Boy Woodburn Part 74

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 ma.s.sed.

"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 pa.s.ses close to her face and throat. She restrained him.

"Wait," she said gently.

He dropped his hands.

"I shall go back to bed now," she continued. "You'd better turn in, too--now you've caught your rat."

"I've cut off his tail anyway," laughed the young man, showing the cloak.

Swathed in her light wrapper, the little creature shuffled swiftly down the gangway behind the line of sleeping horses, her pumps, too big for her bare feet, clacking on the pavement.

He followed her heavily, his eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g laughter and delight.

A few minutes later Silver joined Monkey Brand in the loose-box.

"Good little try-on, sir," said the jockey busily. "Funny smelling stuff though."

Removing a rug, he produced a bucket hidden beneath and held it to the other's nose.

"Chuck it down the drain," said the young man.

"'Alf a mo, sir," protested Monkey Brand. "Let me fill me bottle first."

He looked up at the young man with extraordinary cunning.

"Ever know'd a monkey get squiffy?" he asked confidentially. "No. Nor me neever."

CHAPTER XLIV

Monkey Brand Gets the Sack

Joses was lying on his bed in the gray of dawn, looking curiously livid, when somebody whistled beneath his window.

He rose and looked out.