It was too bad;
the horses had been doing so well. For three days Diablo had no gallop.
On the fourth Porter determined to ride the horse himself; he would not
be beaten out by an ungrateful whelp like Shandy. In his day he had been
a famous gentleman jock, and still light enough to ride work.

"I don't like the idea, sor; it's not good enough," remonstrated Mike.

But his master was obdurate. If Allis rode Lauzanne, why shouldn't he
ride Diablo?

Gaynor would have ridden the horse himself rather than have his master
do so, but he had a bad leg. Once upon a time it had been crushed
against the rail. Somebody must ride Diablo; the horse, naturally
highstrung, was becoming wild with nervousness through being knocked out
of his work.

For three days after his discharge Shandy sat brooding with the low
cunning of a forest animal over his fancied ill-treatment. More than
once he had received money from Langdon for touting off to him Porter's
stable matters; now in his unreasoning bitterness he contrasted Langdon
and Porter.

"Dick's white, he is, an' I'll go git a job from him. I gits half eat
by that crazy skate, an' fired without a cent fer it. God drat 'em!"
he muttered; "I'll get even, or know why. They'll put Ned up on Diablo,
will they? The sneak! He split on me fer beltin' the Black, I know, damn
him! They ain't got another boy an' they won't git one. I'll fix that
stiff, Carter, too; then they won't have no boy."

He drank beer, and as it irritated his ferret mind a devilish plot came
into his being and took possession of him--a plot easy of execution
because of his familiarity with the Ringwood stables.

That night he slipped through the dark, like a hyena pup, to Ringwood.
That the stable was locked mattered not. More than once, out of
laziness, Shandy had shirked going to Mike's quarters for the keys and
had found ingress by a small window, a foot square, through which the
soiled straw bedding was thrown into the yard. Standing on the dung
heap, Shandy worked open the board slide that closed this window, and
wormed his weasel-form through the small opening. He passed down the
passage between the stalls and entered a saddle room at the farther end.

"The bloomin' thing used to be on the fourth peg," he muttered, drawing
his small figure up on tiptoe and feeling along the wall for something.
"Blow me!" and he chuckled fiendishly as his fingers encountered the
cold steel of a bit, "I'd know that snaffle in