Chapter 54

The Star-Spangled Jacket

As the two men took their places, the parade in front of the Grand Stand was in full swing.

There was a big field: some thirty starters in all.

The favourite, as the top weight, led them by at a walk.

She was quite at her ease, yet on fire as always, snatching at her bit in characteristic style. Chukkers rode her with long and easy rein, as though to show he trusted her. As she came by, the Grand Stand began to sing with one voice:

_The maid of our mountains-- Mocassin's her name! The speed of the panther; The heart of the flame; The Belle of the Blue Ridge, The hope of the plain, The Queen of Kentucky, O, lift her again--_

Chanted thus by tens of thousands of voices, singing round the course and up into the heavens, and culminating in the roaring slogan--

_Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!_

the simple song became for the moment clothed in vicarious majesty.

Jim Silver felt the thrill of it, as did his companion.

"Mar'd like that," said Old Mat sentimentally. "She's same as me. She likes hymns."

The object of the enthusiasm seemed unconscious of it.

She came by at that swift pattering walk of hers--like a girl going marketing as her lovers said--amid the comments of her admirers.

"She's all right, sure!"

"Don't she nip along?"

"He looks grim, Chukkers do."

"Yes; he's for it this time."

"They've injected her--American style."

"Never!"

"They have, my son. Trust Jaggers. Can't leave it to Nature. Must always go one better."

"Ikey's got two other horses in."

"Which?"

"There's old Jackaroo--in the purple and gold, Rushton riding."

"Which is the second Dewhurst horse?"

"This in the canary. Flibberty-gibbet. Little Boy Braithwaite."

"He's only a nipper."

"He can ride, though."

"They're to nurse the crack through the squeeze."

"She'll want nursing."

"She's all right if she stands up till Beecher's Brook."

"She'll stand up. Trust Chukkers."

"He's got nothing to beat."

"Only Moonlighter."

"Which _is_ the Irish horse?"

"The gray there. Cerise and white."

"Flashy thing."

"Yes. He'll give no trouble though. Three mile and a half is his limit."

"Here's Gee-Woa, the Yorkshireman."

"Looks an old-fashioned sort."

"He can jump a haystack and stay all day; but he can't get a move on."

"If there's grief enough he might get home, though."

"There's Kingfisher. The West-country crack. Bay and two white ducks."

Last but one came Four-Pound-the-Second with his little fair jockey up. The horse was so big, and the jockey so small, that a laugh went up as the pair came by.

"What's this in green, then?"

"Old Mat's horse. Four-Pound-the-Second. Ten stun."

"Anything known of him?"

"Won a small race at Lingfield."

"Who's riding?"

"One o' the Putnam lads. Carries his prayer-book in his pocket. Mar makes 'em--for luck!"

"He can foot it."

"I'd like to see a walkin'-race between that mare and the big un. What's his price?" He leaned over to the ring below and asked.

"Twenties," came the answer.

Jaggers heard and nudged Ikey.

The Putnam horse marched by, blowing his nose, and in front of the Grand Stand gave a playful little buck as much as to say: "I would if I could, but I won't."

Then Chukkers swung round and led the horses back to the starting-point.

"Only one thing I wish," muttered Old Mat in his companion's ear. "I wish there'd been rain in the night. Twelve-stun-three'd steady Miss Mustang through the dirt."

"Our horse has got a little bit in hand," replied the young man.

"You're right, sir," answered the other.

The gossip came and went about the pair. Neither heard nor indeed heeded it. The old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the young man quiet and self-contained.

The horses drew up to the right, their backs to the Grand Stand, a long, swaying line of silken jackets shimmering in the sun.

Old Mat's face became quietly radiant.

"Pretty, ain't it?" he said. "Like a bed o' toolups swaying in the wind. I wish Mar could see that. Worst o' principles, they cuts you off so much."

He raised his glasses.

"Where's Chukkers? Oh, I see. In the middle, and his buffer-hosses not too fur on eether side of him. That's lucky for Chukkers. One thing, my little baa-lamb'll take a bit o' knockin' out."

"Where is he?" asked Silver.

"Away on the right there," answered the old man. "Doin' a cake-walk on the next hoss's toes."

There was very little trouble at the post. The starter got his field away well together at the first drop of the flag.

Only one was left, and that was green.

The great horse who had been sparring with the air as the flag fell came down from aloft and got going a long six lengths behind the field.

Neither he nor his rider seemed the least concerned.

"That's my little beauty," muttered Old Mat. "He'll start his own time, he will. Maybe to-day; maybe to-morrow; maybe not at all. One thing, though: he _has_ started."

The brown horse was pulling out to the right to lie on the outside.

The old trainer nodded approvingly.

"That's right, my boy," he said. "You let 'em rattle 'emselves to bits, while you lays easy behind. There'll be plenty o' room in front in a moment or two."

An old hand in a white top-hat just in front turned round.

"That lad o' yours rides cunning, Mr. Woodburn," he said.

"He's a fair card, he is," replied the old man enigmatically.

"Was it deliberate?" asked an ingenious youth.

"Who shall say, my son?" replied the old trainer. "Only the grass-'opper what walketh the tiles by night--same as the Psalmist says."

The scramble and scrimmage at the first few fences resulted in plenty of grief. Jockeys were rising from the ground and running off the course, and loose horses were pursuing their perilous way alone.

Behind the first flight, in the centre of the course, showed conspicuous the Star-spangled Jacket of the favourite.

Chukkers, too, was taking his time, running no risks, his eyes everywhere, calculating his chances, fending off dangers as they loomed up on him one after the other. He was drawing in to the rails on his left flank for security from cannoning horses.

The first few fences behind him, the danger of a knock-out would be greatly lessened. Till then it was most grave. Chukkers was aware of it; so were the tens of thousands watching; so were his stable-mates.

As Chukkers crossed to the rails Jackaroo, who lay in front on the inside, drew away to let the favourite up under his lee. Flibberty-gibbet, on the other hand, the second Dewhurst horse, had been bumped at the first fence, and pecked heavily on landing. Little Boy Braithwaite in the canary jacket had been unshipped, and was scrambling about on his horse's neck. He lay now a distance behind. Chukkers was signalling furiously with his elbow for the boy to come up on his right; and he had cause.

For Kingfisher, the West-country horse, riderless and with trailing reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship in full sail.

For two fences the loose horse and the favourite rose side by side; and the watchers held their breath.

Then the bay began to close in.

Chukkers turned and screamed over his shoulder. Rushton on Jackaroo still two lengths in front looked round and saw he could do nothing.

Little Boy Braithwaite, who had at last recovered his seat, came up like thunder on the quarters of the mare. The lad drove the filly at the loose horse and rammed him in the flank.

A groan went up from the assembled thousands.

"Good boy!" roared the Americans.

"Dead boy, ye mean," muttered Old Mat. "He's got it."

Horse and boy went down together in headlong ruin. Flibberty-gibbet rose with difficulty and limped away with broken leg and nodding head. The boy rolled over on his face and lay still under the heavens, his canary jacket like a blob of mustard on the green.

The women in the crowd caught their breath.

"Yes, he's done," muttered Mat, "Saved the Three J's a quarter of a million, though."

"But she's through," commented Silver.

"Don't you believe it," grumbled the old man.

The sacrifice, indeed, seemed to have been in vain. Kingfisher staggered under the shock, recovered, and came sailing up once more, as it might have been deliberately, alongside the mare.

Chukkers leaned far out and slashed the oncoming bay across the face; and the crowds on the Embankment and in the saloon-carriages on the railway heard distinctly the swish-swish of the falling whip.

A groan of satisfaction went up from the taut onlookers. Chukkers's action had cleared him. Indeed he had killed two birds with one stone, and nearly a third. Kingfisher shied away over the course and crossed the path of Gee-Woa, who was going steady on the right. Both horses went down. Surging along behind the Yorkshireman, calm and unconcerned by the flurry and rush and confusion in front, came a great brown horse, the last of the galloping rout. He flew the ruin of men and horses broadcast before him on the grass, bounced twice, as Old Mat said, and cleared the fence in front with a foot to spare.

"Double!" roared the crowd, applauding horse and horseman alike.

Jim Silver sighed.

"Nearly bounced you, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front. "That lad of yours can ride."

"Bounce is the boy," answered the old man. "Nothing like it. Now there's more room."

"Where's Miss Woodburn?" asked the garrulous White Hat.

"In heaven, my lord, I 'opes," answered the other, wiping his eye.

The old gentleman looked foolish and made a face.

"Oh, dear. I'm sorry. I hadn't heard."

"No 'arm done, sir," replied the trainer gently. "These things will 'appen. Seems we're most of us mortal when our time comes." He adjusted his glasses. "Yes. Mare's through now. Layin' down to it nice."

Indeed, the troubles of the favourite were over for the present. Either Jackaroo was coming back to her, or she was coming up with the old horse. The star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold were together, the mare lying between the rails and her stable-companion.

As the field swung left-handed and passed parallel to the Grand Stand on the far side of the course, the light-weights were still well together in front and bunched like a covey of partridges. Then came the favourite and her stable-companion, rising fence for fence; after them a chain of stragglers; and bringing up the rear, rollicking along with his head in his chest, revelling in his work, the twenty-to-one outsider.

"So far so good," said Mat, "as the man said when he was 'alf-way through cuttin' his throat."

The American contingent breathed afresh, and the bookies were looking glum. Once over Beecher's Brook the first time round, with half the field down, the chance of a knock-out reduced, and Gee-Woa and Kingfisher grazing peacefully under the Embankment, the favourite's chances had greatly increased.

True, the gray Moonlighter in the cerise and white was in the lead and going like a snowstorm; but not a man among the tens of thousands on the course who did not know that four miles and a half was a mile too much for the Irishman.

"What price the favourite?" roared the Boys.

"Threes," said the bookies, and gave them grudgingly.

"They're settlin' down to it now," muttered Old Mat. "Favourite's goin' strong. Gallops like a engine, don't she? I like to see her."

Those who were watching through their glasses marked that a fence before the Canal Turn the star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold seemed to be taking council together.

"Goin' to turn on the tap now, you'll see," said the old man.

He was right.

Chukkers, indeed, never varied the way he rode his races on the mare. In truth, part of his greatness as a jockey lay in the fact that he adapted his methods to his horse. Very early in his connection with Mocassin he had discovered the unfailing way to make the most of her. It was said of him that he always won his victories on her in the first half-mile. That was an exaggeration; but it was the fact that he invariably sat down to race at a time when other jockeys were just settling in their saddles. At Liverpool he always began to ride the mare after Valentine's Brook first time round, and had beaten his field and won his race long before he began the second lap.

As it chanced, too, the mare's fiery spirit suited exactly the daring temperament of the great horseman. The invincible couple waited behind till the ranks began to thin and then came through with the hurricane rush that had become famous. A consummate judge of pace, sure of himself, sure of his mount, Chukkers never feared to wait in front; and the mare, indeed, was never happy elsewhere. Once established in the pride of place, the fret and fever left her, she settled down to gallop and jump, and jump and gallop, steady as the Gulf Stream, strong as a spring-tide, till she had pounded her field to pieces.

The thousands waiting for the Mocassin rush were not disappointed.

The turn for home once made, and Valentine's Brook with its fatal drop left behind, the mare and her stable-mate came away like arrows from the bow.

She lay on the rails, her guardian angel hard on her right.

Jackaroo might be old, but he was still as good a two-miler as any in England.

The pair caught their horses one after one and left them standing; and the roar of the multitude was like that of the sea as the defeated host melted away behind.

At last only the Irish horse refused to give place to the importunate pair. Twice they challenged, and twice the gray shook them off. They came again; and for a while the star-spangled jacket, the purple and gold, the cerise and white, rose at their fences like one.

The Irish division were in screaming ecstasies.

Then the roar of New England, overwhelming all else, told that the mare was making good.

Moonlighter's jockey saw he was beaten for the moment at least and took a pull.

As Mocassin's swift bobbing head swung round the corner on to the straight, she was alone save for her stable-companion, and his work was done.

"He's seen her through," muttered Old Mat. "Now he can go home to bed."

Indeed, as Jackaroo sprawled down the straight, still hanging to the quarters of the mare, he looked like a towel-rail on which wet clothes had been hung, and Rushton had ceased to ride.

The mare, fresh as the old horse was failing, came along in front of the Grand Stand, clipping the grass with that swift, rhythmical stroke of hers and little fretful snatch at the reins, neat and swift and strong as a startled deer.

Chukkers sat still and absorbed as a cat waiting over a mouse's hole.

All eyes were on him. Nothing else was seen. His race was won. Last year's defeat had been avenged. America had made good. A roar as of an avalanche boomed and billowed about him. The thousands on the stands yelled, stamped and cooeyed.

"Hail, Columbia!" bellowed the triumphant Boys.

"Stand down, England!"

"What price the Yankee-doodlers?"

"Who gives the Mustang best?"

In that tumult of sound, individual voices were lost. The yells of the bookies were indistinguishable. Men saw things through a mist, and more than one woman fainted.

Then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone, faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest.

"Watch it, ye ----!" it screamed. "He's catchin' ye!"

It was the voice of Jaggers.

The thousands heard and hushed. They recognised the voice and the note of terror in it.

Chukkers heard, too, turned, and had a glimpse of a green jacket surging up wide on his right.

There was the sound of a soughing wind as the crowd drew its breath.

What was this great owl-like enemy swooping up out of nowhere?

Chukkers, his head on his shoulders, took the situation in.

What he saw he didn't like.

The mare was going strong beneath him, but the brown horse on his quarter was only beginning: so much his expert eye told him at a glance. Four-Pound-the-Second was coming along like a cataract, easy as an eagle in flight; his great buffeting shoulders were sprayed with foam, his gaping nostrils drinking in oceans of air and spouting them out again with the rhythmical regularity of a steam-pump; and his little jockey sat on his back still as a mouse--a pale face, a gleam of fair hair, and two little brown fists that gave and took with each stride of the galloping horse.

Chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation.

The bookies absorbed it in a flash--the outsider's form, the jockey's colours, the significance of both. It was Old Mat's horse--Old Mat who had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. Rumour had always said that the horse was by Berserker. Then they had disbelieved. Now--well, he looked it.

Suddenly the ring went mad.

"Six to four the favourite!" the bookies roared. "Seven to four on the field!"

The English, too, woke to the fact that they had a champion at last. A thirst for vengeance, after all they had endured at the hands of the contumelious foe, carried them away. They stood up and howled. The Americans, who had seen the cup of victory brought to their lips and snatched away again, roused by the threat to their favourite, responded wrathfully. Roar answered roar; New England thundered against Old.

Chukkers, as always, had steadied the mare after her rush. Now he changed his tactics to meet the new situation. As the horses made for the water, the mare on the rails, and the outsider wide on the right, Chukkers began to nibble at her. The action was faint, yet most significant.

"He ain't _ridin'_," muttered Old Mat, watching closely through his glasses--"not yet. I won't say that. But he's spinnin' her."

Indeed it was so. The crowd saw it; the Boys, gnawing their thumbs, saw it; the bookies, red-faced from screaming, saw it, too.

The crowd bellowed their comments.

"She's held!"

"The mare's beat!"

"Brown's only cantering!"

"She's all out!"

In all that riot of voices, and storm of tossing figures, two men kept calm.

Old Mat was genial; Silver still, his chest heaving beneath his folded arms.

"Like a hare and a greyhound," muttered the old man, apt as always.

"Got it all to themselves now," said Silver. "And the best horse wins."

"Bar the dirty," suggested the trainer.

The warning was timely.

Just before the water Rushton pulled out suddenly right across the brown horse.

It was a deliberate foul, ably executed.

The crowd saw it and howled, and the bookmakers screamed at the offending jockey as he rode off the course into the Paddock.

"Plucky little effort!" shouted Old Mat in Silver's ear. "He deserved to pull it off."

No harm, in fact, had been done.

Four-Pound-the-Second had missed Jackaroo's quarters by half a length; but the big horse never faltered in his stride, charging on like a bull-buffalo, and rising at the water as the mare landed over it.

The old man dropped his glasses, and settled back on his heels.

"What next?" he said.

"Can't do much now, I guess," answered Silver comfortably.

Old Mat turned in his lips.

"Watch it, sir," he said. "There's millions in it."

As the favourite and the outsider swept away for the second round in a pursuing roar, the width of the course lay between them. The mare hugged the rails; the brown horse swung wide on the right.

"You're giving her plenty of room, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front.

"Yes, my lord," Mat answered. "'Don't crowd her,' I says. 'She likes a lot o' room. So do Chukkers.'"

Just clear of the course outside the rails, under the Embankment, a little group of police made a dark blue knot about the stretcher on which Boy Braithwaite had been taken from the course. As the brown horse swept hard by the group a blob of yellow thrust up suddenly above the rails amid the blue. It was too much even for Four-Pound. He shied away and crashed into his fence. Only his weight and the speed at which he was travelling carried him through. A soughing groan went up from the Grand Stand, changing to a roar, as the great horse, quick as a goat, recovered himself and settled unconcernedly to his stride again.

"Riz from the dead to do us in," muttered Old Mat. "Now he's goin' 'ome again," as the blob of yellow collapsed once more. "P'raps he'll stop this time."

"I think it was an accident," said Silver.

"I know them accidents," answered Old Mat. "There's more to come."

For the moment it seemed to the watchers as if the mare was forging ahead; and the Americans took heart once again. But the green jacket and the star-spangled rose at Beecher's Brook together; and the young horse, as though chastened by his escape, was fencing like a veteran.

As the horses turned to the left at the Corner, something white detached itself from the stragglers on the Embankment and shot down the slope at the galloping horses like a scurry of foam.

"Dog this time," grunted Old Mat, watching through his glasses. "Lurcher, big as a bull-calf."

Whatever it was, it missed its mark and flashed across the course just clear of the heels of the Putnam horse. He went striding along, magnificently unmoved.

Old Mat nodded grimly.

"You can't upset my little Fo'-Pound--bar only risin's from the dead, which ain't 'ardly accordin' not under National Hunt Rules anyway," he said. "If a tiger was to lep in his backside and chaw him a nice piece, it wouldn't move _him_ any."

Many on the Grand Stand had not marked the incident. They were watching now with all their eyes for a more familiar sensation.

Chukkers was leaving the rails to swing for the Canal Turn.

The Englishmen and bookies, their hands to their mouths, were screaming exhortations, warnings, advice, to the little fair jockey far away.

"Canal Turn!"

"Dirty Dago!"

"The old game!"

"Watch him, lad!"

"His only chance!"

"Riding for the bump!"

Old Mat paid no heed.

"Mouse bump a mountain," he grunted. "But Chukkers won't get the chance."

And it seemed he was right.

The fence before the Turn the brown horse was leading by a length and drawing steadily away, as the voices of the triumphant English and the faces of the Americans proclaimed.

Mat stared through his glasses.

"Chukkers is talkin'," he announced. "And he's got somefin to talk about from all I can see of it."

Any danger there might have been had, in fact, been averted by the pressing tactics of the Putnam jockey.

The two horses came round the Turn almost together, the inside berth having brought the mare level again.

Side by side they came over Valentine's Brook, moving together almost automatically, their fore-legs shooting out straight as a cascade, their jockeys swinging back together as though one; stride for stride they came along the green in a roar so steady and enduring that it seemed almost natural as a silence.

Old Mat shut his glasses, clasped his hands behind him, and steadied on his feet.

"Now," he said comfortably. "Ding-dong. 'Ammer and tongs. 'Ow I likes to see it."

He peeped up at the young man, who did not seem to hear. Silver stood unmoved by the uproar all around him, apparently unconscious of it. He was away, dwelling in a far city of pride on heights of snow. His spirit was in his eyes, and his eyes on that bobbing speck of green flowing swiftly toward him with sudden lurches and forward flings at the fences.

All around him men were raging, cheering, and stamping. What the bookies were yelling nobody could hear; but it was clear from their faces that they believed the favourite was beat.

And their faith was based upon reality, since Chukkers for the first time in the history of the mare was using his whip.

Once it fell, and again, in terrible earnest. There was a gasp from the gathered multitudes as they saw and understood. That swift, relentless hand was sounding the knell of doom to the hopes of thousands.

Indeed, it was clear that Chukkers was riding now as he had never ridden before.

And the boy on the brown never moved.

Three fences from home Chukkers rallied the mare and called on her for a final effort.

Game to the last drop, she answered him.

But the outsider held his own without an effort.

Then the note of the thundering multitudes changed again with dramatic suddenness. Hope, that had died away, and Fear, that had vanished utterly, were a-wing once more. In the air they met and clashed tumultuously. America was soaring into the blue; England fluttering earthward again. And the cause was not far to seek.

The boy on the brown was tiring. He was swaying in his saddle.

A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.

"Nipper's beat for the distance!" came the cry.

"Brown horse wins! Green jacket loses!"

The Grand Stand saw it. Chukkers saw it, too. His eyes were fixed on his rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. They never stirred; they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his enemy--insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.

And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. It seemed to be contagious. Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.

"He's swearing at him!" cried the White Hat, aghast.

"B---- shame!" shouted another.

"Tryin' to rattle the lad!"

And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.

To Silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as time--Right against Wrong, Light against Dark. He was watching it like God; and, like God, he could do nothing. His voice was lost in his throat. Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea in travail. A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within him.

Then the nightmare passed.

The boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied with him.

He steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred deliberately and of set purpose.

He was asking his horse the question. There was no doubt of the reply.

Four-Pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream.

His vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations of the triumphant Englishmen.

"Got her dead to the world!" cried Old Mat, a note of battle resounding deeply through his voice. "What price Putnam's now!" And he thumped the rail.

But the end was not even yet. The great English horse came moving like a flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence.

The roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a world-avalanche, shot with screams.

The jockey in green had pitched forward as his horse landed.

He scrambled for a moment, and somehow wriggled back into his seat--short of his whip.

The Grand Stand became a maelstrom.

Men were fighting, women fainting. The Americans were screaming to Chukkers to press; the English yelling to the nipper to ride--for the Almighty's sake.

The brown horse and his jockey came past the Open Ditch and down the straight in a hurricane that might not have been, so little did either heed it.

The little jockey was far away, riding as in a death-swoon, his face silvery beneath his cap. His reins were in both hands, and he was stirring with them faintly as one who would ride a finish and cannot.

"That's a little bit o' better," said Old Mat cheerfully, preparing to move. "My little Fo'-Pound'll see us 'ome."

And indeed the young horse, with the judgment of a veteran who knows to a yard when he may shut up, had eased away into a canter, and broke into a trot as he passed the post.