Chapter 44

Ikey's Own

Maudie was not the only one who had cause to complain that life at Putnam's was changed now greatly for the worse.

It all centred round that great, calm, munching creature in the loose-box, with the big blue dog curled underneath the manger.

Monkey Brand was moody; Old Mat irritable; his daughter curt; Silver puzzled, and Mrs. Woodburn perturbed.

For once in her life that habitually tranquil lady was restless, and betrayed her trouble.

The young man marked it and was genuinely sorry for her.

She saw it and appealed to him.

"Mr. Silver," she said, taking him suddenly, "is she going to ride?"

The other met her with clearly honest eyes.

"I don't know," he said.

The old lady's distress was obvious.

"Mr. Silver," she said, "please tell me. Do _you_ want her to ride?"

"No!" he cried, almost with indignation. "Of course I don't. I've seen too many Nationals."

"Have you asked her not to?"

He grinned a little sheepishly.

"The truth is I've annoyed her," he said. "And she's all spikes when I touch her."

Mrs. Woodburn appealed to her husband, but got nothing out of him.

"It's no good comin' to me, Mar. I don't know nothin' at all about it," he said shortly. "She's trainin' the hoss. If I so much as looks at him I gets my nose bit off."

The old lady's distress was such that at length the young man took his courage in his hands and approached the girl.

"Boy," he said, "are you going to ride him? _Please_ tell me."

The girl set her lips.

"You think I'm afraid of Aintree," she said deeply.

"I don't," he pleaded. "I swear to you I don't."

She was not to be appeased.

"You do," she answered mercilessly. "You said you did."

"If I ever did I was only chaffing."

"I know why you don't want me to ride," she laughed hardly.

"Why?"

"Because then you'll be free to win your hundred thousand. That's all you care about. But you won't. If I don't ride him, he won't win. If I do, you can't bet."

The young man was miserable.

"Hang my hundred thousand!" he cried. "As if I care a rap for that." He made a final appeal. "If I've done wrong, I can only say I'm most _awfully_ sorry, Boy."

"You've done _very_ wrong," replied the girl ruthlessly. "And when we've done wrong we've got to pay for it," added Preacher Joe.

"Damn him!" muttered the other.

"_What!_" flashed the girl.

"Sorry," mumbled the young man, and fled with his tail between his legs.

* * * * *

That afternoon a telegram came for Old Mat.

He showed it to Silver.

"That's from Miller, the station-master at Arunvale," he said. "They're goin' to gallop the mare. Would you like to step over and see what you can make of her?"

The young man agreed willingly.

"No good my comin'," said Mat. "But you might take Monkey Brand along--if he'll go."

But the little jockey, when approached, refused.

"Why not?" asked Silver, determined to save the little man's soul if it was to be saved.

"I'm too fond o' Monkey, sir," the other answered, his face inscrutable.

"What d'you mean?"

"Why, sir, if they was to catch Monkey in Chukkers's country they'd flay him."

"Who would?"

"The Ikey's Own."

Silver stared at him.

"Who are the Ikey's Own?"

"They're _Them!_" said Monkey with emphasis. "That's what they are--and no mistake about it."

_We are coming. Uncle Ikey, coming fifty million strong, For to see the haughty English don't do our Ikey wrong._

"He slipped 'em over special last back-end. Chose 'em for the job. Bowery toughs; scrubs from Colorado; old man o' the mountains; cattle-lifters from Mexico; miners from the west; Arizona sharps. Don't matter who, only so long as they'll draw a gun on you soon as smile. Come across the ocean to see fair play for the mare. They're campin' round her--rigiments of 'em. If a sparrer goes too near her, they lays it out. _No blanky hanky-panky this time_--that's their motter."

The young man went alone.

At Arunvale the station-master beckoned him into the office.

"It's right, sir," he said keenly. "Chukkers and Ikey come down this morning. Two-thirty's the time accordin' to my information. I've got a trap waitin' for you outside. Ginger Harris'll drive you. He was a lad at Putnam's one time o' day. Now he keeps the Three Cocks by the bridge. He don't like Jaggers any better than me. Only lay low and mind your eye. Arunvale's stiff with 'em."

Silver wished to know more, but he was not to be gratified.

The station-clerk, as full of mystery as Monkey Brand himself, bustled him out of the office, finger to his lips.

"Trap's outside, sir," he whispered. "I won't come with you. There's eyes everywhere--tongues, too."

Outside was a gig, and in it sat a red-faced fly-man in a bottle-green coat and old top-hat, who made room for the young man at his side.

They drove over the bridge through the town, up the steep, into the vast rolling Park with the clumps of brown beech-woods that ran down to the river and the herds of red deer dotting the deep valleys.

As they passed through the north gate of the Park, Ginger slowed down to a walk.

"If I've time it right," he said, "she should be doin' her gallop while we walks along the ridge. Don't show too keen, sir."

A long sallow man sitting on the roadside at the edge of the wood eyed them.

The driver nudged his companion.

"One of 'em," he said. "Ikey's Own. Know by the cut of 'em."

"Many about?" asked Silver.

"Been all over us since Christmas," answered the other. "Cargo of 'em landed at Liverpool Bank 'oliday. All sorts. All chose for the job. Stop at nothin'. If they suspicion you they move you on or put you out. They watch her same as if she was the Queen of England. And I don't wonder. Nobody knows the millions she'll carry."

When they were well past the man at the roadside he whistled. There came an answering call from the wood in front.

As they emerged on to the open Downs, Ginger pulled up short.

"They've done us, sir," he said shortly.

A hundred yards ahead of them a sheeted chestnut was coming toward them on the grass alongside the road.

Jim Silver had only seen the Waler mare once--on the occasion of her famous victory and defeat at Aintree the previous year; but once seen Mocassin was never forgotten.

She came along at that swift, pattering walk of hers, her nose in the air, and ears twitching.

"Always the same," whispered Ginger. "In a terrible hurry to get there."

He had the true Putnam feeling about Jaggers; but that passion of devotion for the mare, which had inspired the English-speaking race for the past year, had not left him untouched. Jim Silver felt the little prosaic man thrilling at his side, and thrilled in his turn. He felt as he had felt when as a Lower Boy at Eton the Captain of the Boats had spoken to him--a swimming in the eyes, a brimming of the heart, a gulping at the throat.

"Is that Mocassin?" he called to the lad riding the mare.

"That's the Queen o' Kentucky, sir," replied the other cockily. "Never was beaten, and never will be--given fair play."

"Done your gallop?"

"Half an hour since."

Ginger drove on discreetly.

On a knoll, three hundred yards away, four men were standing.

"There they are!" said Ginger. "Pretty, ain't they?--specially Chukkers. I don't know who that fat feller is along of 'em."

But Silver knew very well.