liar with lurking
laughter.

"Thank you, sir," he said, and touched his hat. Then he covered his
daring swiftly. "Except for the horses I wouldn't cuc-care a hang," he
said loudly. "They were the only things mum-money gave me."

Gravely she peeped at him again.

"Shall you sell the lot?"

"I shall sell the 'chasers," he answered.

"All but one," she corrected.

"Which one?"

She nodded up the hill.

"The one you share with me."

He laughed his resounding laughter.

"I'll sell you my share," he said.

"I won't buy," she answered firmly.

"Very well. Then I'll sell to Jaggers."

Boy tapped Silvertail with such an increase of emphasis that the old
mare snatched resentfully at her bit.

"You won't," she cried with the old fierce, girlish note in her voice
which so delighted him.

"_After_ he's won the National," continued the young man calmly.

"We'll see--_after_," replied Boy.

They passed out of the Paddock Close on to the Downs.

"How's he coming on?" asked Jim.

"Monkey Brand says he's streets better than Cannibal," replied the girl.
"We've never had anything to touch him in my time." This was one of few
subjects on which the girl sometimes would flow. "Of course he's young
for a National horse--only five, and she's in her prime. But he's got
the head of an old horse on the body of a young one. Nothing flurries
him--once you can get him going."

"And the trouble is there's only one person who can get him going,"
mused the young man.

"I don't know about that," she answered tartly. "He's only run the once
in public. And that time he ran rings round his field. Albert was
riding--not me."

They were nearing the brow.

A man was labouring up the hill in front of them.

Old Mat pulled up, and the pair jogged up alongside him. The trainer
nodded quietly at the heavy figure in front.

"He's out," he wheezed. "On to it pretty quick, too. Heard we're goin'
to gallop Fo'-Pound and he's come to see what he can see."

The man drew to one side to let the riders pass.

It was Joses; and he had changed.

There was less of the sow and more of the wolf about him than of old.
His shaggy whiskers were touched with gray, and there was something hard
and fierce about his face. The old inflamed and flabby look had been
hammered out of him in the hard school from which he had just emerged.

He eyed the riders as they passed.

Boy's grave eyes became graver and more self-contained. At once she was
ale