the sinking of _The Night Moth_ that Saltash, very
immaculately dressed, with field-glasses slung over his shoulder, made
his first appearance since the disaster at a meeting on the Graydown
Race-course, a few miles from his ancient castle of Burchester. He was
looking very well pleased with himself and certainly none the worse for
the adventure as he sauntered among his friends, of whom a good many were
present. His ugly face and wiry figure were well-known at Graydown, and
he seemed sure of his welcome wherever he went.

There had been a time years before when he had kept his own stud, and
racing had been his hobby. It had not held him for long. He was not the
man to pursue any one object for any length of time. With characteristic
volatility he had thrown up this amusement to follow others, but he had
never wholly abandoned his interest in the stud which had once been his.

It was owned by one, Jake Bolton, a man of rugged exterior whose
integrity had become a proverb on the Turf. This man was Saltash's
erstwhile trainer, and a very curious bond existed between them. Utterly
unlike in every respect, the one as subtle as the other was simple, yet
the two men were friends. How it had come about neither of them quite
knew. When Saltash had been his employer, Jake Bolton had distrusted and
despised him, but by some means this attitude of his had become very
materially modified. He greeted Saltash now with the hand of friendship
which Saltash on his part was always ready to accept with a baffling
smile that was not wholly without irony. He was wont to say that any man
could make an enemy of him, but no man could keep him as such. Perhaps it
was that very volatility of his which made anything of the nature of
prolonged enmity an impossibility. He possessed also that maddening sense
of humour that laughs at deadly things. A good many people had tried to
take him seriously and had failed. He was never serious. As he used to
say with his mocking laugh, life was difficult enough without
complications of that sort. All he ever asked of it was a certain mead
of enjoyment. It was utterly unreasonable to expect anything else.
Happiness! What was it. A bursting bubble, no more. No lasting joy had
ever come his way, and he was fain to believe that such a thing did not
exist outside the covers of a book.

Jake Bolton could have told him otherwise, but he and Saltash never spoke
of abstract things. Saltash might have seen the deep