey busily. "Funny smelling stuff though."

Removing a rug, he produced a bucket hidden beneath and held it to the other's nose.

"Chuck it down the drain," said the young man.

"'Alf a mo, sir," protested Monkey Brand. "Let me fill me bottle first."

He looked up at the young man with extraordinary cunning.

"Ever know'd a monkey get squiffy?" he asked confidentially. "No. Nor me neever."



CHAPTER XLIV

Monkey Brand Gets the Sack

Joses was lying on his bed in the gray of dawn, looking curiously livid, when somebody whistled beneath his window.

He rose and looked out.

Monkey was standing morosely in the garden underneath.

The fat man beckoned him in, and returned to his bed.

The little jockey entered.

He was dark, sullen, dangerous.

"Well?" said the tout, lying in disarray upon the bed.

"I thought you'd done a get-away," said Monkey surlily.

"I've been queer," answered the other. "Has the stuff worked?"

"Worked!" cried the jockey, with smothered fury. "It's worked my trick all right. Never touched the 'orse. Run through him like so much water. The chemist who made up that stuff doped you and not the 'orse—and done me."

"What they done to you?"

"Took the cash off me, and give me the —— boot instead."

The tout considered.

"He's fit, is he?"

"Fit?" snorted the little man. "He's throwin' back-somersaults in his box. That's all."

"When do they box him for Liverpool?"

"Twelve-fifteen train."

Joses gathered himself with difficulty.

"See here, Brand," he said. "Are you straight?"

"Straight!" shouted Monkey. "Would I ha' sold the guv'nor I serve for twenty year if I wasn't straight."

The fat man pulled on his boots.

"Never say die till you're dead," he said. "We must go north, too. There's the last card and we must play it."

* * * * *

Nobody but those immediately concerned were at Polefax station to see the local National horse boxed for Liverpool.

Albert was there, and Boy, her collar about her ears, and Billy Bluff looking unusually dejected.

Old Mat, it was remarked by the porters, was not present; and Monkey Brand, it was also remarked, though at the station, took no part in the proceedings, huddling over the fire in the waiting-room, a desolate little figure of woe.

As the young horse entered his box at a siding, the train from Brighton came into the station.

Silver stepped out of it, a cloak over his arm.

He did not join the little group busy about the box, but made for the solitary figure watching from the far end of the platform.

"Your cloak, Mr. Joses," he said pleasantly.

"Thank you," replied the fat man, cold and casual. "I shall want it at Liverpool."

"You left it behind you last night."

"I did," admitted the other. "I was having a chat with Monkey Brand. And that brute of a dog came for me as I left."

"The bottle you brought's in the pocket," continued Silver.

"Good," said Joses. "I hope there's something in it."

"Nothing now."

"Ah, shame! You shouldn't hold out false hopes."

Silver's chin became aggressive.

"Doping's a crime, Mr. Joses."

"Is that so, Mr. Silver?"

"Your attempt to dope that horse last night puts you within the grip of the law."

"Who says I attempted to dope him?"

"I do."

"Any evidence to support your libellous statement?"

"What about the notes you gave Monkey Brand?"

The fat man laughed.

"So Monkey Brand's implicated, is he?" he said. "He took money from me to settle your horse, and leaked when he was in liquor. That's the story, is it?" He lifted his voice. "D'you hear that, Brand?"

"I hear," came the little sodden voice from the waiting-room. "And I says nothing. There's One Above'll see me right."

Joses shook his curls at Silver.

"Won't wash," he said. "Really it won't. What the lawyers call collusion. You didn't know I was trained for the Bar, did you? Another little surprise packet for you. Come, Mr. Silver, you must do a little better than that—an old hand like you."

The young man observed him with slow, admiring eyes.

"Joses," he said deliberately, "you're a clever rogue."

The fat man's eye became almost genial. He looked warily round, and then came a step closer.

"Ain't I?" he whispered.

Silver, laughing gently, handed him his cloak.

"Here it is," he said. "I'm keeping the little bit of paper that was in the pocket."

The other's pupils contracted.

"What paper's that?"

"The prescription of the dope mixture you handed in to Burgess and Williams, the Brighton chemists, yesterday morning. They put their stamp on it and the date. I've just come back from a chat with them."

The fat man watched the other as a rabbit watches a weasel.

"Are you going to peach?" he said.

"I'll tell you after the National," replied the other.

Joses dropped his voice into his boots.

"Make it a monkey and I'll quit," he muttered. "She's worth it," he added cunningly.

Silver looked at him.

The tout came a sudden step closer.

"I know," he whispered.



BOOK VI

MOCASSIN



CHAPTER XLV

Aintree

The Grand National is always the great event of the chasing year. This year it was something more. As the American Ambassador in England, speaking at the Pilgrim's Club a week before the race, said, it was an international affair fraught with possibilities for two great peoples, one in blood and tongue and history, whom an unhappy accident had parted for a moment in the past.

The mare indeed was a magnet. At the time that England is loud with the voice of lambs, and the arabis in Sussex gardens begins to attract the bees, she was drawing men to her from all the ends of the earth.

They came hurrying across the seas in their thousands to see the Hope of the Young Countries triumphant, and above all to compel fair play for their champion.

Indeed, there was an undeniable touch of defiance about the attitude of most of them. Last year the old folks at home—God bless em!—John Bull, the leariest of frank-spoken rogues!—had done her in.

The mare had won and had been disqualified. Those were the simple facts; and no casuistry by the cleverest of London lawyers could get away from them.

On the question of Chukkers and the Bully Boys, as the English cheap press called them, showed themselves eminently reasonable.

As they said themselves not without grimness, "Gee!—Don't we know Chukkers?—Didn't we riz him? His father was a Frisco Chink, and his mother a Mexican half-breed. You can tell us nothing about him we don't know. We admit it all. Wipe it out. If she'd been ridden by the straightest feller that ever sat in the pigskin the result'd have been the same. Are you going to give America best in your big race? Is John Bull a bleatin' baa-lamb?"

And so Hands off and no Hanky-Panky was the war-chaunt of the young American bloods whom great Cunarders vomited on to the docks at Liverpool and P.-and-O.'s landed at Tilbury to join the Ikey's Own, who had been on watch throughout the winter.

* * * * *

The National always takes place on the Friday of Aintree week.

All the week special trains were running Liverpool-ward from the ends of the British Isles. London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Plymouth each sent their contingents speeding north on the same engrossing errand. All day and night people were turning out in their thousands, hanging over bridges, lining railway embankments, to see the great engines with the Kangaroo bound to their buffer-plates coming through, yes, and cheering them.

The Boys in the corridor trains stood at the windows with folded arms, watched the waving crowds grimly, and winked at each other.

They had a profound admiration for John Bull's capacity for roguery, and an equally profound belief in their own ability to go one better.

Last year J.B. had bested them—and they thought all the better of him for it. This year they meant to get their own back—and a bit more.

We are coming, Uncle Ikey, we are coming millions strong, For to see the haughty English don't do our Ikey wrong,

they sang out of the windows with provocative enjoyment.

The people waving on the embankments were in fact innocent of crime, committed or conceived. They had no champion of their own, and with a certain large simplicity they hailed as theirs the mare who had crossed the seas to trample on them.

Liverpool made holiday for the occasion.

The Corporation feasted its American visitors, while the big ship-owners gave a dance at the Wellington Rooms.

The Adelphi Hotel was the headquarters of the Beyond-the-Seas folk, and it was full to overflowing. In the huge dining-room, where every year the Waterloo Cup dinner is held, there was an immense muster the night before the race. Lord Milburn, the Prime Minister, was there, with the Mayor of Liverpool on his left, and the American Ambassador upon his right. One famous Ex-President of the Great Republic was present, and many of the most distinguished citizens of the two countries; Ikey Aaronsohnn with his eternal twinkle, was there, and Jaggers looking like a Church of England Bishop. Chukkers alone was absent. And he was lying low upstairs, it was said, with one of Ikey's Own at his bedside, and another over his door, to see that no harm befell him before the great day dawned. America might not like the great jockey, but she meant him to ride her mare to victory.

Lord Milburn, a somewhat ponderous gentleman, well-known with the Quorn, a representative Imperialist statesman, was at his best. And if his best was never very good, at least his references to Mocassin brought down the house.

"She is something moa than the best steeplechaser that ever looked through a bridle-ah," he announced in his somewhat portentous way. "She is—in my judgment—the realization of a dream. In her have met once more the two great streams of the Anglo-Saxon race. You have every right to be proud of hah; and so, I venture to say, have we. For we of the old country claim our share in the mare. She comes, I say, in the last resort—the last resort—of English thoroughbred stock. (Cheers, Counter-cheers.) And if she wins to-morrah—as she will (cheers), 'Given fair play'" came a voice from the back. "That she will get—(cheers and boos)—the people of this country will rejoice that another edifice has been laid to the mighty brick—ah of Anglo-Saxon fellowship on which the hope, and I think I may say, the happiness of the world depends."

The evening ended, as the Liverpool Herald reported, at two in the morning, when Abe Gideon, the bark-blocks comedian, was hoisted on to the table and sang the Mocassin Song to a chorus that set the water in the docks rocking.



CHAPTER XLVI

The Sefton Arms

Old Mat never stopped in Liverpool for the big race.

That was partly because everybody else did, and partly because he always preferred The Sefton Arms upon the course. When his little daughter first took to accompanying her dad to the National she used to stay the night with a Methodist cousin of her mother's and join her father on the course next morning.

This time she refused point-blank to favour Cousin Agatha, and further refused to argue the matter. She was going with her father to The Sefton Arms. Mrs. Woodburn was genuinely distressed, so much so indeed that Silver heard her hold forth for the first time in his knowledge of her on the modern mother's favourite theme—the daughter of to-day.

Old Mat gave her little sympathy.

"She's said she's goin', so goin' she is," he grunted matter-of-factly. "No argifyin's no good when she's said that. You might know that by now, Mar."

He added, to assuage his wife, that Mr. Silver was going to stop with them at The Sefton Arms.

"He's better than some," said the old lady almost vengefully.

"Now then, Mar-r-r!" cried the old man, "You're gettin' a reg'lar old woman, you are."

When his wife had left the room in dudgeon:

"It's silly," grunted the trainer. "'Course she wants to be on the course. It's only in Natur. It's her hoss, and her race. She ain't goin' to run no risks. And I don't blame her neether. There's only one way o' seein' a thing through as I've ever know'd, and that's seein' it through yourself."

* * * * *

Mrs. Woodburn's good-bye to her daughter was cold as it was wistful.

At the garden-gate Boy turned and waved.

"Cheer, mum!" she cried.

Her mother, standing austerely on the steps of the house, did not respond.

"I shall be back on Saturday," called the girl as she climbed into the buggy.

* * * * *

That was on the Monday.

On that day Boy and Albert and Billy Bluff took the young horse north, travelling all the way in his box.

At Euston it was evident something out of the way was forward. There was hardly a crowd at the station, but expectant folk were gathered here and there in knots and there were more police than usual about.

The secret was soon out.

Jaggers, with the air of the Grand Inquisitor, appeared on the platform with his head-lad, Rushton. The trainer entered into talk with a man whom Albert informed his mistress was a cop in plain clothes.

"Place swarms with 'em," the youth whispered. "And Ikey's Own. They're takin' no chances."

In fact, Mocassin and her two stable-companions were travelling on the same train as the Putnam horse.

As Albert remarked, not without complacency:

"One thing. If there's a smash we're all in it."

At Aintree the crowd, which somehow always knows, had gathered to see the crack. They didn't see much but four chestnut legs and a long tail; but what they saw was enough to satisfy them. You could swaddle her like a corpse from muzzle to hocks, and from withers to fetlock, but the Queen of Kentucky's walk was not to be mistaken. And as she came out of her box on to the platform, treading daintily, the little gathering raised the familiar slogan that told she was betrayed.

Boy let the favourite get well away before she unboxed her horse. There was nobody about by then but a small urchin who jeered:

"Say, lydy! is yon what they call a camel-leopard?"

The little party had the road to themselves, and passed unheeded.

The Billjim Guard were escorting the favourite to the yard, and the crowd were escorting the Billjims.

When Four-Pound-the-Second reached the yard with his three satellites twenty minutes later, the backwash of the crowd still eddied and swirled about the entrance.

The policeman on the gate made a fuss about admitting Billy Bluff. But the head yard-man, who knew Mat Woodburn's daughter almost as well as he knew his own, interfered on her behalf.

"He'll sleep in my horse's box," Boy explained.

"Won't your horse sleep without him, Miss?" grinned the yard-man.

"Not so well," answered the girl.

"Oh, let him in," said the other. "Pity to spoil that horse's beauty sleep. Might lose his looks."

Boy could never bring herself to titter at the jokes of those whom it was expedient to placate. Happily Albert was at hand to make amends, and he, to be sure, had no qualms of conscience.

The little procession entered, Billy Bluff at the heels of the great horse, striking fire in the dusk from the cobbled yard.

"He's to look after Chukkers, I suppose," said the yard-man grimly, pleased at his own generosity, well satisfied with his wit, and fairly so with Albert's tribute to it.

"He's to look after my horse," said Boy resolutely.

"He looks he could look after himself, Miss," replied the witty yard-man.

"So he can, sir, with you to help him," said the swift and tactful Albert.

The yard-man, who could tell you stories of Boomerang's National, and Cannibal's victory, that not even Monkey Brand could surpass, knew of old the feeling between Putnam's and the Dewhurst stable, and had placed the boxes of the two horses far apart.

* * * * *

All through the week the excitement grew.

The Sefton Arms was seething; the bar a slowly heaving mass of racing-men, jockeys, touts, habitues.

Once or twice there were rows between Ikey's Own—the Yankee doodlers, as the local wits called them—and the English silver-ring bookies; and the cause of the quarrels was invariably the same—the treatment of the mare at last year's National.

Throughout the week Boy went her quiet, strenuous way, unconscious of the commotion about her, or careless of it.

Jim Silver escorted her to and from the yard. Most people knew Old Mat's daughter and respected her; and those who did not, respected the grave-faced young giant who was her constant attendant.

When the pair passed swiftly through the bar, an observer would have noticed that a hush fell on the drinkers, accompanied by surreptitious elbow-nudgings and significant winks.

It was clear that the young couple were of secret interest to the dingy crowd. And in fact there were rumours afloat about them—sensational stories not a few about what they stood to win in love upon the race.

Monkey Brand and Joses were always drinking together in the bar as Silver walked through. Once he passed quite close to them. The little jockey's glassy eye rested meaninglessly on the young man's face and wandered away. When the other had moved on, he dropped his eyelid and muttered to his pal:

"Wants the —— kybosh puttin' on him. Good as called me a copper's nark."

"Hundred thousand in the pot," grinned the fat man. "And a dainty bit o' white meat. I don't blame him." He licked his lips.

* * * * *

There were few more familiar figures at the bar of The Sefton Arms at National time than that of Monkey Brand, and this year few more pathetic ones.

It was soon bruited abroad that Old Mat and his head-lad had parted after more years of association than many cared to recall. And it was clear that the little man felt the rupture. He wandered morosely through the crowd in the train of his fat familiar like a lost soul outside the gates of Paradise. Usually a merry sprite, the life and soul of every group he joined, he was under the weather, as the saying went, and what was still more remarkable he showed it.

Everybody was aware of the facts, though nobody knew the story.

The Duke, who was genuinely fond of the little jockey, and full of vulgar curiosity, coming upon him two nights before the race, stopped him.

"I'm sorry to hear you and Mr. Woodburn have parted after all these years, Brand," he said in his gruff way.

"Thank you, your Grace," said the little jockey, pinching his lips.

The Duke waited. Nothing happened, but Monkey poked his chin in the air, and swallowed.

"I thought you were set for life," continued the Duke slowly.

"I thought so, too, your Grace," answered the jockey. "But the human 'eart's a funny affair—very funny, as the sayin' is."

Long ago he had acquired the trick of moralizing from his old master.

"What's the trouble, then?" grunted the Duke.

He was greatly curious and honestly concerned.

"Thought I were sellin' him," muttered Monkey.

The Duke bent shaggy brows upon the little man.

"Were you?" he asked.

For a moment the old merry Monkey rose from the dead and twinkled. Then he stiffened like a dead man, touched his hat, and turned away.

The Duke clung to him.

He, too, had heard a story, and wished to know the rights and wrongs of it.

"Well, well," he said. "We must all hope the Putnam horse wins—for Mr. Silver's sake. Eh, what?"

"Yes, your Grace," replied the uncommunicative Monkey.

The night before the race the Duke, still hunting the trail tenaciously, stumbled, according to his own account, on Old Mat, and reported the substance of his interview with Monkey in that ingenuous way of his, half simple, half brutal, and all with an astonishing savoir-faire you would never have given him credit for.

"One thing," he ended, "he ain't blackguardin' you."

Mat seemed lost in memories.

"I wep' a tear. I did reely," he said at last. Then he shook a sorrowful head. "I ain't one o' yer whitewings meself," he said. "Not by no means. But he shock me, Monkey do. He does reely." He dabbed his eye. "Rogues and rasqueals, yer Grace," he said. "All very well. But there is a limit, as the Psalmist very proply remarked."

The Duke turned to go, his curiosity still unsatisfied.

"Where's Boy?" he asked gruffly. "I've seen nothing of her this time."

"She's kep' busy, your Grace—nursin' the baby."

"How is he?"

"Keeps a-crowin'," said the old man, "from all I hears of it."



CHAPTER XLVII

On the Course

Next morning was gray with gleams of sun: an ideal day, old hands said, for the great race of the year.

Mat found his way to the Paddock early and alone.

At Aintree everything is known about the notables by everybody, and there were few more familiar figures than that of the old man with the broad shoulders, the pink face, and the difficulty in drawing breath.

It was twenty odd years since Cannibal had won the big race for him; and this year it was known that he had only come up to see the sport. True he had a horse running, down on the card as Four-Pound-the-Second, brown gelding, five years old, green jacket and cap, ten stone; but he was an any-price outsider, only entered because for something like fifty years there had never been a National in which a Putnam horse had not played a part. And rumour had it that Four-Pound was a rum un even for Putnam's.

As Mat entered the Paddock, he was looking round him—for his missing daughter, observers said.

Jaggers and Ikey Aaronsohnn marked him from afar and told off a couple of the Boys to track him from a respectful distance.

The old man's familiar figure, his queer clothes, and reputation as a character, drew others toward him. He lilted heavily across the Paddock with a word to one, a nod to another, a wink for a third, talking all the time and breathing like a grampus, with a little crowd of tittering nondescripts swirling in his wake and hanging on his words.

"Don't 'ave nothin' to do wi' me. That's my adwice to you. I'm Old Mat. You oughter know that by this. No, I ain't goin' to walk round the course this year. As I says, the course don't change, but I does. If the course wants me to see it, it must walk round me. I've done the proper thing be the course this sixty year. Now it's the course's turn. Good morning, Mr. Jaggers. Yes, I see him, and he see me—only he look the other way. Pretty little thing, ain't he? Reminds me of that foreign chap went on the religious ramp in Italy. I seen his picture at Mr. Haggard's. Savierollher, wasn't it? They burnt him; and I don't blame 'em. He was Jaggers's father I 'ave 'eard. Only you mustn't 'and it on, else you might get me into trouble."

He crossed the course, looked at the water opposite the Grand Stand, and examined the first fence lugubriously.

"Time was I could ha' hop it off one foot," he said. "Something's 'appened. Must 'ave."

Then he returned to the Paddock, passing a bookie with uplifted hand of protest.

"Get away from me, Satan," he said. "Don't tempt an old man what's never fell yet."

"I know all about that, Mr. Woodburn," grinned the bookie.

"I got my principles same as them as 'asn't," continued the old man, marching firmly on. "You go and tell that to the Three J's, Mr. Buckland. There they are be the Grand Stand. No, when I gets back to Mar there'll be nothin' to show her only a blank bettin' book." He stopped quite suddenly and dropped his voice to a whisper: "Anything doin', Mr. Buckland?"

His little following roared.

"Favourite fours. Nothing else wanted, Mr. Woodburn," said the amused man. "It's just the day for the mare."

"Fours," said the old man. "Price shorter nor ever I remember it since Cloister's year. It's a cert. for the Three J's. What about my little ride-a-cock-horse, Mr. Buckland?"

The bookmaker referred to his card.

"Four-Pound-the-Second," he said. "Give you forties."

"Forties!" guffawed Old Mat. "A young giraffe like him, dropped this spring in the Sarah desert under a cocoanut shy. Four hundred and forties I thought you was goin' to say. 'Ark to him!" He appealed to the delighted crowd. "Offers me forties against my pantomime colt, and ain't ashamed of himself. I'd ha' left him at home in the menadgeree along o' the two-'eaded calf and the boy with blue hair if I'd known."

"He's a powerful great horse, Mr. Woodburn," smiled the bookie.

"Hoss!" cried the outraged old man. "'Ave you seen him? He ain't a hoss at all. He's a he-goat. Only I've shave the top of him to took you all in. He's comin' on at the 'alls to-night after the race. Goin' to sit on a stool and sing The Wop 'em Opossum, specially composed by me and Mar for this occasion only."

He lilted on his way.

* * * * *

By noon the Paddock was filling, and the Carriage Enclosure becoming packed.

People began to blacken the railway embankment, to gather in knots all round the course at likely places, to line the Canal.

In the crowd you could hear the dialects of every county in England mingling with accents of the young countries beyond the seas.

At noon the Duke and his party crossed the Paddock.

"You won't join us, Mat?" he called. "I've got a saloon on the Embankment."

"No, sir, thank you," said the old man. "Mat's corner in the Grand Stand'll find me at home as usual come three o'clock."

The Duke paused. He was still hunting the trail.

"If you see Boy before the race, tell her we'll be glad if she cares to join us."

The trainer shook his head.

"Thank you kindly, your Grace. She always goes to the Stand by the Canal Turn when Chukkers is riding."

There was a chuckle from the bystanders.

"He's ridin' this time' all right, from all I hear," said the Duke grimly.

"You're right, sir," answered the old man. "Last night he was countin' his dead in his sleep. The policeman what was over his door to see no lady kidnap him for his looks heard him and tell me."

The jockey, who was passing at the moment, stopped.

"Say it agin," he cried fiercely.

The old trainer was face to face with one of the only two men in the world to whom he felt unkindly.

"Ain't once enough, then?" he asked tartly.

The jockey walked on his way.

"Ah, you're an old man, Mr. Woodburn," he called back. "You take advantage."

"I may be old, but I am white," called the old man after him, his blue eye lighting.

"Oh, come, come!" cried the Duke, delighted, as he hurried after his party. "Where's Mrs. Woodburn?"

Chukkers joined the two J's, who were hobnobbing with some of Ikey's Own under the Grand Stand.

Monkey Brand and Joses stood together on the outskirts of the group.

Jaggers, austere as the Mogul Emperor, approached the tout.

"You're a monkey down, Joses," he said, cold and quiet. "The Putnam horse is starting."

The other smiled.

"He's starting, sir," he said. "But he's not winning."

Jaggers blinked at him.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean the race isn't lost yet, and mayn't be—even if the mare don't win."

He moved away, and Monkey followed him.

Jaggers joined his colleagues.

"What did he say?" asked Ikey in his eager yet wary way.

The trainer told him.

"Thinks he knows something," muttered the little Levantine, his brown face thoughtful.

"Kiddin' he do," grunted Chukkers, sucking his charm.

Ikey looked after the retreating fat man.

"He's collared Monkey Brand anyway," he said.

"If Monkey ain't collared him," retorted the jockey.

The moods of the three men were various and characteristic: Jaggers glum and uncertain, Ikey confident, Chukkers grim.

"Who's riding the Putnam horse?" asked Ikey.

"Albert Edward," Jaggers replied.

Chukkers removed his charm from his mouth.

"I ain't afraid o' him," he said. "He's never rode this course afore. It'll size him up."

"What's the price o' Four-Pound?" asked Ikey.

"Forties," answered Chukkers, biting home.

The little Levantine was surprised, as those Simian eyebrows of his revealed.

"Forties!" he said. "I thought he was a hundred to one."

"So he were a week since," answered Chukkers surlily. "Silver's been plankin' the dollars on."

"Ah, that ain't all," said Jaggers gloomily. "The Ring knows something. Here, Rushton, go and see what they're layin' Four-Pound."

The head-lad went and returned immediately.

"Thirties offered, sir. No takers."

Jaggers shook his head.

"I don't like it," he said.

* * * * *

All morning, carriages, coaches, silent-moving motorcars, char-a-bancs with rowdy parties, moke-carts, people on bicycles and afoot, streamed out of Liverpool.

By one o'clock people were taking their places in the Grand Stand. Everywhere America was in the ascendant, good-humoured, a thought aggressive. Phalanxes of the Boys linked arm to arm were sweeping up and down the course, singing with genial turbulence

Hands off and no hanky-panky.

To an impartial onlooker the attitude of the two great peoples toward each other was an interesting study. Both were wary, ironical, provocative, and perfect tempered. They were as brothers, rivals in the arena, who having known each other from nursery days, cherish no romantic and sentimental regard for each other, are aware of each other's tricks, and watchful for them while still maintaining a certain measure of mutual respect and even affection.

When the American crowd surged up and down the course roaring magnificently,

The star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave,

the counter-marching Englishmen met them with the challenging,

The land of Hope and Glory The Mother of the Free.

With any other peoples rioting and bloodshed would have ensued. Here, apart from an occasional cut-and-dry battle between two enthusiastic individuals in the fringes of the crowd, there was never any need for police interference.

* * * * *

There were two flat races before the National. The horses were gathering for the first when Albert in his shirt sleeves bustled across the Paddock.

A whistle stopped him and he turned.

"'Ullo, Mr. Brand!"

"Where are you off to?"

"I'm goin' to dress now."

"You're early."

"First race is starting."

"How's the horse?"

"Keeps a-lingerin' along."

"Who's with him?"

"Mr. Silver."

The fat man chimed in:

"Where's the lady, then?"

Albert looked blank.

"I ain't seen her," he said. "Believe she's walking round the course."

Joses laughed.

"I should have thought you'd have been the one to walk round the course," he said.

"I been," replied the lad keenly.

"And what d'you think of it?" asked Monkey.

The youth rubbed his stomach with the most delicate consideration.

"Pore Albert," he said. "That's what I think. They're a yard through some of 'em. You clears 'em clean or—it's amen, so be it, good-bye to the totties, and no flowers by request."

He bustled on his way.

Monkey nudged his mate.

"Keeps it up," he muttered.

"Proper," the other answered.

* * * * *

The second race was run and won. Two o'clock came and went. The jockeys began to emerge from the dressing-room under the Grand Stand. Monkey Brand and Joses watched the door.

"Where's green then?" muttered the tout, as the expected failed to show.

"'Ush!" said Monkey at his elbow.

The fat man turned.

At the far side of the Paddock, by the gate, the looked-for jockey had appeared out of nowhere.

The green of his cap betrayed him, and the fact that old Mat was in close conversation with him.

He wore a long racing-coat, and his collar was turned up. Indeed, apart from his peaked cap drawn down over his eyes and his spurs, little but coat was to be seen of him.

"Where did he spring from?" asked Joses, and began to move toward the jockey.

His companion stayed him suddenly.

Billy Bluff, who had evaded the police, and dodged his way into the Paddock, raced up to the jockey and began to squirm about him, half triumphant, half ashamed.

The fat man stopped dead and stared, with his bulging eyes.

"Straight!" he cried, and smote his hands together.

The jockey cut at the dog with his whip, and then the police came up and hunted him back into the road.

At the moment the band struck up the National Anthem, and the Knowsley party, including the King, the American Ambassador, and Lord Milburn, crossed the Paddock swiftly toward Lord Derby's box.

Suddenly the strains of the band were drowned by an immense roar of cheering.

Mocassin was being led into the Paddock.

Nothing could be seen of her. Ikey's Own had formed a close-linked phalanx about her. No Englishman might penetrate that jealous barrier or help to form it. Within its sacred circle the mare was being stripped and saddled.

Then there came another roar.

Chukkers was up in the star-spangled jacket.

The famous jockey sat above the heads of the crowd, and indulged in the little piece of swagger he always permitted himself. Very deliberately he tied the riband of his cap over the peak while the eyes of thousands watched him. As he did so the crowd about him stirred and parted. A girl passed through. It was the American Ambassador's daughter. She handed the jockey a tricolour cockade, which he fixed gallantly in front of his cap. It was clear that he was in the best of humours, for he exchanged chaff with his admirers, adding a word to Jaggers as he gathered his reins.

Settling in the saddle, he squeezed the mare.

She reared a little as though to gratify the desire of those at the back for a peep at her.

As she left the Paddock and entered the course, the people rose to her en masse. Storms of cheers greeted her and went bellowing round the course. The Canal tossed them back to the Grand Stand, and the Embankment was white with waving handkerchiefs.

Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!

All eyes were on the mare, and the great brown horse, in the far corner of the Paddock, was stripped, and his jockey astride, before half a dozen people were aware of his presence.

By the time Jaggers and Ikey had observed him, he was on the move.

The two J's, Monkey Brand and Joses, crossed toward him, but there was no getting near that tumultuous earth-shaker in brown. Jim Silver was at his head, and, strong as the young man was, he had all his work cut out to hold the horse as he bounced across the Paddock, scattering his crowd with far-reaching heels.

"'Ware horse!" rose the cry.

"Give him room!"

"Look out for his heels!"

"Steady the beauty!"

Plunging across the Paddock, to the disturbance of everybody but the little jockey with the fair hair, who swung to his motions as a flower, fast in earth, swings to the wind, he tore out of the Paddock amid the jeers and laughter of some and the curses of others.

"Smart!" said Joses.

"My eye!" answered Monkey Brand.

* * * * *

Jim Silver, panting after his run, joined Old Mat.

The two made toward the Grand Stand.

In front of them a middle-aged man, soberly dressed, and a tall girl were walking.

"That's the American Ambassador," muttered the old man as they passed. "Come with Lord Derby's party. Great scholar, they say. That's his daughter."

The tall Ambassador with the stoop paused to let the other couple go by.

Then he nodded at the young man's back.

"Mr. Silver," he murmured in his daughter's ear. "And the old gentleman's her father."

The girl was alert at once. She, too, had heard the tales.

"Is it?" she cried. "Where's she?"

"I don't know," the other answered.

"I hope they win," said the girl—"in some ways."

Her father smiled.

"You're no American," he scoffed. "You're a woman. That's all you are."



CHAPTER XLVIII

The Star-Spangled Jacket

As the two men took their places, the parade in front of the Grand Stand was in full swing.

There was a big field: some thirty starters in all.

The favourite, as the top weight, led them by at a walk.

She was quite at her ease, yet on fire as always, snatching at her bit in characteristic style. Chukkers rode her with long and easy rein, as though to show he trusted her. As she came by, the Grand Stand began to sing with one voice:

The maid of our mountains— Mocassin's her name! The speed of the panther; The heart of the flame; The Belle of the Blue Ridge, The hope of the plain, The Queen of Kentucky, O, lift her again—

Chanted thus by tens of thousands of voices, singing round the course and up into the heavens, and culminating in the roaring slogan—

Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!

the simple song became for the moment clothed in vicarious majesty.

Jim Silver felt the thrill of it, as did his companion.

"Mar'd like that," said Old Mat sentimentally. "She's same as me. She likes hymns."

The object of the enthusiasm seemed unconscious of it.

She came by at that swift pattering walk of hers—like a girl going marketing as her lovers said—amid the comments of her admirers.

"She's all right, sure!"

"Don't she nip along?"

"He looks grim, Chukkers do."

"Yes; he's for it this time."

"They've injected her—American style."

"Never!"

"They have, my son. Trust Jaggers. Can't leave it to Nature. Must always go one better."

"Ikey's got two other horses in."

"Which?"

"There's old Jackaroo—in the purple and gold, Rushton riding."

"Which is the second Dewhurst horse?"

"This in the canary. Flibberty-gibbet. Little Boy Braithwaite."

"He's only a nipper."

"He can ride, though."

"They're to nurse the crack through the squeeze."

"She'll want nursing."

"She's all right if she stands up till Beecher's Brook."

"She'll stand up. Trust Chukkers."

"He's got nothing to beat."

"Only Moonlighter."

"Which is the Irish horse?"

"The gray there. Cerise and white."

"Flashy thing."

"Yes. He'll give no trouble though. Three mile and a half is his limit."

"Here's Gee-Woa, the Yorkshireman."

"Looks an old-fashioned sort."

"He can jump a haystack and stay all day; but he can't get a move on."

"If there's grief enough he might get home, though."

"There's Kingfisher. The West-country crack. Bay and two white ducks."

Last but one came Four-Pound-the-Second with his little fair jockey up. The horse was so big, and the jockey so small, that a laugh went up as the pair came by.

"What's this in green, then?"

"Old Mat's horse. Four-Pound-the-Second. Ten stun."

"Anything known of him?"

"Won a small race at Lingfield."

"Who's riding?"

"One o' the Putnam lads. Carries his prayer-book in his pocket. Mar makes 'em—for luck!"

"He can foot it."

"I'd like to see a walkin'-race between that mare and the big un. What's his price?" He leaned over to the ring below and asked.

"Twenties," came the answer.

Jaggers heard and nudged Ikey.

The Putnam horse marched by, blowing his nose, and in front of the Grand Stand gave a playful little buck as much as to say: "I would if I could, but I won't."

Then Chukkers swung round and led the horses back to the starting-point.

"Only one thing I wish," muttered Old Mat in his companion's ear. "I wish there'd been rain in the night. Twelve-stun-three'd steady Miss Mustang through the dirt."

"Our horse has got a little bit in hand," replied the young man.

"You're right, sir," answered the other.

The gossip came and went about the pair. Neither heard nor indeed heeded it. The old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the young man quiet and self-contained.

The horses drew up to the right, their backs to the Grand Stand, a long, swaying line of silken jackets shimmering in the sun.

Old Mat's face became quietly radiant.

"Pretty, ain't it?" he said. "Like a bed o' toolups swaying in the wind. I wish Mar could see that. Worst o' principles, they cuts you off so much."

He raised his glasses.

"Where's Chukkers? Oh, I see. In the middle, and his buffer-hosses not too fur on eether side of him. That's lucky for Chukkers. One thing, my little baa-lamb'll take a bit o' knockin' out."

"Where is he?" asked Silver.

"Away on the right there," answered the old man. "Doin' a cake-walk on the next hoss's toes."

There was very little trouble at the post. The starter got his field away well together at the first drop of the flag.

Only one was left, and that was green.

The great horse who had been sparring with the air as the flag fell came down from aloft and got going a long six lengths behind the field.

Neither he nor his rider seemed the least concerned.

"That's my little beauty," muttered Old Mat. "He'll start his own time, he will. Maybe to-day; maybe to-morrow; maybe not at all. One thing, though: he has started."

The brown horse was pulling out to the right to lie on the outside.

The old trainer nodded approvingly.

"That's right, my boy," he said. "You let 'em rattle 'emselves to bits, while you lays easy behind. There'll be plenty o' room in front in a moment or two."

An old hand in a white top-hat just in front turned round.

"That lad o' yours rides cunning, Mr. Woodburn," he said.

"He's a fair card, he is," replied the old man enigmatically.

"Was it deliberate?" asked an ingenious youth.

"Who shall say, my son?" replied the old trainer. "Only the grass-'opper what walketh the tiles by night—same as the Psalmist says."

The scramble and scrimmage at the first few fences resulted in plenty of grief. Jockeys were rising from the ground and running off the course, and loose horses were pursuing their perilous way alone.

Behind the first flight, in the centre of the course, showed conspicuous the Star-spangled Jacket of the favourite.

Chukkers, too, was taking his time, running no risks, his eyes everywhere, calculating his chances, fending off dangers as they loomed up on him one after the other. He was drawing in to the rails on his left flank for security from cannoning horses.

The first few fences behind him, the danger of a knock-out would be greatly lessened. Till then it was most grave. Chukkers was aware of it; so were the tens of thousands watching; so were his stable-mates.

As Chukkers crossed to the rails Jackaroo, who lay in front on the inside, drew away to let the favourite up under his lee. Flibberty-gibbet, on the other hand, the second Dewhurst horse, had been bumped at the first fence, and pecked heavily on landing. Little Boy Braithwaite in the canary jacket had been unshipped, and was scrambling about on his horse's neck. He lay now a distance behind. Chukkers was signalling furiously with his elbow for the boy to come up on his right; and he had cause.

For Kingfisher, the West-country horse, riderless and with trailing reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship in full sail.

For two fences the loose horse and the favourite rose side by side; and the watchers held their breath.

Then the bay began to close in.

Chukkers turned and screamed over his shoulder. Rushton on Jackaroo still two lengths in front looked round and saw he could do nothing.

Little Boy Braithwaite, who had at last recovered his seat, came up like thunder on the quarters of the mare. The lad drove the filly at the loose horse and rammed him in the flank.

A groan went up from the assembled thousands.

"Good boy!" roared the Americans.

"Dead boy, ye mean," muttered Old Mat. "He's got it."

Horse and boy went down together in headlong ruin. Flibberty-gibbet rose with difficulty and limped away with broken leg and nodding head. The boy rolled over on his face and lay still under the heavens, his canary jacket like a blob of mustard on the green.

The women in the crowd caught their breath.

"Yes, he's done," muttered Mat, "Saved the Three J's a quarter of a million, though."

"But she's through," commented Silver.

"Don't you believe it," grumbled the old man.

The sacrifice, indeed, seemed to have been in vain. Kingfisher staggered under the shock, recovered, and came sailing up once more, as it might have been deliberately, alongside the mare.

Chukkers leaned far out and slashed the oncoming bay across the face; and the crowds on the Embankment and in the saloon-carriages on the railway heard distinctly the swish-swish of the falling whip.

A groan of satisfaction went up from the taut onlookers. Chukkers's action had cleared him. Indeed he had killed two birds with one stone, and nearly a third. Kingfisher shied away over the course and crossed the path of Gee-Woa, who was going steady on the right. Both horses went down. Surging along behind the Yorkshireman, calm and unconcerned by the flurry and rush and confusion in front, came a great brown horse, the last of the galloping rout. He flew the ruin of men and horses broadcast before him on the grass, bounced twice, as Old Mat said, and cleared the fence in front with a foot to spare.

"Double!" roared the crowd, applauding horse and horseman alike.

Jim Silver sighed.

"Nearly bounced you, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front. "That lad of yours can ride."

"Bounce is the boy," answered the old man. "Nothing like it. Now there's more room."

"Where's Miss Woodburn?" asked the garrulous White Hat.

"In heaven, my lord, I 'opes," answered the other, wiping his eye.

The old gentleman looked foolish and made a face.

"Oh, dear. I'm sorry. I hadn't heard."

"No 'arm done, sir," replied the trainer gently. "These things will 'appen. Seems we're most of us mortal when our time comes." He adjusted his glasses. "Yes. Mare's through now. Layin' down to it nice."

Indeed, the troubles of the favourite were over for the present. Either Jackaroo was coming back to her, or she was coming up with the old horse. The star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold were together, the mare lying between the rails and her stable-companion.

As the field swung left-handed and passed parallel to the Grand Stand on the far side of the course, the light-weights were still well together in front and bunched like a covey of partridges. Then came the favourite and her stable-companion, rising fence for fence; after them a chain of stragglers; and bringing up the rear, rollicking along with his head in his chest, revelling in his work, the twenty-to-one outsider.

"So far so good," said Mat, "as the man said when he was 'alf-way through cuttin' his throat."

The American contingent breathed afresh, and the bookies were looking glum. Once over Beecher's Brook the first time round, with half the field down, the chance of a knock-out reduced, and Gee-Woa and Kingfisher grazing peacefully under the Embankment, the favourite's chances had greatly increased.

True, the gray Moonlighter in the cerise and white was in the lead and going like a snowstorm; but not a man among the tens of thousands on the course who did not know that four miles and a half was a mile too much for the Irishman.

"What price the favourite?" roared the Boys.

"Threes," said the bookies, and gave them grudgingly.

"They're settlin' down to it now," muttered Old Mat. "Favourite's goin' strong. Gallops like a engine, don't she? I like to see her."

Those who were watching through their glasses marked that a fence before the Canal Turn the star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold seemed to be taking council together.

"Goin' to turn on the tap now, you'll see," said the old man.

He was right.

Chukkers, indeed, never varied the way he rode his races on the mare. In truth, part of his greatness as a jockey lay in the fact that he adapted his methods to his horse. Very early in his connection with Mocassin he had discovered the unfailing way to make the most of her. It was said of him that he always won his victories on her in the first half-mile. That was an exaggeration; but it was the fact that he invariably sat down to race at a time when other jockeys were just settling in their saddles. At Liverpool he always began to ride the mare after Valentine's Brook first time round, and had beaten his field and won his race long before he began the second lap.

As it chanced, too, the mare's fiery spirit suited exactly the daring temperament of the great horseman. The invincible couple waited behind till the ranks began to thin and then came through with the hurricane rush that had become famous. A consummate judge of pace, sure of himself, sure of his mount, Chukkers never feared to wait in front; and the mare, indeed, was never happy elsewhere. Once established in the pride of place, the fret and fever left her, she settled down to gallop and jump, and jump and gallop, steady as the Gulf Stream, strong as a spring-tide, till she had pounded her field to pieces.

The thousands waiting for the Mocassin rush were not disappointed.

The turn for home once made, and Valentine's Brook with its fatal drop left behind, the mare and her stable-mate came away like arrows from the bow.

She lay on the rails, her guardian angel hard on her right.

Jackaroo might be old, but he was still as good a two-miler as any in England.

The pair caught their horses one after one and left them standing; and the roar of the multitude was like that of the sea as the defeated host melted away behind.

At last only the Irish horse refused to give place to the importunate pair. Twice they challenged, and twice the gray shook them off. They came again; and for a while the star-spangled jacket, the purple and gold, the cerise and white, rose at their fences like one.

The Irish division were in screaming ecstasies.

Then the roar of New England, overwhelming all else, told that the mare was making good.

Moonlighter's jockey saw he was beaten for the moment at least and took a pull.

As Mocassin's swift bobbing head swung round the corner on to the straight, she was alone save for her stable-companion, and his work was done.

"He's seen her through," muttered Old Mat. "Now he can go home to bed."

Indeed, as Jackaroo sprawled down the straight, still hanging to the quarters of the mare, he looked like a towel-rail on which wet clothes had been hung, and Rushton had ceased to ride.

The mare, fresh as the old horse was failing, came along in front of the Grand Stand, clipping the grass with that swift, rhythmical stroke of hers and little fretful snatch at the reins, neat and swift and strong as a startled deer.

Chukkers sat still and absorbed as a cat waiting over a mouse's hole.

All eyes were on him. Nothing else was seen. His race was won. Last year's defeat had been avenged. America had made good. A roar as of an avalanche boomed and billowed about him. The thousands on the stands yelled, stamped and cooeyed.

"Hail, Columbia!" bellowed the triumphant Boys.

"Stand down, England!"

"What price the Yankee-doodlers?"

"Who gives the Mustang best?"

In that tumult of sound, individual voices were lost. The yells of the bookies were indistinguishable. Men saw things through a mist, and more than one woman fainted.

Then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone, faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest.

"Watch it, ye ——!" it screamed. "He's catchin' ye!"

It was the voice of Jaggers.

The thousands heard and hushed. They recognised the voice and the note of terror in it.

Chukkers heard, too, turned, and had a glimpse of a green jacket surging up wide on his right.

There was the sound of a soughing wind as the crowd drew its breath.

What was this great owl-like enemy swooping up out of nowhere?

Chukkers, his head on his shoulders, took the situation in.

What he saw he didn't like.

The mare was going strong beneath him, but the brown horse on his quarter was only beginning: so much his expert eye told him at a glance. Four-Pound-the-Second was coming along like a cataract, easy as an eagle in flight; his great buffeting shoulders were sprayed with foam, his gaping nostrils drinking in oceans of air and spouting them out again with the rhythmical regularity of a steam-pump; and his little jockey sat on his back still as a mouse—a pale face, a gleam of fair hair, and two little brown fists that gave and took with each stride of the galloping horse.

Chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation.

The bookies absorbed it in a flash—the outsider's form, the jockey's colours, the significance of both. It was Old Mat's horse—Old Mat who had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. Rumour had always said that the horse was by Berserker. Then they had disbelieved. Now—well, he looked it.

Suddenly the ring went mad.

"Six to four the favourite!" the bookies roared. "Seven to four on the field!"

The English, too, woke to the fact that they had a champion at last. A thirst for vengeance, after all they had endured at the hands of the contumelious foe, carried them away. They stood up and howled. The Americans, who had seen the cup of victory brought to their lips and snatched away again, roused by the threat to their favourite, responded wrathfully. Roar answered roar; New England thundered against Old.

Chukkers, as always, had steadied the mare after her rush. Now he changed his tactics to meet the new situation. As the horses made for the water, the mare on the rails, and the outsider wide on the right, Chukkers began to nibble at her. The action was faint, yet most significant.

"He ain't ridin'," muttered Old Mat, watching closely through his glasses—"not yet. I won't say that. But he's spinnin' her."

Indeed it was so. The crowd saw it; the Boys, gnawing their thumbs, saw it; the bookies, red-faced from screaming, saw it, too.

The crowd bellowed their comments.

"She's held!"

"The mare's beat!"

"Brown's only cantering!"

"She's all out!"

In all that riot of voices, and storm of tossing figures, two men kept calm.

Old Mat was genial; Silver still, his chest heaving beneath his folded arms.

"Like a hare and a greyhound," muttered the old man, apt as always.

"Got it all to themselves now," said Silver. "And the best horse wins."

"Bar the dirty," suggested the trainer.

The warning was timely.



Just before the water Rushton pulled out suddenly right across the brown horse.

It was a deliberate foul, ably executed.

The crowd saw it and howled, and the bookmakers screamed at the offending jockey as he rode off the course into the Paddock.

"Plucky little effort!" shouted Old Mat in Silver's ear. "He deserved to pull it off."

No harm, in fact, had been done.

Four-Pound-the-Second had missed Jackaroo's quarters by half a length; but the big horse never faltered in his stride, charging on like a bull-buffalo, and rising at the water as the mare landed over it.

The old man dropped his glasses, and settled back on his heels.

"What next?" he said.

"Can't do much now, I guess," answered Silver comfortably.

Old Mat turned in his lips.

"Watch it, sir," he said. "There's millions in it."

As the favourite and the outsider swept away for the second round in a pursuing roar, the width of the course lay between them. The mare hugged the rails; the brown horse swung wide on the right.

"You're giving her plenty of room, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front.

"Yes, my lord," Mat answered. "'Don't crowd her,' I says. 'She likes a lot o' room. So do Chukkers.'"

Just clear of the course outside the rails, under the Embankment, a little group of police made a dark blue knot about the stretcher on which Boy Braithwaite had been taken from the course. As the brown horse swept hard by the group a blob of yellow thrust up suddenly above the rails amid the blue. It was too much even for Four-Pound. He shied away and crashed into his fence. Only his weight and the speed at which he was travelling carried him through. A soughing groan went up from the Grand Stand, changing to a roar, as the great horse, quick as a goat, recovered himself and settled unconcernedly to his stride again.

"Riz from the dead to do us in," muttered Old Mat. "Now he's goin' 'ome again," as the blob of yellow collapsed once more. "P'raps he'll stop this time."

"I think it was an accident," said Silver.

"I know them accidents," answered Old Mat. "There's more to come."

For the moment it seemed to the watchers as if the mare was forging ahead; and the Americans took heart once again. But the green jacket and the star-spangled rose at Beecher's Brook together; and the young horse, as though chastened by his escape, was fencing like a veteran.

As the horses turned to the left at the Corner, something white detached itself from the stragglers on the Embankment and shot down the slope at the galloping horses like a scurry of foam.

"Dog this time," grunted Old Mat, watching through his glasses. "Lurcher, big as a bull-calf."

Whatever it was, it missed its mark and flashed across the course just clear of the heels of the Putnam horse. He went striding along, magnificently unmoved.

Old Mat nodded grimly.

"You can't upset my little Fo'-Pound—bar only risin's from the dead, which ain't 'ardly accordin' not under National Hunt Rules anyway," he said. "If a tiger was to lep in his backside and chaw him a nice piece, it wouldn't move him any."

Many on the Grand Stand had not marked the incident. They were watching now with all their eyes for a more familiar sensation.

Chukkers was leaving the rails to swing for the Canal Turn.

The Englishmen and bookies, their hands to their mouths, were screaming exhortations, warnings, advice, to the little fair jockey far away.

"Canal Turn!"

"Dirty Dago!"

"The old game!"

"Watch him, lad!"

"His only chance!"

"Riding for the bump!"

Old Mat paid no heed.

"Mouse bump a mountain," he grunted. "But Chukkers won't get the chance."

And it seemed he was right.

The fence before the Turn the brown horse was leading by a length and drawing steadily away, as the voices of the triumphant English and the faces of the Americans proclaimed.

Mat stared through his glasses.

"Chukkers is talkin'," he announced. "And he's got somefin to talk about from all I can see of it."

Any danger there might have been had, in fact, been averted by the pressing tactics of the Putnam jockey.

The two horses came round the Turn almost together, the inside berth having brought the mare level again.

Side by side they came over Valentine's Brook, moving together almost automatically, their fore-legs shooting out straight as a cascade, their jockeys swinging back together as though one; stride for stride they came along the green in a roar so steady and enduring that it seemed almost natural as a silence.

Old Mat shut his glasses, clasped his hands behind him, and steadied on his feet.

"Now," he said comfortably. "Ding-dong. 'Ammer and tongs. 'Ow I likes to see it."

He peeped up at the young man, who did not seem to hear. Silver stood unmoved by the uproar all around him, apparently unconscious of it. He was away, dwelling in a far city of pride on heights of snow. His spirit was in his eyes, and his eyes on that bobbing speck of green flowing swiftly toward him with sudden lurches and forward flings at the fences.

All around him men were raging, cheering, and stamping. What the bookies were yelling nobody could hear; but it was clear from their faces that they believed the favourite was beat.

And their faith was based upon reality, since Chukkers for the first time in the history of the mare was using his whip.

Once it fell, and again, in terrible earnest. There was a gasp from the gathered multitudes as they saw and understood. That swift, relentless hand was sounding the knell of doom to the hopes of thousands.

Indeed, it was clear that Chukkers was riding now as he had never ridden before.

And the boy on the brown never moved.

Three fences from home Chukkers rallied the mare and called on her for a final effort.

Game to the last drop, she answered him.

But the outsider held his own without an effort.

Then the note of the thundering multitudes changed again with dramatic suddenness. Hope, that had died away, and Fear, that had vanished utterly, were a-wing once more. In the air they met and clashed tumultuously. America was soaring into the blue; England fluttering earthward again. And the cause was not far to seek.

The boy on the brown was tiring. He was swaying in his saddle.

A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.

"Nipper's beat for the distance!" came the cry.

"Brown horse wins! Green jacket loses!"

The Grand Stand saw it. Chukkers saw it, too. His eyes were fixed on his rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. They never stirred; they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his enemy—insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.

And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. It seemed to be contagious. Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.

"He's swearing at him!" cried the White Hat, aghast.

"B—— shame!" shouted another.

"Tryin' to rattle the lad!"

And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.

To Silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as time—Right against Wrong, Light against Dark. He was watching it like God; and, like God, he could do nothing. His voice was lost in his throat. Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea in travail. A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within him.

Then the nightmare passed.

The boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied with him.

He steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred deliberately and of set purpose.

He was asking his horse the question. There was no doubt of the reply.

Four-Pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream.

His vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations of the triumphant Englishmen.

"Got her dead to the world!" cried Old Mat, a note of battle resounding deeply through his voice. "What price Putnam's now!" And he thumped the rail.

But the end was not even yet. The great English horse came moving like a flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence.

The roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a world-avalanche, shot with screams.

The jockey in green had pitched forward as his horse landed.

He scrambled for a moment, and somehow wriggled back into his seat—short of his whip.

The Grand Stand became a maelstrom.

Men were fighting, women fainting. The Americans were screaming to Chukkers to press; the English yelling to the nipper to ride—for the Almighty's sake.

The brown horse and his jockey came past the Open Ditch and down the straight in a hurricane that might not have been, so little did either heed it.

The little jockey was far away, riding as in a death-swoon, his face silvery beneath his cap. His reins were in both hands, and he was stirring with them faintly as one who would ride a finish and cannot.

"That's a little bit o' better," said Old Mat cheerfully, preparing to move. "My little Fo'-Pound'll see us 'ome."

And indeed the young horse, with the judgment of a veteran who knows to a yard when he may shut up, had eased away into a canter, and broke into a trot as he passed the post.



CHAPTER XLIX

The Last Card

Chukkers was beaten out of sight. The Oriental in him blurted to the top. He lost his head and his temper and began to butcher his mount.

As he drove the mare down the run home, foaming and bloody, he was flaying her.

The Americans had all lost money, some of them fortunes: that didn't matter so much. Their idol had been beaten fair and square: that mattered a great deal. But she was still their idol, and Chukkers had butchered her before their eyes.

And he was Chukkers!—the greaser!

They rose up in wrath like a vast, avenging cloud, and went raving over the barrier on to the course in tumultuous black flood. The ruck of beaten horses, bobbing home one by one, crashed into them. The mob, without regard for its shattered atoms, moved on like one. A roaring sea of humanity swung on its blind way. Above the dark waters jockeys in silken jackets and on sweating thoroughbreds drifted to and fro like helpless butterflies. While in contrast to these many-coloured creatures of faerie, the great-coated and helmeted police in blue, on horses, hairy and solid as themselves, butted their way through the clamorous deeps, as they made for the rock round which the angry waves were breaking.

They had their work cut out, and used their bludgeons with a will.

Round the man upon the beaten favourite the mob swirled and screamed like a hyena-pack at the kill.

Chukkers was a brute; but to do him justice he was not a coward.

The high-cheeked Mongolian, yellow with anger and chagrin, was using his whip without mercy.

The hub-bub was as of a battle the most horrible, for there were women in it, screaming for blood.

"Lynch him!" came the roar.

"Pull him off!"

"Trample him!"

"Stick him with this!"

Monkey Brand, who had suddenly come to life, had hold of the winner, sweating, amiable, entirely unmoved by the pandemonium around, and was leading him away into the Paddock through the outskirts of the howling mob.

The crowd was too maddened to pay attention to the little man and his great charge. Those who were not bent on murdering Chukkers were absorbed in watching those who were.

Old Mat, trotting at Silver's side, was chuckling and cooing to himself like a complacent baby, as the pair descended the Grand Stand and made for the Paddock.

"Yes," he was saying, "my bankers'll be please—very please, they will. And good cause why. That's a hundud thousand quid, Mr. Silver, in my pocket—all a-jinglin' and a-tinglin'. 'Ark to em!—like 'erald angels on the go." He paused, touched the other's arm, and panted huskily: "Funny thing! A minute since it was in the h'air—ewaporated, as the sayin' is. Now it's here—froze tight." He slapped his pocket. "Makes the 'ead to think and the 'eart to rejoice, as the Psalmist said on much a similar occasion. Only we'd best not tell Mar. Wonderful woman, Mar, Mr. Silver, and grows all the while more wonderfulerer. Only where it is is—there it is." He lifted his rogue-eye to the young man's face and cried in an ecstasy of glee. "Oh, how glorioushly does the wicked flourish—if only so be they'll keep their eyeballs skinned!"

At the gate the White Hat stopped him.

"So you've got up on 'em again, Mr. Woodburn," he said. "Congratulations, Mr. Silver."

On the course the pair ran into Monkey Brand, leading the winner home.

"Here, sir!" he cried, seeming excited for the first time in his life. "All O.K. Bit giddified like. That's all. Take the horse. The Three J's mean business, I tell ye. I must be moving."

Silver looked up at the little jockey perched aloft upon the brown.

"All right?" he asked keenly.

The other, whose peaked cap was drawn far over his eyes, nodded down through the tumult, saying no word.

At the moment Jaggers ran past, trying to get at his jockey. Joses, slobbering at the mouth, was shouting in the trainer's ear.

Both men plunged into the vortex.

"Easy all!" came Jaggers's priest-like voice. "Give him a chance, boys. We aren't beat yet."

"Win, tie, or wrangle!" muttered Old Mat. "That's the Three J's all right."

The mounted police were shepherding Chukkers off the course into the Paddock. There was murder in his face. He swung about and showed his yellow fangs like a mobbed wolf at the pack baying at his heels.

Once inside the Paddock he was just going to dismount, when Jaggers, Joses, and Ikey Aaronsohnn rushed at him and held him on.

"Stick to her!" screamed Joses.

The little group drifted past Old Mat and Jim Silver, who was holding the winner. Four-Pound-the Second's jockey had already disappeared into the weighing-room.

"Ain't done yet," screamed the jockey vengefully as he passed.

"You're never done," said Silver quietly, as he stroked the muzzle of the reeking brown. "Never could take a licking like a gentleman!"

The jockey, beside himself, leaned out toward the other.

"Want it across the —— mug, do ye, Silver?" he yelled. "One way o' winnin'!"

"Come, then, Mr. Woodburn. This won't do!" cried Jaggers austerely as he passed.

"Of course it won't," answered Old Mat. "Dropped a rare packet among you, ain't you? Think you're goin' to let that pass without tryin' on the dirty?"

The White Hat leaned down from the Grand Stand.

"What's the trouble, Mr. Jaggers?" he cried.

"Miss Woodburn rode the winner, my lord," answered the trainer at the top of his voice.

The words ran like a flame along the top of the crowd.

They leapt from mouth to mouth, out of the Paddock, on to the course, and round it. And where they fell there was instant hush followed by a roar, in which a new note sounded: All was not lost. The Americans, cast down to earth a moment since, rose like a wild-maned breaker towering before it falls in thunder and foam upon the beach. There was wrath still in their clamour; but their cry now was for Justice and not for Revenge.

John Bull had been at it again. The fair jockey was a girl. Some had known it all along. Others had guessed it from the first. All had been sure there would be hanky-panky.

As they came shoving off the course into the Paddock, and heaved about the weighing-room, the howl subdued into a buzz as of a swarm of angry bees.

The thousands were waiting for a sign, and the growl that rose from them was broken only by groans, cat-calls, whistles, and vengeful bursts of

Hands off and no hanky-panky!

Old Mat, Jim Silver, and the great horse stood on the edge of the throng, quite unconcerned.

Many noticed them; not a few essayed enquiries.

"Is your jockey a gal, Mr. Woodburn?"

"So they says," answered Old Mat.

"Where's Miss Woodburn then?"

"Inside, they tell me."

He nodded to the door of the weighing-room, which opened at the moment.

In it, above the crowd, appeared the jockey with the green jacket, his cap well over his eyes.

There was an instant hush. Then English and Americans, bookies and backers, began to bawl against each other.

"Are you a gal?" screamed some one in the crowd.

"No, I ain't," came the shrill, defiant answer.

The voice did not satisfy the crowd.

"Take off your cap, Miss!" yelled another.

"Let's see your face!"

Joses, who was standing by the steps that led up to the weighing-room, leapt on to them and snatched the cap from the jockey's head.

He stood displayed before them, fair-haired, close-cropped, shy, and a little sullen.

There was a moment's pause. Then divergent voices shot heavenward and clashed against each other.

"It is!"

"It's her!"

"That's Miss Woodburn!"

"No, it ain't!"

Words were becoming blows, and there were altercations everywhere, when the Clerk of the Scales appeared on the steps and held up his hand for silence.

"Where is Miss Woodburn?" he called.

The words confirmed suspicion, and brought forth a roar of cheering from the Americans.

"Here, sir!" panted a voice.

Monkey Brand was forcing his way through the crowd, heralded by the police. Behind him followed a slight figure in dark blue.

"Is that Miss Woodburn?" called the Clerk.

"Yes," replied a deep voice. "Here I am."

"Would you step up here?"

The girl ran up the steps, and took her place by the little jockey. Whoever else was disconcerted, it was not she.

A sound that was not quite a groan rose from the watching crowd and died away.

The girl gave her hand to the jockey.

"Well ridden, Albert," she said, and in the silence her words were heard by thousands.

The lad touched his forehead, and took her hand sheepishly.

"Thank you, Miss," he answered.

Then the storm broke, and the bookies who had made millions over the defeat of the favourite led the roar.

There was no mistaking the matter now. The Boys had been sold again.

The rougher elements amongst Ikey's Own sought a scape-goat.

They found him in Joses.

Chukkers came out of the weighing-room and deliberately struck the fat man. That started it: the crowd did the rest.

Old Mat and Jim Silver waited on the outskirts of the hub-bub.

The American Ambassador and his tall dark daughter stood near by.

"What stories they tell," said the great man in his gentle way.

"Don't they, sir?" answered Old Mat, wiping an innocent blue eye. "And they gets no better as the years go by. They saddens me and Mar. They does reelly."

Boy Woodburn, making her way through the crowd, joined the little group.

"Congratulations, Miss Woodburn," said the Ambassador's daughter shyly. "The best horse won."

The fair girl beamed on the dark.

"Thank you, Miss Whitney," she answered. "A good race. You were giving us a ton of weight."

Perhaps the girl was a little paler than her wont; but there was no touch of lyrical excitement about her. Outwardly she was the least-moved person in the Paddock.

Jim Silver's eyes were shining down on her.

"Well," he said.

She led away. He followed at her shoulder, the horse's bridle over his arm.

"You've won your hundred thousand," she said.

His eyes were wistful and smiling as they dwelt upon her figure that drooped a little.

"Hadn't a bean on," he said.

She did not seem surprised.

Her hand was on the wet neck of the horse, her eyes on her hand.

Then she raised them to his, and they were shining with rainbow beauty.

"I know you hadn't," she said.

Her hand touched his.

* * * * *

Close by them a black mass was seething round something upon the ground.

"That's Joses," she said. "Stop the worry, will you?—and send Monkey Brand to take the horse."

Jim Silver turned. Somewhere in the middle of that tossing mass was a human being.

Using his strength remorselessly, the young man broke his way through. By the time he reached the centre of the maelstrom the police had cleared a space round the fallen man.

He lay panting in the mud, a desolate and dreadful figure, his waistcoat burst open, and shirt protruding, his shock of red hair a-loose on the ground.

Jim was not the first to get to the fallen man.

Monkey Brand was already kneeling at his side, bottle in hand.

"Oh, my! Mr. Joses, my!" the little jockey was saying. "What you want is just a drop o' comfort out o' me bottle. Open a little, and I'll pour."

Silver was just in time.

"That'll do, Brand," he said. "I'll see to this. Give me the bottle. You go to Miss Boy."

A doctor was called in and reported that the fat man's condition was serious. An ambulance was brought, and Joses removed.

Silver saw it off the ground.

As it came to the gate, Chukkers, on his way to his motor, passed it.

"He deserves all he's got," he said. "He's a bad un."

"He's served you pretty well, anyway," answered Jim angrily.



CHAPTER L

The Fat Man Takes His Ticket

In Cuckmere, that quiet village between the Weald and the sea, in which there was the normal amount of lying, thieving, drunkenness, low-living, back-biting, and slander, there dwelt two souls who had fought steadfastly and unobtrusively for twenty years to raise the moral and material standards of the community.