ttle thing enough--Syrian
bred, I have 'eard 'em say. And he was out to win all right that
journey. There was only us two in it when we come to Beecher's Brook
second time round." He came a little closer. "So when we got to the
Canal Turn I rides up alongside. 'That you, Mr. Childers?' I says, and
bumps him. That shifted him for Valentine's Brook. There's a tidy drop
there, sir, as you may remember. Chukkers lost his stirrup, and was
crawling about on her withers. I hove up alongside agin'. He saw me
comin' and made a shockin' face. 'Clear!' he screams, 'or I'll welt you
across the ---- monkey mug!' And just then, blest if old Cannibal didn't
make another mistake and cannon into him agin'. That spilt him proper!
Oh, my, Mr. Silver!--my! And I sail 'ome alone. Oh, he was a reg'lar
outrageous 'orse, Cannibal was." He dropped his voice. "When he come out
of 'orspital of course he made a fuss about it, he and Jaggers and
Jew-boy Aaronsohnn. But of course I knew nothin' about it; nor did
nobody else. See, they all knew Chukkers. He'd tried it on 'em all one
time or another. And I told the Stewards I was very sorry the fall had
gone to 'is 'ead. Only little Bertie Butler--him with the squint, what
won the Sefton this year, you know--who'd been following Chukkers--he
says to me: 'Next time you're goin' to play billiards with Chukkers, Mr.
Brand, tip us the wink, will you?'"

CHAPTER XX

The Paddock Close

The girl's voice broke in on them.

"I'm going home now," she cried abruptly.

"Right," answered Silver. "May I come along?"

As he swung round, he saw the girl already jogging away. He pursued
leisurely, anxious to talk about Make-Way-There, the Paris Meeting, and
Chukkers and Monkey Brand's gossip. But she flitted away in front of
him. As he drew up to her she broke into a canter, and the young man
took a pull.

His intuitions, like those of most slow-brained men, were unusually
swift and sure. It was as though Nature, the Dispenser of Justice, to
compensate him for an apparent dearth in one direction, had endowed him
richly in another.

"Woa, my little lad, woa then!" he murmured as Heart of Oak bounced and
fretted to catch the retreating roan.

He realised that the girl had withdrawn within herself again. On the
cliff, in the excitement of action, she had forgotten herself for the
moment. Now she was cold and shy once more, retreating behind her
barriers, closing her visor. It was as though she had adm