igger; 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 restraine